Reading - January 2024

Quite by Claudia Winkleman (2020)

I think Claudia Winkleman is a great presenter - natural, funny and intelligent. She's developed a very distinctive style, and that style is carried through into this book - I can just hear her saying exactly what's written here. However, it doesn't translate perfectly to the medium of a book. While on TV and radio we tend to get small snippets of her, in Quite we get a lot, all at once, which turns out, unfortunately, to be a bit too much. I think the book might be designed to be read in small bursts. Still, entertaining and amusing and clearly not intended to be taken too seriously (apart from the bits that are).

The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon (2016)

I've been badgering K to watch The Map of Tiny Perfect Things and Love at First Sight (both of which she'd love, I'm sure) and so she said she would if I read this first. Well, I've fulfilled my side of the bargain (although I'm not convinced she will hers, as she seems to regard it as a point of pride not to do something if I have asked her to ... teenagers!) and happy to have done so. The book covers less than 24 hours in which our two lovers meet and fall in love - classic YA material, and so really not aimed at me. I'm too old to fully immerse myself in the belief that you can meet and connect so fully and so quickly with someone and know it's "meant to be" - but then again, I'm not so old that I can't remember that urgency, of feeling like it should be possible. As a result, I can totally understand the appeal of the book while not being quite swept along with it. I enjoyed it though, and I liked the way Yoon managed to combine the requisite doomed love angle with a nice little happy ending. (side note: the actors in the film adaptation - which K assures me is terrible - look nothing like what the characters did in my head, they're both much too pretty and too old! And I just watched the trailer and the tone is all wrong)

Yes Man by Danny Wallace (2005)

Amusing, silly, sweet in places (particularly at the end) and a nice way to pass lunchtimes at work when I just felt like a quiet thirty minutes. Probably took me about six months to read that way! Now returned to work's book exchange.

Never Had It So Good by Dominic Sandbrook (2005)

Blimey, this was hard work! In a good way though - it's a history of Great Britain between the Suez Crisis (1956) and The Beatles (1963) and so full of detail that I found it hard to read in anything other than small instalments. I feel like I've absorbed less than 5% of it and still been mightily educated. I'm full of admiration for the way Sandbrook has managed to aggregate so much research and yet still make it readable - albeit so information-rich that I found it hard to digest, and it took me a few months to finish. Really good, though. There are at least three more books covering the rest of the 60s and 70s which I am simultaneously looking forward to and dreading at the same time.

Watching - January 2024

Press Play (2022)

Yet another time travel (not time loop though) film, this time unashamedly sentimental and romantic but unassuming and heartfelt, I think. Apart from the main character looking about seventeen when she should be mid-20s, it worked very well. A nice little diversion early on New Year's Day morning.

The Vow (2012)

Not quite sure why I chose this, but possibly because it has Rachel McAdams in it. Anyway, a bit melodramatic but engaging, and managed to avoid tying up loose ends too neatly, which feels a bit more realistic. Also, ends with The Cure's fantastic "Pictures of You", which feels weirdly out of place compared to the rest of the music in the film. 

Scrubs (season 2, 2002)

We watched Scrubs so much when we first came across it, but we only had the first few seasons, so we burned out a bit. As a result, I know these episodes really well, but it's been ages since I saw them. It's nice to come back: the jokes are kind of fresh again, the mix of comedy and serious points still works and the characters are just as endearing. The only thing that shows its age is the slight over-use of pretty girls in underwear, although in fairness the guys seems to end up in their underwear just as often.

Spider-Man: Across The Spiderverse (2023)

The somewhat delayed second instalment in Z and my Spiderverse "marathon". The visual imagination and concepts are amazing and I love the ideas behind it all. Not something I probably would have watched without Z prompting me, but very good. And now we have to wait another few years for the cliff-hanger to resolve itself!

Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story (2023)

I'm very familiar with the whole Brawn GP saga. I remember it very well from the time itself, as I was a keen follower of F1 at the time, plus Jenson Button was (and is) one of my favourite drivers, and I've read the books (Jenson's My Championship Year is a very good read, despite being a bit of cash-in). Yet the level of access achieved by this documentary takes it to another level. They've got nearly everyone and they got everywhere. They're filming Ross Brawn and Nick Fry back in the FIA building; they've got Keanu Reeves (the host) and Rubens Barichello sitting in the middle of the straight at Interlagos! Hugely enjoyable for an F1 fan, even one like me who can't be bothered any more with F1.

Scrubs (season 3, 2003)

Nice, easy viewing, still funny and moving in places too. Shame they insist on always having the jaunty end credits music, even after a really sad scene. And now, having OD'd on Scrubs a bit already this year, I should probably give it a break for a bit.

Definitely, Maybe (2008)

I really like this film, more each time I see it. I like that it takes place over an extended - or "realistic", as we'd refer to it in real life - time frame. I like that there's no clean, happily ever after ending (at the beginning, Ryan Reynolds receives divorce papers and towards the end, he signs them - there's no magic reconciliation here). I like the fact that it's genuinely moving at the end. Just a really well put-together film, with good performances and an engaging story that works on a couple of levels. It's a more grown up kind of romcom than some of the more recent examples I've watched - it reminds me in ways of Cousins, one of my favourite films.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)

Roald Dahl's books were a constant companion through my childhood and my copies show all the signs of frequent reading (and eating - I had a bad habit of tearing the corners of the pages off and snacking on them while I read). Rather than the obvious ones, the two that stayed with me most were Danny, the Champion of the World (set near where I grew up!) and Henry Sugar. This short film is very faithful to the story but distracts with heavily stylised scene changes and action, and is an interesting diversion at best. I also have mixed feelings about the author now I'm an adult. While Dahl never stooped to the painful, unimaginatively obvious stereotypes that characterise some of successors (David Walliams, I'm looking at you), I nevertheless now find much of his output slightly crass; and I cannot get past my knowledge of his unpleasant anti-semitism. Interesting, but I wouldn't watch another in this series.

Maid in Manhattan (2002)

I watched this on the strength of Caroline Siede's review, but I was somewhat underwhelmed. The performances are great (although I think Ralph Fiennes is almost too good for the role - he brings a suggestion of depth and complexity that the film probably doesn't need), but the plot lacks a sense of plausibility, even given the obvious fairy tale origins of the story. It's amusing and fun, but nothing more - but then, do we want more from a romcom? (actually, yes)