Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

As it's been Pride month I have been rewatching a few old favourites - so starting this month’s roundup with some suggestions:   Heated Rivalry -  award winning, classy, complex romance set in a toxic environment. Crafted as if it was a 6 hour movie, with fabulous writing, cinematography, soundtrack and performances which absolutely deliver on its carefully structured story arc. It chucks the traditional male gaze out the window in the beautifully shot intimate scenes, and if episode 5 doesn't have you standing on your sofa cheering, there is something wrong with you*.  You do need to put your phone away though, trust that the first few episodes are worth the later payoff, and properly watch, otherwise you will miss so many of the subtle layers (s eries, streaming on Sky/NowTV)   All of Us Strangers - A reworking of a Japanese novel, this atmospheric thriller/ghost story/romance explores grief and loneliness alongside all sorts of love between families and love...

Drum roll for the inaugural Chatterbox Film, TV  and Theatre awards 2022.  This is a really random selection and I  am sure I have forgotten some great stuff but these are the bits that have stuck in my memory.  You may be relieved I have forgotten some things, as this has turned out to be far too long, like every award ceremony you have ever seen.  May contain spoilers. Best TV Moment It was a good year for TV moments. The nominees are: Stranger Things: There were a lot of great moments in series 4.  I almost picked  Kate Bush saves Max, but really that's probably more a group of moments.  Or I could have picked one of the moments where poor Will has his romantic hopes dashed.  Instead though I have picked the iconic moment in the finale of series 4, with Eddie Munson's heroic playing of Metallica's Master of Puppets.  The game changer in the battle, sacrificing himself for his friends, and also spot on brand for the metalhead/ dun...

I spent lunchtime today in a cinema watching Aftersun and I feel dazed and dazzled in the way you can after too much time at the beach.   It’s a beautiful, intimate and visually stunning look back at a holiday Sophie had with her Dad in Turkey when she was 11.  There are coming of age moments certainly but overall this is a tender, if oblique, close-up of a parent though the lense of childhood, and a masterful first film from Charlotte Wells.  Paul Mescal does his semi-magical thing here, as in Normal People.  I didn’t love Sally Rooney’s book mainly because I struggled to get past Connell’s treatment of Marianne but I absolutely ‘got’ what Connell was about when I finally watched Mescal in the tv series.  Here, as Calum in Aftersun, he manages to be spectacular in his quiet portrayal of a man who is a loving, fun father but with largely unarticulated adult demons too.   The two leads have a wonderful, natural chemistry and the fragmented nature o...