Watching - March 2023

Top Gun (1986)

Despite having watched Top Gun Maverick a couple of times now since it came out, I haven't seen this in ages. Other than being a master class in taking sunglasses off in a meaningful way, it is showing its age, but it's still entertaining and a bit of a nostalgia-fest for those of us who remember it at the time. And doesn't Tom Cruise look young? (only 20 at the time, incredibly)

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Hugely entertaining, watched because I was at a loose end and because I'd just watched Top Gun.

50 First Dates (2004)

C and I watched this when it came out, at the Showcase in Nottingham and I've loved it ever since. Of course it helps that it has Drew Barrymore in it, but it's a sweet story (as long as you don't think too much about it), there's plenty of laughs and the ending is quite touching (and beautifully soundtracked by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's version of "Over the Rainbow") - and did I mention it has Drew Barrymore in it? Anyway, I like it.

The Wedding Singer (1996)

Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler again, and on the evidence of this it's hard to understand why Sandler became a star, as his acting is often awful (although sometimes it rises to adequate). On the other hand, there's no difficulty in understanding why Drew is so popular - she just lights up the screen and carries the film, despite being only 23 when this was released.

Watching - February 2023

Roxanne (1987)

The outfits and the music absolutely scream "80s" but the story is pretty timeless. I think this might have been the first Steve Martin film I saw. He's great in it but the obvious age difference between him and Daryl Hannah always bothered me. It doesn't stop it being a sweet film though.

Life on Mars (Series 1) (2006)

I first came across Life on Mars accidentally, via a free DVD in a newspaper or something. I didn't watch it on TV as it wasn't (and still isn't) really my usual sort of thing and anyway, with three very young kids I didn't have the time. But then I needed something to watch during the night while I was trying to get Z to sleep (at least, I assume it was him - I remember a very young baby!) so I tried it and was hooked. To start with, I think it was the re-creation of 70s Britain, an era I lived through but only sort of remember (I would have been about the same age as Sam Tyler, 4 or 5) that I found so evocative, and the juxtaposition of that with modern day sensibilities. But the action scenes are fun, and each episode is a kind of whodunnit which is fun too.

Life on Mars (Series 2) (2007)

More of the same - but when the original series was this good, why mess with it? Some of the characters become a little one-dimensional - Gene Hunt is always pissed off (magnificently so, but still), Ray Carling is always a sexist thug - and you start wondering whether any of the minor characters actually do anything at all other than sit around smoking, but overall it's still a great world to be in. Slowly developing through this series though is the idea, left more ambiguous in the first series, that Sam is in some sort of limbo world, from which he can only escape by betraying the people he's become friends with. Eventually this comes to a satisfying (albeit slightly unsettling, when you really think about it) conclusion. 

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

I'm struck again how Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc is so much more like Poirot than Kenneth Branagh's actual Poirot. The film is a bit silly and over-the-top but hugely entertaining.

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Unlike Pretty in Pink, this wasn't a disappointment when watching it again after all these years decades. It's an unusual film to be so well known, it seems to me: it feels like a play, with a lot of character study and little plot. But it's perfectly judged to appeal to teenagers.

Down With Love (2003)

Here's an odd film that wants to be an update of 50s/60s romcoms like Pillow Talk (from which it swipes most of its plot structure) while at the same time being a pastiche (or more generously, a tribute) of that style. As a result, it ends up being a bit too pleased with its own cleverness to convince and too contrived to fully entertain. The casting is a bit off too: Renée Zellweger spends too much time posing and Ewan McGregor isn't sleazy enough. Not really worth the time, if I'm honest.

Judy (2019)

I didn't mean to watch two Renée Zellweger films in a row but this doesn't really deserve comparison with the previous one. Without being a complete biopic of Judy Garland's life but by just zooming in on a couple of months late in her life, with occasional flashbacks to her early life as a child star, it manages to convey a sense of how exploited her life was, and how her only remaining solace is performing; not because that's what she loves but because it's all she's been left with. Zellweger is a revelation - almost unrecognisable as Garland and brilliantly capturing her mannerisms. The end is borderline mawkish but it worked for me. Very good.

