https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yk5N7yaXxY&list=PLzc7d3D7MgQCFmBITfqR_67psirKTL0Rf

I was a teenager once, male not female, but still. And I was the father of a teenage daughter once and now I’m the father of a teenage son. I saw this film with my son. Maybe how you view this film depends on whether you’re a teenager (and/or a girl) and side with the … Continue reading Lady Bird

Tenerife is not a pretty place. The roads are busy, many drivers are inconsiderate, the traffic heavy, the road surface often rutted and pitted, the resorts are crowded and bloated, the beaches stony and the food bland. There is no culture, no history, no beauty, no style, no design, no interesting architecture, nothing twee, nothing … Continue reading Los Cristianos, Tenerife

And so the whole sorry Sky saga staggers on with the publication of the Commons Select Committee report into doping in sport. Their investigation of British Cycling and Sky is only one part of the report, but it is the part that has garnered the most headlines. But one has to ask – why? What … Continue reading Wiggo’s wig slips but stays on – maybe

‘Love is All Around Us’ sang Wet Wet Wet in that dreadful song which was number one forever all those years ago, and those are the twin themes of this film – love and water (and it’s all around us and it’s wet, wet, wet). Sally Hawkins – last seen playing the title role in … Continue reading The Shape of Water

Nacer Bouhani will garner a lot of publicity for his team without actually winning anything. Romain Bardet will do well at the Tour but he won’t win. Neither will Nibali or Pinot or Richie Porte. Tom Dumoulin won’t ride the Tour although he should. He will win the Giro again. Peter Sagan will win a … Continue reading Cycling predictions for 2018

Few films about the First World War can match the bathos and comedic horror and plumb the depths of sadness quite as well as the last scene of Blackadder Goes Forth but Journey’s End comes close. It is a film of browns – brown hair and moustaches, brown uniforms, the brown wood shoring up the … Continue reading Journey’s End

Steven Spielberg is incapable of making a bad film, but he is certainly capable of making an average film and he’s achieved that with The Post. It’s maybe not his fault; he’s done the best with the material he’s been given but there are three key reasons not to be cheerful with this film. Meryl … Continue reading The Post

We need to talk about Kevin. Kevin Spacey is a fine actor who has been accused (accused, mind you) of some pretty unpleasant behaviour. As a consequence, he has become an un-person, an ex-actor, a non-celebrity, one of the disappeared; if you would seek his works, don’t look around you because you won’t find them. … Continue reading All the Money in the World

‘Anger begets anger,’ says 19-year-old Penelope in this wonderful film. Penelope is the new young girl-friend of wife-beater Charlie, estranged husband of Mildred Hayes, whose bitter anger over the rape and murder of their daughter – Angela – is the reason for the billboards. Ebbing (not a real place), Missouri (a real place) is like … Continue reading Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri