Amazon Prime
Why did C.J. Sansom approve this moronic Disney+ Shardlake adaptation?
What would C.J. Sansom have made of the Disney+ version of his novel series about 16th-century crookback lawyer Matthew Shardlake?…
Why I’m addicted to Australian MasterChef
Why is Australian MasterChef so much better than the English version? You’d think, with a population less than a third…
Will you be able to get through the ponderous aphorisms without giggling? The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power reviewed
Amazon’s much-heralded Tolkien prequel The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power began by answering a question that has…
Fascinating but flat: Amazon Prime's Thirteen Lives reviewed
About ten minutes in to Thirteen Lives, Boy came in and asked me whether it was any good. I said:…
A thrilling, pacy, well-acted drama: Amazon Prime's The Terminal List reviewed
‘The Terminal List is… a dated and drably made eight-part military thriller that offers little intrigue or excitement,’ says the…
Lacks the bite and bracing malevolence of Call My Agent!: Amazon's Ten Percent reviewed
In theory, it should be a perfect match. John Morton – the man behind the brilliantly assured sitcom W1A which…
Amusing and entertaining – though not very taxing: Amazon Prime's Reacher reviewed
Jack Reacher is back on the screen and aficionados of the hugely successful Lee Child airport thrillers in which he…
Even worse than the book: Amazon Prime's The Wheel of Time reviewed
A couple of years ago, in that near-forgotten era when we could travel almost freely, I canvassed social media as…
Delivers in spades: The Many Saints of Newark reviewed
So how exactly did Tony Soprano become a New Jersey mob boss? It’s 1967 and young Anthony is struggling to…
First-rate TV: Clarkson's Farm on Amazon Prime reviewed
I was at a party the other day when who should accost me but Jeremy Clarkson. There were lots more…
Quietly radiates a wholly justified confidence: BBC 1’s The Pact reviewed
There was certainly no lack of variety among new TV dramas this week, with a standard British thriller up against…
Horrible – but in a very fun way: I Care a Lot reviewed
I Care a Lot is a deliciously dark comic thriller that You’ll Enjoy a Lot. It’s heartless. It’s vicious. It’s…
Even I, a bitter and cynical middle-aged woman, felt stirred: Sylvie’s Love reviewed
Sylvie’s Love is an exquisitely styled, swooning, old-school, period Hollywood romance and while it has been described as ‘glib’ in…
Sick, puerile, inappropriate and delicious: Amazon Prime's The Boys reviewed
There’s a delicious scene in the new season of Amazon’s superheroes-gone-bad series The Boys. The chief superhero Homelander (Antony Starr)…
A sadistic delight: World’s Toughest Race – Eco-Challenge Fiji reviewed
Few things better capture the crazed cognitive dissonance of our age than this: that while we cower behind masks for…
Worth catching the virus for: Saint Frances reviewed
Two films about young women this week, one at the cinema, if you dare, and one to stream, if you…
Dysfunctional music for dysfunctional people: The Public Image is Rotten reviewed
A star is born, but instead of emerging into the world beaming for the cameras, he spits and snarls and…
The best Macbeths to watch online
The world’s greatest playwright ought to be dynamite at the movies. But it’s notoriously hard to turn a profit from…
Joyous and very, very funny: Beastie Boys Story reviewed
The music of the Beastie Boys was entirely an expression of their personalities, a chance to delightedly splurge out on…
Taylor Swift is fascinating – but you really wouldn't want to be her
There had been some question about whether Taylor Swift’s Netflix special would actually appear. Last year it seemed that the…
Gloriously macho: Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan reviewed
This week’s guilty pleasure is Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime). It’s trash, of course, but very well done, high-octane,…
There are things we don’t mind paying for – and things we do
Here’s a challenge for film buffs: can anyone remember, from the entire canon of cinema and television, a single scene…
