Pete's Pad: October

This has been an interesting month in more ways than one.

Given you’re primarily here for reviews and recommendations, I won’t dive too deeply, but suffice to say, it ended in me being made redundant as editor of Insider after five years in the job.

The upside of this, over the last week or so, has been a lot more free time. Time which I have spent doing the sort of decadent things you can do in the early stages of unemployment. Things like going to the cinema on your own, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week. 

It is quite fortuitous that my ability to see a film on a whim coincided with the first film I’ve actually wanted to catch in the cinema for several years. And I’m pleased to say that One Battle After Another lived up to the almost exclusively positive coverage on the various places my finger scrolls. A man of equal parts weird and wonderful, this is definitely Paul Thomas Anderson’s most straightforwardly crowd-pleasing work yet: long, but well paced; thrilling action scenes, balanced with smart dialogue and genuine drama. It’s also a perfectly-timed blueprint of resistance against ICE and the like, while not being overtly preachy. I won’t ruin the shaggy dog story of a plot, as you’re going to want to see this if you haven’t already, but it centres around secretive groups on both the far left and right in America, helmed by two extremes of flawed masculinity in Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn’s characters, respectively, with excellent supporting turns from the likes of Benicio del Torro and Teyana Taylor. With seemingly so many movies recently featuring incredibly polished and capable spies and subversives, I felt a certain kinsman-ship with our protagonist blanking on long-forgotten revolutionary codes and generally scraping his way through extreme situations in the way that most normal folk would.

Also last week, I took the opportunity to take my Mum for lunch and some art in town. Fifty Years of Andy Goldsworthy was this year’s big show at The National Gallery during festival month and on until Sunday; rendering this review functionally useless. If you didn’t get to see it, well, you missed out. But perhaps not to the extent that some of the hype I heard in person and read in the papers, had suggested. Andy’s always been a man at one with nature, with the majority of his installations taking part outside, lest his creativity be stifled by a studio. The ephemerality of his work therefore means a majority of it is represented by photographs, which detracts somewhat from the spectacle. Those pieces that are present are undoubtedly impressive: a whole wall covered in red earth, like a dried mud patch, but vertical; or huge amounts of carefully-placed sticks and stones. As with any large sculpture, I become preoccupied with the logistics of setting these things up; which is undoubtedly impressive. As far as I’m aware this is Goldsworthy’s first comprehensive career overview, which suggests that he’s been rather overlooked by the county’s establishment, so I’m glad so many people have been able to see his work and it’s been so well received. While me and me Ma did enjoy gently ribbing some of the more pretentious explanations of rolling a big snowball or chucking some sticks in the air, his stuff is pretty much peerless and he deserves to be regarded among the modern British greats.

Back to the box in the living room, the big release last week was House of Dynamite, which was easily the most stressful film I’ve watched since Uncut Gems. I suppose it’s not surprising really, given the subject matter, but I wouldn’t describe the experience as enjoyable exactly. With Kathryn Bigelow at the helm, it’s all very professional-looking and, we have to assume - although of course the Pentagon denies - accurate to what might happen in such a situation. It goes without saying that the fact this is an entirely plausible chain of events is horrifying - giving nauseating detail to one of the many ways mutually assured destruction might transpire. For me at least, this really is one of the most potent existential fears: that nuclear war fundamentally boils down to a few old men trying to get one another on the phone to engage in brinkmanship - all the more so, given the current incumbent of the White House. As the exchange goes between president Idris Elba and the lad carrying the big red button bag: “This is insanity … no, sir, this is reality”.

As I mentioned earlier, I think I prefer my on-screen combatants to be a bit rough around the edges, for maximum engagement. Which is why the new Steven Soderbergh caper fell a bit flat. Black Bag, which has just made its way to Sky Cinema, is as stylish as you’d expect from him, but comes off a bit too clever for its own good. It’s a well-worn trope that professional liars cannot possibly maintain loving relationships, and I’m just not sure this really adds much to the twisty spycraft thriller genre. It’s full of fine actors and, as far as I could follow, all just about makes sense plot-wise, but I didn’t have nearly as much fun as I’ve had with the director’s previous outings.

My favourite character is back, this time tackling the thorny issue of mental health, with all the sensitivity and insight you’d expect from such a seasoned presenter. Almost every scene of How Are You: It’s Alan (Partridge) has something delightful in it, from little facial expressions and mannerisms, to perfectly-sculpted throw-away lines; his new girlfriend, to his old assistant. Partridge has been going so long that there are now so many layers and so much lore, which the Gibbons brothers seem to be well soaked in, ably taking the helm from Iannucci and co. a few years back. It’s also nice that Steve Coogan has embraced the character again in recent years, because Alan really is the gift that keeps on giving. 

A quick word on The Hack, to say that all my criticisms last month were rendered invalid when the Daniel Morgan murder plot line was introduced. I remember listening to the podcast his brother made about the case, so it’s good to see this major injustice brought to light again, with the lead detective played brilliantly by the ever-reliable Robert Carlyle. 

