Pete's Pad: April

Seems like ages ago now, but on April fools day we went out to see some live music for the first time this year. Having missed him last time round in Glasgow, we made sure to catch Thundercat at the Usher Hall.

The first thing that strikes you is the terrific stage decoration: a great big inflatable cat, in the style of his cartoon moniker. Once the bass master Stephen Brunner makes it out, he’s somewhat dwarfed by it, but then that winning Californian smile of his makes up for the imbalance, as he and his two band mates (Dennis Hamm on keys and Justin Brown on drums) dive into some jazz funk. I’ll be honest, I don’t really like jazz very much, so just had to ride out the first few songs and their discordant time signatures. But when the drums slowed and his mighty gigantic guitar syncopated into a groove again, all was forgiven. His instrumental virtuosity, tender falsetto and knack for a soulful melody really are a winning combination, as exemplified by tunes like Them Changes and No More Lies for the encore. I’m not that turned on by the new record, but if you get the chance to see him in person; take it.

I’d read some pretty scathing reviews of the third (and maybe final?) season of Euphoria, so came into it with muted expectations. Most of the criticism seems to be about there being more style than substance and the whole thing being a rather leery, exploitative vehicle for creator Sam Levinson. All of this is true, but none of this is new. If you can accept that Sidney Sweeney’s character isn’t going to be wearing much, Zendaya’s will be working through some well-worn addiction tropes and Jacob Elordi will be a smouldering lump of pecks and anger, then I’d argue the spectacle is still worth spectacle-ing. I suppose it’s preferable that the camera is letching on adult females, rather than those supposed to still be at high school, but the OnlyFans and escorting storylines do seem designed just for bikini montages and lingering shots of Hunter Schafer with very little on. Among the nudity and occasional violence there is some semblance of a plot, although this has so far been very loosely woven between the atomised lives of our previously classroom-bound protagonists. I do hope it gets better, but I’m not holding out for it.

The Boys’ fifth and final season is a slog I don’t think I’m going to make it through, however. As much as I’d like to see how they tie up the saga of Vought and Homelander versus Starlight and Butcher’s merry men, the storylines have been stagnating for some time now. The originality of tearing down superhero tropes is long gone, the gory sense of humour is dulled and the cartoonish gore is just getting unpleasant. Plus I just found out the Frenchie character was a war-crime-committing IDF soldier.

I put myself through the final season of the Handmaid’s Tale despite similar reservations, so consider this a note to say I haven’t yet had the time or inclination to watch its spin-off the Testaments. Let me know if I’m missing out on anything.

Meanwhile, our very own industrial hellscape, Grangemouth, has had a hard time of it recently, what with Petroineos moving out and hundreds of jobs being lost. So why not film a modern day Romeo and Juliet there? That seems to be the basis of the new BBC drama, Mint, which takes a fairly boilerplate story of star crossed lovers from rival gangs and makes it watchable with some strong TV performances (who knew Loyle Carner could act) and a wildly impressionistic visual style. ← I wrote that after the first couple of half-hour episodes, and now having just finished the eighth, I’m happy to report that it evolved into an altogether more complex tale of generational trauma and dealing with heartbreak; but always at an assured pace and with really interesting camera/editing effects. Bravo Charlotte Regan and those in ivory towers for commissioning something so unique amid a flood of average crime dramas.

Staying in Scotland for the new thing from Richard Gadd, and it’s a similarly difficult to Baby Reindeer. The first scene of Half Man features topless, boxer-bandaged Gadd punching besuited Jamie Bell on his wedding day. The rest of the episode goes back to their younger days, which reveals them to be ‘brothers from another lover’, with rough lad Ruben moving back from a young offenders institution into meek Niall’s Cumbernauld prefab and high school class. It’s another impressive piece of work, but like with Gadd’s much-lauded TV debut, I find myself torn between wanting to turn it off, but not being able to look away.

The second series of The Assembly is progressing and I particularly enjoyed the episode with Stephen Fry. If you haven’t seen it, the programme’s premise is very simple: a room of about 20 or so variously neurodivergent people ask questions to a celebrity. As you might expect, many of the questions are more forthright or different than you’d get from a regular interview, and all the better for it. Fry ably navigates admirably blunt queries about his cocaine use and early suicide attempts right off the bat, which are interspersed with lighter points like whether he’s a top or bottom and what he’s not willing to do for money, following a comically-long list of previous advertising commitments. His response to a question about how to help those with bipolar disorder is excellent, as is his comment about humanism and the afterlife. There’s even a couple of performances in place of questions: a passionate Wordsworth poem recital and then a rousing rendition of a Nina Simone protest song to finish. The David Tennant one is also a delight, as he so often is when I see him pop up in promo things. The beauty of this programme, as opposed to some pre-arranged anecdotes on Graeme Norton’s sofa, is that he’s frequently caught off guard and appears to be answering from the heart. So I take my hat off to these wonderful people with brains wired another way. It’s such a shame that they’re often pushed to the fringes of society for acting or looking a bit different, because clearly they have so much to offer.

Meanwhile, new on Netflix is Zach Galifanakis doing a gardening show… Wait, hear me out. It’s certainly a seemingly odd combination, but as he explains in the first episode, the comedian had been gardening for 25 years, and as he repeats frequently, believes that ‘the future is agrarian’. Thankfully that’s where the earnestness stops, as these breezy 15-minute episodes mix schoolchildren chats with horticultural expert interviews, animated history facts and Zach’s trademark scruffy nonsense. I like that there’s a bit of Between Two Ferns about him quizzing the kids, and while the loose editing style sometimes seems a tad contrived, he seems genuinely passionate about the subject matter and if it inspires people to grow and eat more fruit and veg, then that seems like a win.

