Stuff Sampler: Hell is Harry Potter's unending universe
OPINION: I have seen purgatory - and it's Harry Potter-shaped.
It is an unending stream of films from the Potterverse, each successive one managing to feel less substantial than the last, and each one offering only more questions with a few morsels of answers, aimed at ensuring you return to the franchise because, FOMO.
Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes of Grindelwald will have opened by the time you read this - I've been asked to comply and #ProtectTheSecrets.
But in truth, the secrets, this time around, are less impressive and I reckon the marketing is aimed at hiding the one truly horrific secret - the latest film from JK Rowling's pen isn't very good.
It gets worse - this is only the second film of five derived from what was a spinoff book that was more journal than densely plotted novel.
The problem with Fantastic Beasts 2: The Maddening (not its actual title) is that it gets tied up in its own world, starts talking only to its own and not the average Muggle who's not that keen on every throwback; it presents a case for not continuing a franchise that's more about satiating the masses than really creating something for cinematic eternity.
Character arcs feel unformed with one twist feeling unearned and emotionally underwhelming, demanding you appreciate them because you met them in the last film, rather than for their own journey. And for a film whose subtitle is The Crimes of Grindelwald, Grindelwald himself carries out scant crimes - although given the uproar of Johnny Depp's casting as the veiled Trumpian baddie, some may strongly disagree.
Depressingly, it won't matter.
Box office will be big and masses will flock to it, sitting in their seats clutching their wands, and Expecto Patronuming their popcorn away, excited at more to come.
But in truth, Fantastic Beasts needs to deliver more of a case for being fantastic - and less of an ill-conceived thinly-veiled cash grab to extend a dying franchise.
Elsewhere, nine seasons in, The Walking Dead (TVNZ OnDemand) shambles on after its lead Rick Grimes has left. The latest episode's not a major rallying cry, but it's intriguing enough to see where the series may go next, after departing from comic canon.
And talking of departing leads, Robert Redford's apparent (but maybe not) cinematic swansong The Old Man And the Gun is a rolling true-life gentle cat-and-mouse tale worth catching.
And if you have a moment this weekend ...
It's BBQ season, and in truth, all the cookbooks in the world can't teach you how best to slightly overburn that food.
Thankfully, the world's gifted us the internet for learning, so our eyes don't have to suffer through complete sentences et al. A cursory search of "How to BBQ" brings up a myriad of options, but none better than Kitchen Alpha's rather bizarre attempt at explaining how a charcoal grill works.
Sure, it's a nod to our caveman ways to burn stuff for food, but the precision in A Beginners Guide to Using a Charcoal Grill from the wondrously accented Kitchen Alpha himself defies logic, and makes you wonder what people have for common sense. Still, it's had half-a-million views alone, so it must be doing something right. And always remember, safety first.
I'M WITH THE BAND
OPINION: Audiences have not been in tune with the critics when it comes to Queen bio-pic Bohemian Rhapsody. While the pros consigned it to Tin Pan Alley, the fans have been singing its praises.
It seems to have given folks an ear, and an eye, for more musical films. Look no further, we'll chime in with some of the best here. (You might have to press play on your iTunes account for some of these, but the results will be music to your ears.)
Break on through to the other side with The Doors, if not for the music, then for Val Kilmer's astounding impersonation of the Lizard King himself, Jim Morrison. For a similarly harmonious performance, try Love & Mercy for Paul Dano's pitch perfect young Brian Wilson, and the Oscar winning perfection of Angela Basset as Tina Turner in the outstanding What's Love Got To Do With It? And if you don't mind a star marching to the beat of her own drum, there's always Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in the bizarre I'm Not There.
Lovers of Country and Western (that's everyone, right?) should dig out Oscar winning Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter, Joaquin Phoenix as The Man In Black in Walk The Line, and Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams in I Saw The Light.
For more urban tastes, Eminem's 8 Mile - now on Netflix, the NWA story Straight Outta Compton, or punk classic Sid and Nancy might strike the right note.
For those less trebled by fictional accounts, there are documentaries galore. Netflix has a sound trio in Gaga: Five Foot Two, which follows the diva in the run up to her Super Bowl Half Time Show; Quincy, which gets you up-close and personal with the legendary producer; and Amy, and intimate portrait of the late Amy Winehouse. - KYLIE KLEIN NIXON
WHEN IT'S BETTER THE SECOND TIME ROUND
Podcast sequels keep audiences coming back, but they're also a great way of attracting new listeners: the success of the first one draws you in, and then you can binge on all the seasons that went before.
