Watching - April 2025

Back to the Future (1985)

Forty years old and as fresh as a daisy (although I'm not sure what's specifically so pristine about daisies). Saturday film night with Z.

Back to the Future II (1989)

The second BTTF film is usually considered the worst of the three,^{[citation needed]} but although it's the most complicated, it's also the most satisfyingly complete from a time-travel point-of-view.

The Lego Movie (2014)

Blimey, over ten years old! Surely this has to be the best of the product tie-in films - imaginative,  very funny. tongue-in-cheek and superbly animated. A firm favourite in our house for a reason - the kids were speaking along with it during our pizza 'n' movie night.

Wicked Little Letters (2024)

I'm not quite sure why Netflix describes this as a "riotous comedy" - there are some funny moments for sure, but there's more drama than laughs and the overall message about the subjugation and judgement of women in the 1920s is, ultimately, not amusing at all, just the cause of indignation (as intended, of course). But it's a good watch and the three central women - Olivia Coleman, Jessie Buckley and Anjana Vasan - are superb.

Our Welsh Chapel Dream (season 2, 2025)

Unfortunately this time there's even more of a feeling of the material being stretched than there was in the first series. The narrator is doing double time, so even if you discount the (apparently necessary) multiple re-caps at the top of each episode and after each ad break, the main voice you hear is his. Poor old Keith and Marj feel like they're just supporting artists in their own documentary, as they only really pop up for a sentence or two at a time, and the whole is very disjointed. Still a watchable series though, even if it's just to marvel at the outré decorative choices being made!

Hidden Figures (2016)

I struggled with the original book of this (or maybe it was one of those that just didn't download to my e-reader properly, I can't remember), but really enjoyed the film - as a piece of storytelling with a clear point. There's no question that many liberties have been taken with historical accuracy in order to tell it (just see the fairly damning list on Wikipedia), and while this is to some extent understandable - as the book's author says, you can't have a film with 300 heroes - it spoils it a bit for me to find that, once again, a really interesting piece of real life has been chopped around to fit a standard Hollywood template. That said, it's still making important points as well as being moving.

Waking Ned (1998)

A simple idea, wonderfully told - even if is leaning a little heavily on a vision of bucolic Irish country simplicity - very funny and very sweet in places. The (small) twist at the end is unbelievable and unnecessary in my view, though.

The Wild Robot (2024)

Animated films take a huge amount of effort over years of time, and so it's a shame that here the resultant stunning visuals are in service of a clichéd and mawkish story. And I like sentimental - but this was too much. There's charm, for sure, and everyone loves a cute talking animal, but the anthropomorphism treads well-worn paths and the plot feels like several of the original books smooshed together. We watched it with Z (whose choice it was) and I'm pleased we did something together, but it's a kid's film, with simplistic ideas and predictable results. A miss (although for some reason, the critics loved it, according to Wikipedia, which baffles me).

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (2019)

Things I thought I knew about Linda Ronstadt before I watched this: she was spectacularly pretty and she sang country rock in the 70s. Well, I wasn't wrong about either of those things, but that represents a very small fraction of the overall picture. I hadn't realised what a huge star she was in the US, what a variety of music she recorded, or quite how good a singer she is - the few songs I knew don't really show her range - or, most importantly, how she carved her own way through a rampantly sexist music business for decades. I've listened to some of her albums since and while none of it particularly grabs me, there's no denying how good she is. Consider me educated!

The Adam Project (2022)

Fairly standard time travel film, enlivened by Ryan Reynolds. Good fun.

Doctor Strange (2016)

I fancied re-watching this for some reason - probably not seen it since around when it came out.  Watched it with Z (who needed little persuading) as preparation for the sequel. It's fairly typical Marvel fare of course - too much action and not enough plot - but enjoyable nonsense. I don't understand why they made Benedict Cumberbatch do a very average American accent when it would have made no difference to the plot to have him use his own, though.

Reading - April 2025

Backtrack by Tessa Niles (2015)

Tessa Niles might not be a household name, but if you come from the generation of music fans that reads credits on albums or CD booklets (I assume this basically excludes anyone under about forty) then there's a good chance you'll have seen the name - and given her incredible list of credits, you will definitely have heard her. The physical book feels like it's a print-on-demand copy (I bought it on Amazon so it's possible) and I can't quite decide whether Panoma Press are a vanity publisher or not; the writing style is a bit Mills & Boon and could definitely have done with better editing in places. But that said it does come across as her genuine voice rather than a bland ghost written account - and I found it very readable and enjoyable.

