Watching - July 2024

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (2023)

The credits say "based on books written by Michael J. Fox" and there's nothing here that I wasn't familiar with from my previous reading, particularly the excellent Lucky Man. But reading about it is one thing; seeing it is another. Fox has spent over thirty years with his diagnosis but it's still a bit of a shock, for me at least, as someone unfamiliar with Parkinson's, to see the extent of how he's changed - and yet how he is the same. What's also really interesting is looking back at some of his roles from the early 90s onwards and being able to see the signs once you know what to look for. I could have done without the dramatic reconstructions (although whoever they used for Fox really caught the way he moves) and the way it edited in lots of shots from his films, but nevertheless it was interesting, engaging and affecting.

Our Welsh Chapel Dream (2024)

By turns amusing and slightly bewildering: the scale of the work that everyone's favourite lachrymose potter Keith Brymer Jones and his partner Marj have given themselves - to restore the enormous Welsh chapel they bought in 2022 - is incredible, let alone that they're basically doing it themselves on a fairly shoe-string budget. But they are amazingly good natured about it (at least on camera) and it's good to see them attempting it. Despite being only four episodes long, there's a little bit of a feeling of the material being stretched a bit thin. But I would watch another season as they are good company and I'd love to know how it turns out!

Pillow Talk (1959)

I watched Down With Love a while ago and while I'm no film buff, it was clear even to me that its inspiration was this Doris Day and Rock Hudson classic. And since it popped up on iPlayer, I thought I'd remind myself how the original was. As one of the landmark "battle of the sexes" romcoms, it has earned its place in history, but by modern standards it's a bit tame - entertaining enough to pass the time but now superseded. And surely only a few years away from having a warning at the start telling us that scenes in the film "reflect attitudes of the time" - for example, the ending, in which (spoiler alert) Hudson breaks into Day's apartment, yanks her out of bed and basically kidnaps her, only for her to melt as soon as he mentions the word "marriage", is a bit unappetising.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021)

Fourth time of watching, this time with K, as I insisted she would like it (she did).

Staged (series 1-3, 2020-2022)

I finally got round to watching this after having been told, separately, by two of my kids how good it was. And it is. The willingness of David Tennant, Michael Sheen and, in particular, director Simon Evans to make themselves look stupid in the name of comedy is great. It might be a somewhat tired cliché to have the men behaving like overgrown children while their womenfolk are responsible adults, but nevertheless it works here and provides plenty of comedy. And it's short - a much needed attribute of TV series I think. The first series was the best, while the second and third became decreasingly focussed and increasingly meta, but still enjoyable to watch.

Meeting People Is Easy (1998)

I must have bought this over twenty years ago but I've never watched it until now, and much as I love Radiohead's music, I don't think I've been missing anything. I can see what they were trying to do, and the point is made - the dehumanising, absurd nature of promoting and touring rock music - but it's not particularly enjoyable or enlightening. Maybe I would have enjoyed it or engaged with it more at the time; maybe now I just don't want to be challenged (I mean, look at the crap I normally watch). Incidentally you can now watch it for free at the Radiohead Public Library (which I have just discovered and is superb).

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

A boys' evening out with Z started with excellent fish & chips in a local park and then a nice helping of ludicrously over-the-top, very gory violence. Ryan Reynolds is of course very funny and I was laughing throughout (including at the line "What the MacGuffin is that?", which literally no-one else in the cinema reacted to), but as a whole, the film was a bit silly. I enjoyed our evening out very much though.