A quick Easter holiday children’s corner in the form of Super Mario Galaxy, which I dutifully took the boy to see. Much like the games it’s based on, the storyline is clearly completely forgettable bobbins, but the gameplay elements - in this case a couple of brilliant montage sections in the mushroom kingdom and bowsers dungeon - are superb. The only other redeeming feature are a few Nintendo cameos, thrown in for the ageing parents, to tickle our nostalgia glands.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t even aware Darren Aronofsky had a film out last year. I vaguely remember seeing the ads for Caught Stealing - Matt Smith with a Mohican and Austin Butler pouting - and shrugging. But it popped up on Sky Cinema, so I gave it a go, and yeah, it’s not bad. Not brilliant, but the director’s most normal film in a while. It’s sort of lebowski-like in terms of the nineties US setting and spiral of criminal capers that a fairly unassuming bloke gets caught up in. Butler’s main man is far less chill than the Dude, and this being New York, the violence is significantly more wanton though. I’d have preferred some more 1998 musical cuts, rather than OST from Idles, but what can you do?

Continuing the theme of movies set in the best decade, and another one that probably got a bit slept on last year, Roof Man is the latest chance for Channing Tatum to expand his range. He’s significantly more buff and handsome than Jeffrey Manchester - the real person this story is based on - and I suspect the fictionalised version of events is also significantly more sympathetic than what really occurred. But never let the truth get in the way of a good story, and this is that. It’s a tale that’s been told a hundred different ways - bighearted misfit falls into a life of crime, meets a girl, is just doing it for his kids, doesn’t want to hurt nobody, ultimately chooses love over absconding, etc - but it’s told well, acted honestly and directed simply. I liked it.

Having watched Heated Rivalry last month, I figured the logical progression was to view Pillion this month. Much like the ice hockey melodrama, there’s a fair amount of graphic gay sex, but at the heart of it there’s a tender romantic tale between two rather mismatched men. This, if you’ve seen the posters or clips, is about a developing dom/sub relationship between a parking attendant who lives with his parents and a gruff biker bloke with no discernible backstory. It’s interesting to explore the mechanics of this uneven way of being with someone, via disapproving mothers, camping away-days with the motorbike gang, and breaking boundaries in the power dynamic. In the end, the film becomes an awful lot more than just an amusingly awkward Sunday lunch and some men in rubber pants.

I also saw that Saipan had popped up on Prime, so I stuck it on and in some ways it reminded me of Scotland’s participation in international tournaments - winning the friendly supporters trophy, but generally being distinctly unthreatening on the pitch. Thankfully our FA is significantly less amateurish than Ireland’s in preparations for the 2002 World Cup, and our manager is born and bred, but it’s easy to sympathise with Roy Keane’s disillusionment at the state of the pre-competition training camp on the pacific island that gives this film its name. I have a bit of a soft spot for Mick Mcarthy, but he just wasn’t equipped like Fergie and peak-era Man Utd to get the best out of Keano - who, for his part, acted like the peculiarly spiky man-child he so often seems to be; kind of like Cantona without the Gallic charm. Anyway, this is a perfectly passable account of a fairly inconsequential week; probably not worth your time if you have no interest in football, but mildly entertaining if you do.

I’d read a positive review somewhere about Andre is an Idiot, which is why when I chanced upon it recently while surfing past BBC Four I settled in to watch, having only missed the first 15 minutes. It’s a fairly unremarkable and unoriginal premise for a documentary, but nonetheless worth a watch due to the enigmatic titular character. He’s a San Fran ad exec, so a bit scruffy and punk rock, with a ‘no cops, no doctors’ mantra that ends in a stage four colorectal cancer diagnosis. What follows is a diary of his decline, but tackled with humour, honesty and some nice wee bits of animation. I went to a funeral this month, so mortality has been on my mind more than most. I’m still terrified of death, because I really like life, and denial is a powerful tool; if perhaps not a particularly helpful one. So I watch things like this to think how I’d deal with terminal illness and try to get a tiny bit better used to accepting fear, as Andre puts it. I’ve dealt with death before and remember feeling a bit disappointed in myself for not responding with some newfound vigour to live life to its fullest, but then I’ve never been prone to extremes of emotion, so I’m not going to beat myself up about it. Anyway, I digress. This is another fine signing by Storyville, so track it down if you can; it might just give you a new perspective on life and death.

Talking of dead people - sorry for the spoiler, but come on; there’s aren’t many OAP base jumpers - I saw the Dean Potter doc last week, because apparently I need another tale of a troubled young man who finds escape and solace amid the mountains; nearly as hackneyed a trope as the dead-by-27-rockstar. Clearly he was an exceptionally talented climber, but did this really need to be told over four parts? I know how it ends, and within the first episode I now know roughly how it began; the rest feels like a slight variation on all the other tragic extreme sports ‘risk versus reward, fear versus freedom’ biopics. I guess, for me, as family holidays were frequently spent around fellow mountaineers, I find the sports fascinating - and I am also genuinely passionate about getting up high; albeit within the relative safety of ski resorts - and have vicariously scaled most of snowdonia and the highlands’ gnarliest peaks and faces through relatives and friends. Problem is, we’ve also lost several people very close to, and within, the family to this obsession with a potentially consequential pursuit. I suppose that’s why I’m drawn to things like this, but also somewhat repulsed by the bravado on show.