Watching - August 2024

Big (1988)

Finding this in the book exchange at work (it also has DVDs) prompted me to watch it again. Tom Hanks is so good at portraying childlike innocence (he was 32 at the time!) that he carries the whole film and you really can't imagine it with someone else. Sweet and nicely downplayed throughout - the ending could have been a huge set piece but instead is small and more affecting for it. Obviously a sequel would completely spoil things but I do kind of want to know what happened after though!

Taskmaster (season 2, 2016)

K suggested we watch this together and although I'd never been that bothered before, I enjoyed it and it was a nice opportunity to watch something together. Very funny in place, silly in others - which is obviously the point. I find Greg Davies a bit pointless though - it's like someone thought they needed a "famous face", despite Alex Horne having completely developed the idea himself and taken it very successfully to the Edinburgh Fringe. Anyway, we're now watching season 3 (of 17!) with the whole family.

The Velvet Underground (2021)

I spent a lot of time listening to The Velvet Underground in my teens, so about twenty years after the albums were released. It seems like a fairly small length of time now in music terms but then it made them seem like they belonged to a different time. And they did - a completely different sensibility that produced occasional flashes of brilliance and large amounts of self-indulgent nonsense. Obviously no-one disputes the influence of The Velvet Underground, but they only lasted five years and despite the fact that their music holds many memories for me, I think you could comfortably reduce their worthwhile output to about half a dozen tracks. This probably accounts for the fact that this documentary is pretty light on actual material and dashes through all but the first album in about fifteen minutes. It was nice to hear it all again, and to hear the band members talk (everyone was very polite but clearly Lou Reed was a prick), but this wasn't that interesting and it was a bit of a grind.

Chariots of Fire (1981)

Inspired by the Olympics recently, I rewatched one of my favourite films and then spent a very enjoyable few hours reading up the history behind it. Harold Abrahams never actually did the Great Court Run at Trinity College, but I found a video of Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram attempting it, as well as actual footage of Abrahams and Eric Liddell at the 1924 Olympics. I learned that Aubrey Montague was actually known as Evelyn and went to Oxford (not Cambridge), and that as a result he and Abrahams were rivals until later in life when they became friends (and also his letters in the film are almost verbatim from real ones he sent); and that Abrahams and Arthur Porritt, the New Zealander who came third in that 100m final ("Tom Watson" in the film) had dinner together every year on its anniversary for the next fifty years. I found a really interesting early draft of the script, which makes fascinating reading as an insight into how the film developed. And I concluded that the chances are that Eric Liddell would probably have beaten Abrahams in the 100m, although we can't know for sure as they only raced against each other twice, the second time being the 200m at the same Olympics, where Liddell won bronze, while Abrahams was sixth.

Hit Man (2023)

The setup seems far-fetched - university professor moonlights as fake hit man for the cops - but, incredibly, it's based on a true story, with surprisingly little of the inevitable dressing that Hollywood seems unable to resist adding. Glen Powell - who co-wrote, which I was quite impressed by - gets to showcase his versatility and act out a bit of a male fantasy, and it's an entertaining couple of hours without being particularly demanding. Although that said, it's not that many films that quote Nietzsche, Kant and Jung all in the same film.

A Family Affair (2024)

The dated and uncomfortable sight of a famous middle-aged actor playing the romantic lead to a woman twenty or more years his junior, without it ever being remarked upon in the film (i.e. so not technically an age-gap romance), is thankfully much less prevalent these days. I was inclined to regard this film as a step forward in that respect, as it has Nicole Kidman (57) embarking on an affair with Zac Efron (36), but as C said, why is that any better? Well, the age difference isn't ignored in the plot, and Efron isn't some unknown ingénue. In fact, you could argue that these two elements are crucial to the whole story. Efron is very amusing as a spoilt, none-too-bright but perhaps not entirely un-self-aware action movie star who embarks on an affair with his PA's mother. It's all surprisingly wholesome, actually, because I think (usual caveats about my ability to read subtext apply) it's mostly about finding your true love, regardless of what other people think. Funny in places, sweet in others, without being a huge amount of either, this was a pleasant watch.

That Pedal Show: Gibson ES-345 rewire (23 August 2024)

That Pedal Show is my favourite YouTube channel. They release a new video almost every Friday and I watch most of them, although I don't normally note it in this blog. I'm making an exception for this because it's effectively a two hour documentary. Yes, the subject matter is somewhat niche but this is one of the things that YouTube is good at - something that wouldn't be worth making for broadcast TV but that can find a worldwide audience on the internet. Anyway, this is excellently filmed, presented, edited and produced and - assuming you're interested in guitars in the first place - a surprisingly absorbing watch, despite not much happening.