And while I’m making brief asides, I did not much care for Peaky Blinders and I don’t much care for its creator Stephen Knight’s new one, House of Guinness. It’s been interesting to see the divergence in reviews between the English and Irish, and I’m with the latter on how cliched and historically basic the whole thing is - not to mention the bloody music.

Onto the documentaries, and I’d like to start with one of my favourite finds of the year. A few weeks ago the Bluesky hive mind’s synapses were firing about Listers, this odd little birdwatching film available for free on YouTube. Basically, a couple of brothers decide - apparently on a stoned whim - to take on a ‘big year’ of trying to spot as many birds across America as possible. Their enthusiasm is infectious and they really get hooked on birding, documenting the subculture with rigour, humour and surprisingly good production values. Much like anything these days, the addiction is accelerated via an app - in this case eBird - but as social media craves go, it’s pretty wholesome. I’m aware that this may come off as a hard sell, but if you’ve got a couple of hours to spare sometime, I promise you won’t regret devoting them to this.

I’d heard the name before, but The Great Art Fraud is a fine two-parter explaining the rise and fall of Inigo Philbrick, an upstart art dealer backed by the boss of the White Cube galleries, who tried to fly too close to the sun. To be clear, the guy is a prime prick - annoying accent, unbuttoned shirt, undeserved sense of self confidence - but then it does seem like pretty much everyone in the industry is somewhere on the spectrum of arsehole. Of course this makes his fraud folly all the more enjoyable to see - in excruciating detail - while raising serious questions about the lack of transparency in these supposed investments.

Over to Channel 4 for that rascal Oobah Butler’s latest, How I Made £1 Million in 90 Days. He’s a likeable lad and this is superficially entertaining, but under all the attempted entrepreneurship, it’s quite a bleak look at the rise of hustle culture. His time in New York pitching and learning the grift - dabbling in meme coins and such - is properly grim, but it’s pleasing to see that his actual, eventual success comes from sending up this whole vacuous vibe that’s become so prevalent on social media right now.

One wonders when it was filmed and what foresight she had into her demise, but I’m really glad she did and that Netflix backed Jane Goodall’s Famous Last Words. Interviewing someone on the agreement that it will only be shown after their death is quite a unique concept and maybe one that will catch on - I’d certainly be interested in hearing the uncensored final opinions from some of the more rambunctious slebs on the scene. Jane certainly nails a perfectly clip-able and well-shared soundbite about wanting to send Musk, Trump, Putin and Netanyahu off to Mars, but perhaps more intriguing are her marital admissions and musings on spirituality. The interviewer has lovely hair and is perhaps a bit overly-fawning, but generally does a decent job in an odd situation. Things get a bit woo towards the end - signing off with god bless, and some of the reincarnation chat didn’t sit that well with me - but that’s the beauty of unvarnished truth-telling, I suppose. She’s an impressive lady and her - literally - final monologue, while a little rambling, is hopefully inspiring to those she’s urging to carry on her mission to save the planet. 

To finish, I found a couple of golden oldies to pass the time recently.

Firstly, Floyd on France is back on the iPlayer, with this probably being the archetypal series and a perfect place to start if you’re not aware of Keith’s oeuvre. He picks some of the most gastronomically interesting regions of the country, finds the farmer’s market, touches up the produce, chats away to the farmers and then cooks something locally-inspired in a random kitchen, all while haranguing Clive the cameraman and liberally imbibing whatever booze is available. The resulting meal is invariably poorly-plated, questionably cooked and often distinctly unappetising, but his wit and wisdom always carry the day. Floyd is the complete antithesis of modern TV chefs and his delightful lack of polish is what makes it so charming.

Fair play to those chaps in a shed in Watford who run Talking Pictures TV, as they’ve managed to source some back catalogue of Eurotrash. So to 1993 we go, when staying up after bedtime would get you an askance glance over into the continent, with plenty of naked nonsense and scatalogical silliness. Amusingly hosted by our French chums Antonine de Caunes and THE Jean-Claude Gaultier, the real stars of the show are actually the people whose British regional accents overdub the foreigners, as well as the condescending voiceover lady; pioneering the art long before that guy who did Come Dine With Me. Anyway, it’s all good dirty fun and makes me pine - probably incorrectly - for a time of simpler relations with Europe.

Bonus children’s corner:

Our household is not immune to K-pop fever, with the demon hunter strain being particularly virulent at the moment. To be fair, the visual style is delightful (same studio as those Spider-Verse movies) and the songs are pretty catchy.

Dogman is now on Sky Cinema. My boy devoured the comic books as his introduction to reading, so he loved the film, but I’m happy to report it’s a fun watch for parents too. Great-looking animation, an all-star voice cast, lots of little meta gags and a pacey plot means it ticks all the boxes.

Elio is a passable Pixar number - I suppose we should give them credit for coming up with something original, rather than another sequel or franchise rehash. Speaking of which, the live action Lilo & Stitch is fine if you’ve never seen the original, but fairly pointless if you have. To clarify, the cartoon version is maybe my favourite Disney film - although that’s admittedly not a high bar.