Albums, Books, Movies, Things.

Howdy and welcome to another edition (or the first proper edition) of 'stuff that I have recently enjoyed'

For the last couple of years I've been meaning to read James Acaster's Perfect Sound Whatever, a book setting out why 2016 was the greatest year for music in history. I needed to start at the beginning of the year so that I can listen along with his one-album-a-day diet, and I managed to forget the last couple of Januaries. Let's go 2023! The album explanations (they're not really reviews, he deliberately doesn't give much personal input) are interspersed with Acaster's 2017, when he broke up with his girlfriend, was dropped by his agent, and ended up having a bit of a breakdown. The decision to restart this blog clearly has nothing to do with it.

And I reckon we'd be fast friends, to be honest. I know that everyone in the UK thinks that, but we'd get on really well. It's him, Colin Murray (I've already got my Fighting Talk episode all planned out), and Rylan. What a quartet we'd make.

And already PSW is helping to discover some great music, what comes next is effectively paraphrasing the book but still, hopefully there'll be some . Zeal & Ardor is the brainchild of Manuel Gagneux and 4chan. He used to ask the message board for genres to combine, and out of that came Z&A - a thought experiment based on what if American slaves had worshipped The Devil instead of Jesus. Their self-titled release from last year is particularly explosive. 40 Watt Sun went from writing one of 2011's best metal albums to atmospheric, brooding rock that almost tips toward folk. Unsurprisingly there was some discontentment among their existing fanbase, but sometimes we should fight our preconceptions.

Which brings me nicely to Emily Ratajkowski's series of essays that make up her critically acclaimed My Body. I didn't expect to find many parallels between Acaster and Ratajkowksi, but there are some between their absence of joy when it comes to success within their professional fields. Admittedly, Acaster's was exacerbated by other issues in his personal life and Ratajkowski's largely revolves around horrible people treating her horribly. I must admit, I was as guilty as some in the book when it comes to underestimating her, and I'm sorry for that.

One thing noticeably absent from my 2022 post are movies. At this point, it feels like it's been a few years since I've seriously invested time into films, instead mainly binge-watching almost endless TV crime dramas (and Gilmore Girls). So 2023 is going to be the year of the film (and book, and album, and football). Initially, I've been catching up with some releases from last year that I never got around to - and there are many. 

(There may be some spoilers below)

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is almost entirely set in a single hotel room. Daryl McCormack (who was also great in Apple TV's Bad Sisters) plays a sex worker, and Emma Thompson the woman hiring him (Nancy). The film runs through some bog standard criticisms of sex work (Nancy worries that "Maybe you're an orphan") but also delves beneath those surface-level arguments. 

If anything the film tries to fit too much in, it turns out Leo was shunned by his mother after she walked in on him and some friends when he was younger - a fact discovered after Nancy effectively doxxes him because she was reading too much into their relationship. Ignoring personal boundaries is an interesting angle, but Grande shouldn't need a backstory to be angry at someone breaking his rules. 

At times it's hard not to hear Thompson's lines delivered by Sharon Horgan ("Sometimes I wonder whether what you young men need is a war") but equally, it's hard to imagine this not being Emma Thompson. Her bold decision to show her body is genuinely striking in a world where we so rarely see real bodies. And in the end, the film is about dropping the shame around sex and personal pleasure.

Almost the other end of the spectrum is The Menu. A critique of the mega-rich and also bad movie stars? A troupe of foodies descends on the renowned chef, Julian Slowik's (Ralph Fiennes) island and restaurant. The casting is excellent with fellow Brits Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult being particular standouts. Hoult's character, Tyler, is a highlight given that he has prior knowledge of what happens on the island, and yet his behaviour doesn't seem to have been massively altered by it.

They brought in people who had worked on Chef's Table and that decision really does elevate things, with each dish being professionally staged in a way that wouldn't be out of place on Netflix. There were subtle changes from the initial script - the relationship between Tyler and his date in particular - and the film was stronger for it.

Next on the chopping block for me personally, Normal People (book) probably followed by Normal People (TV). And also to decide whether sitting through three hours of Babylon is going to be worth it.