Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

Mountainhead - I saw a preview screening, followed by Edith Bowman interviewing Jesse Armstrong the writer, producer and director, previously the creative genius behind Succession and Peep Show .  This is a very funny but bleak look at what could happen if Techbro billionaires  are allowed to do whatever they want.  Super alpha male, full of their own importance and genius, the world almost literally at their feet, we spend a weekend with them in a mountain retreat while the world burns due to a new social media launch which sends fake content rolling around the world.  These guys think they have the solutions but are only interested if it will actually benefit them personally, and because of their playground level of rivalry things escalate badly. The title is obviously a play on Fountainhead, the novel which champions the rights of individual genius against the needs of the ordinary people in the world (It’s recommended by Robbie the selfish asshole in Dirty Danc...

I was mainly watching TV this month, although there were a few films here and there that caught my attention. The Change - series 2 (streaming C4). Continues on from exactly where we left everyone in series 1. There’s a bit of a magical realism feel about this comedy where Linda (Bridget Christie) leaves her husband and children to take some time back in repayment for all of her unpaid and unappreciated work as a woman, wife and mother over the years.  Menopausal and pissed off, she ends up living in a small backwater in a caravan in the woods.  But she clearly still loves her husband (played subtly to pack the character with subtle unsubtlety by Omid Djalili) and although she finds a male friend he’s not a romantic interest which I love too. Riffing off of Christie's comic fury about the way women are treated, particularly as they get older, it’s also properly funny whilst being a bit misty eyed about the cycle of life too. I also get a bit of a Detectorists vibe from it thro...

This isn't everything I watched last year, but I wanted to call out some of the things that have stuck with me in different ways.  There might be minor spoilers but I have tried to avoid giving away any big plot secrets  The Woman in the Wall A gripping thriller with Ruth Wilson and Daryl McCormack set in Ireland and digging into the horrors of the Irish laundries scandal and the ongoing impact.  I will watch pretty much anything with Ruth Wilson and as Lorna she plays a woman who has lost a child in the system and has never recovered.  The layers of secrets still being held in the community, and the tensions and secret kindnesses are beautifully drawn. The blurring of the lines between delusion and reality are played so cleverly, partly for keeping us on our toes about what is really happening, and then also to mirror the delusions vs reality that still exist within families, friends and the wider community. Makes for an addictive narrative too.  And there is a...