owen-watts

Rian Johnson's Knives Out was a bit of a phenomenon, but the cozy whodunnit craze is now a few decades in and despite containing some sharp insights and some solid performances it has aged quickly and now looks a bit cartoonish and baggy. That being said, I hugely enjoyed it when I first saw it and the hooting ensemble do make it ... well, fun. It's fun to watch and it's that charismatic twinkle and the little cynical social jabs you can make within it that makes the genre so damned survivable. Compels me though.

A bold reboot of the ancient horrordog franchise within the 90s, now remembered fondly by many folk including my Scoobfan partner. For the unconverted it at least offers a fairly smart update of the lore and some genuinely great animation, despite a cheesy 90s alt rock soundtrack. Billy West does a creditable Casey Kasem despite the fact that we should've rightly had a tofu-munching return to form alongside the ancient-sounding Fred. The hard steer into genre during this is a wild set of choices, and I now too remember this fondly. If not because shortly after watching it my child took to calling the titular mutt "Scooby Duude"

My partner is a dedicated follower of Brightman and this concert, filmed in Florida in the millennium, is a fair display of her formidable talents and her limitations too. When doing her kind of pick 'n mix of opera hits, sometimes on wires, sometimes balanced on an enormous prop, she is spellbinding and her voice enormous. When covering pop songs with them same high bright tones, earnest enunciation and expressive hands, it all feels a bit silly but she is consistently likeable throughout. She is palpably overjoyed to be there which is very endearing. Covering the entire endeavour there is also the indefinable nostalgic waft of 90s sombre insurance adverts. It's Allied DunbarCore. It's Post-Scottish Widows.