A classic example of this is My Dad Wrote a Porno, a true podcast success story now in its fourth season. This UK pod is presented by comedian Jamie Morton who discovered that many years ago his dad wrote a sexy book. The format is simple: in each episode Morton reads a chapter of the book aloud and with the help of two comedian friends, much hilarity ensues. You'll laugh and snort and thank your lucky stars you listened. It's been downloaded more than 100 million times and just keeps getting better.
If you are trying to get over something, then humorous Canadian Jonathan Goldstein and the Heavyweight team might be more your speed. Each episode focuses on a seminal moment in an individual's life, one they can't seem to get past. There's Skye, whose primary school friends wrote an expletive on her garage door and never talked to her again. Now, 30 years on and with a son in primary school, Skye and Goldstein set off to find out why they did it.
Rather than being sad or heavy, the episodes are personal, comic and heartwarming. Series three is out now and it's the best yet.
Gritty, historical drama Crimetown is into its second season and the producers who made TV show, The Jinx do not disappoint. Season one examined mob violence and council corruption in the US town of Providence, Rhode Island. Season two heads to Detroit, beginning in the 1970s with a series of police shootings. This gripping pod is exclusive to Spotify. - KATY ATKIN
WHAT TO READ
Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking
John Murray, $34.99
We all get our thrills in different ways: drugs, alcohol, promiscuous sex. I get mine by reading popular physics books. You might be familiar with what I call the "physics high". Think hard enough about questions such as "where did the universe come from?", "what existed before it?" or "what is time?" and your brain will do a sort of spasming double take. Human beings just weren't built to get their heads around this stuff. Who needs drugs when you have the wonders of science?
Stephen Hawking, who died in March, made his name with the best, most mind-bending sort of physics: black holes, time travel, the origins of the universe. In this new book he tackles questions such as "how did it all begin?", "what is inside a black hole?" and "is time travel possible?"
Other chapters deal with well-trodden topics such as artificial intelligence, overpopulation and climate change. Fortunately, this slightly hoary stuff is livened up by Hawking's alarming pessimism: "I regard it as almost inevitable that either a nuclear confrontation or environmental catastrophe will cripple the Earth at some point in the next 1000 years."
So that's the bad news. The good news is that Hawking has an escape plan; we need to prepare to abandon our planet and find somewhere new to live. He sets out some surprisingly concrete goals: "We can make interstellar travel a long-term aim - in the next 200 to 500 years." With our present technology, it would take three million years to reach the nearest star system. But if we could drive spaceships with a powerful beam of light, we could travel fast enough to make interstellar journeys a possibility.
Life on Earth developed pretty quickly - only 500 million years after the planet finally cooled down and became stable. Even if it had taken seven billion years for life to get going, there would still be plenty of time to develop complex animals like you and me. Hawking asks rhetorically: "If the probability of life developing on a given planet is very small, why did it happen on Earth in about one-fourteenth of the time available?" That means there's a "good chance" life will develop in the right conditions.
Hawking's most exciting chapter is "how did it all begin?" Why is there something rather than nothing? What was there before there was something? Where did the something come from? Take some time now to think about it properly. I mean really think about it. I guarantee you'll feel a bit sick. But in a good way.
You're probably familiar with the big bang theory, which states that the universe exploded outwards from a single, tiny point. The really interesting question is where did that minuscule point of incredibly dense matter come from? Surely, things don't just pop into existence? Well, they don't, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity. However, that theory breaks down when you try to describe very small objects - for this stuff you need the zany-seeming science of quantum mechanics.
According to quantum mechanics, particles such as protons really can just start existing out of nowhere. And that means, Hawking says, that "the universe itself, in all its mind-boggling vastness and complexity, could simply have popped into existence without violating the known laws of nature". Before that, there was probably nothing: no time, no space, not even primordial darkness. Literally nothing existed. If you want to reach beyond that for some sort of ultimate cause, Hawking explains that the beginning of the universe has no cause "because there was no time for a cause to exist in". Ahhhhhg!
