Netflix
Am I slightly psychopathic to be so obsessed with gangster TV?
Most of my favourite TV shows seem to involve gangsters in one way or another: The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Top…
How a TikTok dance craze turned into a brainwashing cult
Because you don’t – I hope – use TikTok you will never have heard of the Wilking sisters. But back…
Sordid, ugly and threadbare: Jimmy Carr – Natural Born Killer reviewed
Here’s an offensive joke: ‘Jimmy Carr gets paid to do a Netflix special.’ All right, it’s not original – I…
Grey, gloomy, and utterly joyless: Ripley reviewed
If you’ve spent any time gawping at Netflix over the past half-decade or so, you’ll already know that human culture…
Have we all become slaves to algorithms?
Kyle Chayka sees their constant feeds as flattening our lives, but the spread of Americanisation, which began long before the internet, is the real steamroller
Surprisingly addictive and heartwarming: Netflix’s Beckham reviewed
If you’re not remotely interested in football or celebrity, I recommend Netflix’s four-part documentary series Beckham. Yes, I know it’s…
Arresting visual spectacle and superb fight scenes: Netflix’s One Piece reviewed
What would you say is the most successful comic-book series in history? If you’re thinking Tintin you’re not even close.…
Aussie rules
Why is Australian MasterChef so much better than the English version? You’d think, with a population less than a third…
Hollywood notebook
I wish I could be like actors and pretend to be bored by press junkets, but the truth is I…
Jesus returns
Some years ago, Mark Millar (the creator of Kick-Ass, Kingsman, etc.) hit on yet another brilliant conceit for one of…
Rewriting history
If you don’t subscribe to every last detail of the LGBTQ+ agenda, then basically you are a Nazi. This was…
Let’s twist again
Imagine if you had the power always to tell whether or not someone was lying. You’d have it made, wouldn’t…
The Recruit might be the worst show on Netflix
The Top Gun series received generous support from the US Navy because it was such an effective recruitment tool. I…
Why I love a cliché
You’d have to pay me an awful lot more than I get for this column to review Monster: The Jeffrey…
Brought to book
You may already have read early reviews of Netflix’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion saying it’s ‘the worst adaptation ever’…
Has identity politics had its day?
Have we reached peak woke? In Hollywood, that seems to be the emerging consensus. Thanks to the box office success…
Kim Kardashian is a better role model than Marilyn Monroe
When Kim Kardashian wore Marilyn Monroe’s dress to the Met Gala recently – the shimmering, crystal-studded, second-skin gown in which…
On the offensive
Just how edgy and dangerous is Ricky Gervais? There is no one more edgy and dangerous, we learn from no…
Great Dane
Borgen star Sidse Babett Knudsen talks to Jasper Rees about why, after a break of ten years, the implausibly more-ish series is returning for a fourth season
Will anyone watch a Harry and Meghan Netflix docuseries?
Picture the convivial scene. You have been invited into the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s palatial £11 million mansion in…
The age of innocence
Netflix’s share price has collapsed and a major factor, people are saying, is its relentless pushing of agendas. I think…
My revised economic forecast: this sucker could go down
Anecdotes and statistics should never be confused, but let’s do just that to build a composite picture of today’s UK…
Weirder and weirder
The only impersonation I can do is my Jimmy Savile impersonation. This is not uncommon among people of my generation:…