Wednesday (2022)

We watched this series over the course of several weeks as a family. It's emo AF but entertaining and enough to keep me interested. Overall, it's not really my thing, but nice to share with the kids. What it did highlight was the very different ways we watch. K & Z are constantly chatting, taking the mickey out of things, looking at their phones, and yet still manage to follow what's going on. They'd have happily watched all eight episodes in one or two sittings. I, on the other hand, could only manage one episode at a time and I found that hard to take in because those flippin' kids would not stop talking! I'm feeling old.

Reading - February 2023

The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett (1999)

Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, particularly the later ones, often leave me feeling that I've missed something that I'm not quite intelligent enough to grasp. Perhaps that's the point in this case, since we experience most of the story through Samuel Vimes' perspective, who also has that feeling. Nevertheless, this is masterly storytelling, teeming with ideas and sweeping you along. Great stuff.

Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie (1941)

Classic Christie, classic Poirot. A surprise twist that made sense once explained, but I never work out these things in advance - even though, in this case, I've read it before! Easy reading for bedtimes.

Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins (2022)

Terry Pratchett was a phenomenon. I'm no publishing expert but I can't think of another writer with such quality and quantity, and his books are stuffed full of ideas in almost careless abundance. It might be a bit of a cliché but lesser authors would have reserved whole books for just one or two of the kind of ideas that Pratchett seemed to have by the dozen. Rob Wilkins was Pratchett's PA for over twenty years and clearly regards his late boss with awe and love. Yet despite all of these things and despite being written by an obviously partial observer, Pratchett comes across as, well, a bit of an arse. I've said before that if someone is described as "blunt", "direct" or "not suffering fools gladly" then what you're actually hearing about is just rudeness, dressed up to try and excuse it. Perhaps he was charming enough in person to get away with it, but it honestly doesn't sound like it. It doesn't exactly disappoint me because it has no bearing on the books, which I will still really enjoy, but I don't accept the reasoning that says this kind of behaviour is okay because "artistry" or "specialness" or something. Anyway, notwithstanding all this, the biography itself is interesting and very moving towards the end as it describes Pratchett's slow - and then not so slow - descent into dementia. Worth a read.

Watching - January 2023

Meet Cute (2022)

I chose this on Amazon Prime (thanks for the free subscription guys) because it was a time-travelling romantic comedy and I kind of like those. There's an obvious comparison with (and heavy debt to) Groundhog Day, but little of the development or, frankly, comedy. Sheila (the time traveller) just seems to make the same mistakes again and again, and get fed up with them. I was waiting for some sort of twist with Gary (the other character) revealing that he's also a time traveller, but that doesn't happen (not exactly anyway). They finally sort themselves out but we don't see what happens after - which is annoying, because logically speaking, going by the rules explained in the film, the time loop should completely unwind again, so actually it might not end up happily.

Trading Places (1983)

I can't quite believe this is forty years old! A bit broad-brush in places (and of course just racist and sexist in others - there's a warning before the film in case anyone should feel like being offended) but still basically very funny. Ripe for a remake?

Palm Springs (2020)

Yet another time-loop concept (turns out there's loads), with plenty of familiar concepts but a more modern take and some nice new ideas. It's a romcom, so we know it's going to end happily, but it's a good story and there's plenty of laugh out loud moments. Recommended (although not if you're squeamish or easily offended).

Fisherman's Friends (2020)

Only "based on the true life story" of Fisherman's Friends in the loosest sense, as presumably the real story was considered too dull. Instead what we get is an odd mix of fact and fiction, which feels like the industry standard number of dramatic elements (love interest, a death, dramatic break up etc) has been added to tick the right boxes. In fairness, it mostly does: the result is an enjoyably light drama that has some of the same feel as the classic Local Hero, and made an ideal Sunday afternoon film.

Naked (2017)

Perhaps I went a bit too deep into the list of time loop films. This is predictable stuff and has the usual dénouement: man learns about himself and how to love, and makes lots of new friends along the way. But they've only known him an hour or two, so what are they all doing in the final scene? Very average.

Local Hero (1983)

I thought Fisherman's Friends reminded me of this film, but after watching it again I realise that this is by far the superior film. It has a beautiful sense of place and a lovely whimsical tone. Great stuff.