Of course, there's lots we don't know about the origin of the universe, but it strikes me that we're privileged to live in an age where we can have such a good stab at an answer. In another era, emperors would have paid vast fortunes to know these mysteries. You can find out for pounds 14.99. Hawking's slim book is a good introduction - but there's not an awful lot of detail. To some this will be a blessing; to those left craving more I'd recommend Carlo Rovelli's Reality Is Not What It Seems and Marcus Chown's The Ascent of Gravity. If that doesn't satisfy you, perhaps you should go farther than I've ever gone and start looking up PhD courses. It's time to get high on physics. - JAMES MARRIOTT FOR THE TIMES OF LONDON
WOMEN DOING IT BY THEMSELVES
The poignancy of Helen Reddy's 1970s classic and feminist anthem I Am Woman seems to have been lost on an industry that largely sees female artists as a means of making a quick dollar.
Few women have gone on to become legacy artists, signed, sealed and still delivered by multi-national companies.
One exception is, actress, singer and activist, Barbra Streisand, who, in her sixth decade of making music, still knows how to put the goose into goose bumps on her latest album Walls. It's worth a gander, particularly the single Don't Lie To Me. Among her many career highlights, Streisand, played Esther to Kris Kristofferson's John in the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born.
Neo-soul darling Macy Gray, delivered the sales with her first two albums, On How Life Is and The Id, with her unique rasp best characterised on the global hit I Try. On her 10th album Ruby, released through boutique label Mack Avenue, she is just as introspective as she has ever been about life's big questions, though the licorice allsorts of musical styles doesn't consistently hit the mark.
Likewise with Eddi Reader's 12th album Cavalier. After a stellar, but short-lived, rise as the singer with Fairground Attraction (remember Perfect), her socially and politically charged solo career has been in a state of flux. There's some lovely renditions of tradition folk songs that suit Reader's gorgeous Scottish lilt but the title track and doo-wop of Starlight spoil the atmosphere.
Someone whose reputation has been built on her own terms is Kristin Hersh — the original muse with Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses. Possible Dust Clouds, her 11th solo album, is self-described as anti-social but, as with most of her work, Hersh can somehow manage to make the off-kilter seems charming, terrifying and intoxicating all at the same time. - MIKE ALEXANDER
WHAT TO WATCH
Best known for comedic roles in the likes of Zoolander, Meet the Parents and There's Something About Mary, Ben Stiller has also carved out a solid career as a director during the past two decades.
Starting with Generation X favourite Reality Bites, Stiller was also behind the camera on such popular fare as Tropic Thunder, The Cable Guy and the 2013 remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. But now he's attempting something far more ambitious, a seven-hour drama focused around the 2015 prison break at the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York.
While the premise, with its illicit liaisons, corruption and close calls, evokes memories of the much-maligned noughties action series Prison Break, Escape at Dannemora (Mondays, 8.30pm, SoHo and available to stream on Neon) has far more in common with the TV version of Fargo and last summer's cinematic sensation Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. This is a dramatic world populated by intriguing, complicated characters with muddy motivations and potentially fatal flaws.
At the heart of the story is Tilly Mitchell (Patricia Arquette). In charge of the facility's clothing manufacturing operation, she is known for "having a way of getting the best work" out of the inmates. However, her husband, who also works there, seems to be the only one who doesn't know that also appears to involve getting hands-on with her assistant David Sweat (Paul Dano).
Unhelpfully for her, Sweat also happens to be mate with "the king of the yard" Richard Matt (Benicio Del Toro), who has a number of different operations running that ensures he has all the contraband goods he needs to make his stay comfortable. That includes a cosy business relationship with guard Gene Palmer (David Morse), who ensures there are no problems, in return (at least this time around) for the use of Matt's impressive artistic skills.
Aided by Ray Donovan screenwriters Brett Johnson and Michael Tolkin, Stiller skilfully spends the first episode putting all the chess pieces into play with an opening that has Mitchell being interrogated about the escape by the state's inspector general Catherine Scott (Bonnie Hunt).
"Am I going to lose my job?" Mitchell asks. "Should you?" is the no-nonsense reply.
Thematically appropriate period tracks (LunchMoney Lewis' Bills, the Jessie J-led Bang Bang) pepper the soundtrack, while the impressive ensemble cast draw you into this stylish and absorbing tale. Expect to be hooked. - JAMES CROOT
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