Beserker! by Adrian Edmondson (2023)

This had been recommended in various places, and despite the fact that the only bits of Edmondson's output from the last 40+ years that I'm familiar with is The Young Ones (which I haven't seen since it was originally broadcast) and vaguely remembered bits of The Dangerous Brothers ("dangerous!") from Saturday Live, it was worth reading. He's an honest and relatable companion and it's refreshing to hear the trials and effort involved in what could appear, to an outsider, like a comfortable life in entertainment.

The Perfectly Dressed Gentleman by Robert O'Byrne (2011)

I found this on the book exchange shelves at work, and it looks like a Christmas stocking filler; slim, but a hardback, with a slightly novelty integrated bookmark. But it's surprisingly full of information.

Paradise Valley by Robyn Carr (2009)

Forbidden Falls by Robyn Carr (2010)

Angel's Peak by Robyn Carr (2010)

These next three books in the Virgin River series seem to have randomly assigned titles representing places that are literally never mentioned anywhere, but they are decent, readable and enjoyable stories that get you involved and wanting to know how things work out - not just whether they will work out (obviously they will). There are more and more secondary characters turning up and they have their own arcs too. Perfect bedtime reading.

White Heat by Dominic Sandbrook (2006)

A hugely impressive and authoritative history of mid-to-late sixties Britain. It takes a history with this kind of perspective, the kind only afforded by time, shorn of bias and with the egos long eroded, to be able to show the real causes and the real effects. Sadly, it also shows that politics hasn't changed, with decisions made in the interests of self or at least, party, heavily overriding any wider concerns. Harold Wilson comes across as an incredible political operator who nevertheless was more focussed on keeping his job than in running the country for everyone's benefit. Opposition parties still grabbed every opportunity to carp and pick holes instead of behaving like adults. It also shows the impact one determined person can have, usually for the worse - whether that's Mary Whitehouse, Enoch Powell or Ian Paisley (all of whom claimed to be speaking on behalf of a silent majority that didn't exist). Sandbrook's summary (if you can summarise anything as complex as this) - that Britain wasn't swinging or in fact vastly transformed in any ways other than by the normal march of time - is sane and rational and a deliberate counterpoint to those who might try to twist the evidence to suit their own prejudices. Politicians were still politicians and people were still people. Still, it's great to have this kind of history to read and I've come away vastly better informed. I'm looking forward to the next books, which cover the times during which I was actually alive. I might give myself a bit of a break first though!

Screenwriting for Dummies by Laura Schellhardt (2008)

I picked this up ages ago in a charity shop because I thought it would give a good insight into screenwriting (and as a more practical counterpoint to William Goldman's peerless Adventures in the Screen Trade). Well, it was interesting but I didn't find it compelling: it's taken me over two years to finish it! There's lot of good advice here but neither does it shy away from making it clear that there's a huge effort involved. That's true of everything worth doing, of course, but it's probably killed any faint fantasy that I might try my hand at it!

Paper Cuts by Ted Kessler (2022)

Despite being the last editor of Q magazine before it folded, Ted Kessler describes himself as essentially being an NME writer - and even if he hadn't, his off-hand dismissal of Q as "smug, self-congratulatory, purposely fogey" would give him away. But I loved magazines like it and Word, and would say it was ironic, with a keen sense of the innate ridiculousness of much of the music industry. By contrast, the weekly inkies always had the breathless, over-excited feel of a bunch of teenagers seduced by the myths of rock 'n' roll and unable or unwilling to see past them, and Kessler sounds like he fit in exactly. The monthlies were clearly dying long before he arrived to oversee their last days and I'd ducked out years before. All of which is a long way of saying that I've never read or even come across Ted Kessler before, and in any case, I probably wouldn't have had much time for him. Which is my loss, because he's a really good writer, not just when he's being self-deprecatory about his younger self's misadventures, but about the music that's inspired him. This took me a solid day to read and was never less than entertaining and often insightful.

Promise Canyon by Robyn Carr (2011)

Some sort of horse whisperer thing going on here, and a mild tribute to Native American traditions, but otherwise pretty much exactly the same as the others in this series - which is to say, a satisfying but maybe slightly forgettable romance.

Pick of Punch (1991) edited by David Thomas (1991)

I found a couple of these in a charity book shop (in a National Trust property) and couldn't resist adding to my little collection - I now have five. Yet now I've read it, I'm not sure why I bother. It's the penultimate annual from the "proper" run of Punch (the 1996 re-launch under Mohamed Al-Fayed doesn't count) and by this point it feels like it's trying to emulate Private Eye in a bid to recapture readers - and it's not working. Too much is just not funny. Add in a couple of execrable Richard Littlejohn pieces that would be rejected these days by the Daily Wail for being overly reactionary, and what you have a is a museum piece with a few gently amusing cartoons. Still, it didn't cost much (and the money went to good cause) and didn't take long to read.