Amazon Prime
Surprisingly good: Amazon Prime’s Last One Laughing reviewed
‘What will it take to make Richard Ayoade laugh?’ If you find this question about as enticing as ‘Whose turn…
Why did C.J. Sansom ok this moronic Disney+ Shardlake adaptation?
What would C.J. Sansom have made of the Disney+ version of his novel series about 16th-century crookback lawyer Matthew Shardlake?…
Aussie rules
Why is Australian MasterChef so much better than the English version? You’d think, with a population less than a third…
In all seriousness
Amazon’s much-heralded Tolkien prequel The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power began by answering a question that has…
Howard’s way
About ten minutes in to Thirteen Lives, Boy came in and asked me whether it was any good. I said:…
The thrilling game
‘The Terminal List is… a dated and drably made eight-part military thriller that offers little intrigue or excitement,’ says the…
No more Mr Nasty Guy
In theory, it should be a perfect match. John Morton – the man behind the brilliantly assured sitcom W1A which…
Let’s talk about pecs
Jack Reacher is back on the screen and aficionados of the hugely successful Lee Child airport thrillers in which he…
Tolkien rubbish
A couple of years ago, in that near-forgotten era when we could travel almost freely, I canvassed social media as…
Man and boy
So how exactly did Tony Soprano become a New Jersey mob boss? It’s 1967 and young Anthony is struggling to…
Agricultural revolution
I was at a party the other day when who should accost me but Jeremy Clarkson. There were lots more…
The best of British
There was certainly no lack of variety among new TV dramas this week, with a standard British thriller up against…
Deliciously dark
I Care a Lot is a deliciously dark comic thriller that You’ll Enjoy a Lot. It’s heartless. It’s vicious. It’s…
A fine romance
Sylvie’s Love is an exquisitely styled, swooning, old-school, period Hollywood romance and while it has been described as ‘glib’ in…
The boys are back in town
There’s a delicious scene in the new season of Amazon’s superheroes-gone-bad series The Boys. The chief superhero Homelander (Antony Starr)…
Bearing all
Few things better capture the crazed cognitive dissonance of our age than this: that while we cower behind masks for…
There will be blood
Two films about young women this week, one at the cinema, if you dare, and one to stream, if you…
Dysfunctional music by dysfunctional people
A star is born, but instead of emerging into the world beaming for the cameras, he spits and snarls and…
Macbeth at the movies
The world’s greatest playwright ought to be dynamite at the movies. But it’s notoriously hard to turn a profit from…
Beasties and besties
The music of the Beastie Boys was entirely an expression of their personalities, a chance to delightedly splurge out on…
The fascinating Ms Swift
There had been some question about whether Taylor Swift’s Netflix special would actually appear. Last year it seemed that the…
Gloriously macho: Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan reviewed
This week’s guilty pleasure is Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime). It’s trash, of course, but very well done, high-octane,…
Things we don’t mind paying for
Here’s a challenge for film buffs: can anyone remember, from the entire canon of cinema and television, a single scene…