Reading - January 2023

The Great British Dream Factory by Dominic Sandbrook (2015)

In a way, this reminds me of some of Bill Bryson's later books, overly crammed with information because the author can't bear to leave a single fascinating titbit out. As a result, despite being constantly interesting, the whole thing started to become a bit of a chore to read - I felt like I was full of facts and stuffed with statistics, to the detriment of the overall theme of the book. Britain has produced a wide variety of popular culture that has had a huge impact worldwide, and perhaps only a book this dense could do it justice. Nevertheless, well worth reading and I am pleased I persevered.

Syrup by Maxx Barry (1999)

I really enjoyed this the first time I read it (almost ten years ago!), enough to want to buy a copy and read it again. This time round I notice the satire elements more clearly, for some reason. Still a nice easy read and a satisfying end. It's also been adapted into a film, which I didn't know. I notice that Max Barry (only one "x" these days) has written several other books but I was never tempted to look for them, for some reason. Time to rectify that!

The Biggest Ever Tim Vine Joke Book by Tim Vine (2010)

Hard to argue with the quantity of one-liners here, and there are some gems, but they really need Tim Vine's delivery to make them work.

The Private Eye Annual 2022 edited by Ian Hislop (er, 2022)

I subscribed to Private Eye for a couple of years a long time ago. I stopped because it was basically the same magazine every time. That's because the subjects it satirises don't change: political incompetence, corporate greed, public pretentiousness - these are all human traits that need to be highlighted but will always be with us. I feel like it's important that someone points these things out but reading it week after week was kind of numbing as well as depressing, and their default view of "The government is wrong again! What are they doing?" is too predictable. The annual is a nicely compressed summary of the year and avoids some of these problems by being short. It's a bit hit and miss, but when it hits, it's very on-target.

 The Political Animal by Jeremy Paxman (2002)

Twenty years old yet still very accurate - if anything, more so. The UK's political system has ossified and so now politicians are stuck in modes of behaviour that everyone realises and acknowledges are ludicrous: from the public who are bored of the play acting, via the journalists who still shoot down anyone who doesn't follow the rules, to the hapless politicians themselves, caught in a game that they belatedly realise isn't worth playing. Those who make it through to the highest positions are truly very odd people. Boris Johnson (the oddest, most narcistic of them all) gets some mentions, proving that he never changed and yet still managed to become Prime Minister.

Watching - December 2022

Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

After revisiting Pretty in Pink so disappointingly a couple of days ago, I had to watch probably my favourite John Hughes film. The soundtrack here isn't quite as good and it doesn't contain Molly Ringwald, but the story is better, the characters are more developed and the ending is the right one!

Disenchanted (2022)

Enchanted is a bit of a family favourite so this was always going to be a watch together - which is what we did, albeit with B remotely and without K for some reason. Capturing the same whimsical yet tongue-in-cheek spirit as the original was always going to be difficult and if the sequel doesn't quite manage, it's not for want of trying or for want of fairy tale clichés to cram in.

Classic Albums: A Night at the Opera (2006)

For some reason TVDB only knows about a feature film length version of this, but that's not what I saw on Prime, which was about 45 minutes long and interesting enough but a little light on detail (and contained nothing about "The Prophet's Song" for some reason). Always amazing to watch (Sir!) Brian May playing though - just a genius.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

A candidate for one of the best sequels ever? William Goldman said that sequels are whore's movies - it's all about the money - but given that Cruise could have made a sequel decades earlier if he really was interested in cashing in, maybe this exists because he really wanted to tell the next story. Just as preposterous as the first film but better filmed and possibly a better story and, dare we say it, possibly a better film. I ordered this on DVD the day after we watched it in the cinema and I don't regret that at all.

Martin and Martin: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life (2018)

An odd two-hander, in which Steve Martin gets to play a little banjo, Martin Short gets to do some comedy-vaudeville and both get to trade mock insults with obvious affection and much show business affectation (particularly so in Short's case). I wouldn't normally bother with this kind of thing, but it passed about an hour, had some laugh-out-loud moments and was generally pleasant enough.

Runaway Jury (2003)

Apparently the trial's subject was changed from tobacco to guns fairly late, following the release of The Insider. On the one hand, it makes little difference which legal product kills someone, but on the other, it makes a lot: tobacco isn't protected by the constitution. However, instead of this being an interesting discussion about the US's weird cultural gun fetish, this is just a story of a jury being swung. Most of the interesting parts of the book are lost and in particular, we get no idea how John Cusack's character sways the jury - which makes it all a bit implausible. Passes the time but not particularly good.

24 Hour Party People (2002)

I don't have many claims to fame, but this is one of them: I was a student in Manchester when Madchester was kicking off and the Hacienda was the coolest nightclub in the country. Except I wasn't actually there: I was at the alternative clubs and the Poly bop, listening to The Velvet Underground and The Stooges, Mudhoney and The Wonder Stuff, not any of this dance crap. I think we know who was proved correct. Nevertheless I was aware of enough of it - and learned enough in the next few years - for this film to be an interesting trip down memory lane. Very entertaining in many ways (albeit I suspect off-puttingly confusing for anyone who doesn't already know the subject matter), but badly unbalanced by having Tony Wilson played by Steve Coogan, who, through no real fault of his own, just makes every character he plays sound like Alan Partridge.

Only Murders in the Building (2021)

I found this via reading about Martin & Martin (above), only to later discover that it's part of a resurgence of interest in whodunnits (with films like Knives Out), which makes me very on trend or something. Allegedly. Anyway, this series is great fun, with loads of twists and turns before the murderer is revealed and a amusing sense of self-awareness. Martin Short in particular is hilarious as a washed-up theatre producer who insists in giving delivery notes to just about anyone. Perhaps a slightly shorter series would have been a bit more focussed and if the stunt-casting episode with Sting was a bit misjudged, at least they took the micky out of themselves later for doing it. There's a second series too, but I'll have to see if I can be bothered once I don't have a whole holiday season to watch it!

Knives Out (2019)

Once I got past Daniel Craig's American accent - and not just a generic US one but a full-blown southern drawl - this turned out to be a very entertaining whodunnit, a clear successor to Christie's drawing room mysteries. Great fun and much better than the badly off-target Branagh version of Poirot.

Reading - December 2022

Eminent Hipsters by Donald Fagen (2013)

I've been meaning to read this for ages and finally got it out from the library a couple of weeks ago. I suspect I might be the first person to do so, judging by its pristine condition. Perhaps this is unsurprising: Donald Fagen isn't a household name and the band he fronted through the 70s, Steely Dan, is well-known amongst music lovers but still a bit of an acquired taste - so the potential audience for a slim book about really obscure musicians and influences from his childhood is probably limited. If it had been an autobiography - which is kind of what I expected - then it would have been of more interest. As it is, finding out about some of Fagen's influences has some value, but the second half of the book is a tour diary - and, as I say, it's not a big book anyway. Amusing in places and worth the read, but overall, mildly disappointing.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (2004)

Despite being ostensibly classified as "science fiction/romance", this is only SF in the very broadest sense. Henry's time travelling isn't just a metaphor for any long term medical condition but is actually defined as one, and so his absences can be compared with a partner who is physically or mentally not with you through no fault of their own. But because he has found Clare - his true love, to whom he keeps returning and is destined to be with, through some unexplained causality of looped time - he can manage. I don't believe in the idea of "the one" any more than I believe in time travel, but it's a fine sentiment for a book and I was happy to indulge in it. It's over five hundred pages long and I did wonder how Niffenegger would sustain the story, but it stayed involving and moving right to the end. Very enjoyable. I just wish that authors could let go of the idea of "literature" enough to provide a happy ending.

What If? 2 by Randall Munroe (2022)

More disastrous scenarios from innocuous premises, explored in fascinating detail and with cute pictures. An ideal book to read over breakfast or lunch, or similar short bursts, as it is best read with a break in between chapters. Great fun.

The Humans by Matt Haig (2013)

I think the quotes on the front cover ("hilarious", "wonderfully funny") do this novel a disservice. It's never outrageously funny, so if you picked it up expecting a comedy extravaganza you might be disappointed. On the other hand, if you are interested in a gently amusing but thoughtful and bittersweet story of family and love, suffering and sacrifice, and why all are necessary to be human, you might have found the right book. Having an alien attempt to understand humans and their culture is a cute way to examine things from another perspective; perhaps the alien here could be anyone who feels themselves, well, alienated from society or their family (is this too obvious? Honestly, I am so poor at subtext). I enjoyed the book, although I found the slightly odd mix of emotional analysis and slightly thriller-esque elements meant I wasn't as involved or moved as The Time Traveler's Wife earlier this month. (As an aside, I do like Matt Haig's take-down of book snobbery very much though!)