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TV preview When only a bird’s-eye view of breaking news will do
chopper as well as outside, means there is no shortage of footage with which to tell the story. You may have seen some of it before (notably in a couple of 1996 episodes of Police Camera Action!) but not all, and not in such detail.
There are contemporary interviews too, with the couple, their family, and those who worked with them.
Just as fascinating as watching the progress of the couple’s marriage is seeing how television news changed, particularly in the US. The desperate desire to
be first on scene and capture a story live meant running up against ethical boundaries. In the riots that followed the acquittal of the police officers who beat up Rodney King, for instance, should Tur and the rest of the helicopter pack have tried to somehow help the victims of carjackings and assaults instead of just filming the attacks?
Tur, as we see, had a tendency to put himself into a story as well as observe it from the air. The film also asks what a diet of constantly breaking news, most of it on crime, does to a society.
It makes for a thrilling 90 minutes, even if the film does rush the ending and leaves several questions spinning through the air. Fellow news junkies queue here.
I knew I was in trouble when I thought about watching
for the third time. You know what it’s like. It has been another long lockdown week, you want something light, amusing, uncomplicated, where there is no such thing as a plot to follow.
Readers, I have found it.
is the name and there are five seasons of it. Apparently a sixth and final one is out there somewhere as well.
The Netflix blurb describes it as set in a megastore in St Louis where “a group of employees with larger-than-life personalities put up with customers, day-today duties and each other”, but don’t let that put you off.
It’s no Frasier (what is?), or Schitt’s Creek, but it is home to a large cast of solid characters (my favourite has to be Dina, the assistant manager/drill sergeant), sharp writing, and it’s great to see a shop again. Any shop.
The Repair Shop continues its bid for TV domination with new DIY show
It is another show based on repeats, in this case excerpts from the likes of Money for Nothing, Real Rooms and Gardeners’ World. In Monday’s show, for instance, viewers are shown how to bring a tired chest of drawers back to life, make a herb garden, and upholster a box to create an ottoman. Jay and Dom have tips of their own, and in each episode set themselves a challenge, such as making shelving.
Although viewers are assured all the tasks are achievable some seem to require more skills, and tools, than others.
My toolbox, the contents of which amount to an assortment of rusty screwdrivers and a hammer, would be no match for that bookcase made out of scaffolding poles. Think I’m going to need a bigger toolbox.
The Crew (Netflix, from Mon)
Comedy and cars come together in this new series. Kevin James stars as a crew chief for the fictional NASCAR-based Bobby Spencer Racing Team. It’s a happy, settled and blokey place to be – until the owner steps down and hands the reins over to his daughter Catherine. She has big plans to modernise the team, and James feels it’s his responsibility to put her off in a bid to protect himself and his colleagues.
However, Catherine isn’t one to give up without a fight, so she brings in a bunch of millennials who rely on tech rather than instinct – cue lots of arguments between the old school workers and the Moneyballinspired newcomers. Jillian Mueller, Freddie Stroma and Sarah Stiles are among the supporting cast.
Animals on the Loose: A You vs Wild Movie (Netflix, from Tue)
The regular You vs Wild series has been a hit for Netflix, although not easy to film. It’s interactive, giving viewers a chance to make Bear Grylls squirm by choosing tricky predicaments for him to get out of while exploring harsh environments. Perhaps the difficulties and time involved prompted the programme’s makers to shy away from another run and instead throw all their resources behind a movie version.
The result is this 90-minute feature that the whole family can enjoy. It begins after the protective fence surrounding a wildlife sanctuary has been breached, allowing the animals to escape. Grylls must fix the fence as well as rescue a mischievous baboon and a hungry lion – and he needs the help of those watching at home to do so.
I Care A Lot (Amazon Prime, from Fri)
Rosamund Pike first made her mark on the big screen as a Bond villain in Die Another Day, but it was her
Oscar-nominated role as nasty, manipulative Amy Dunne in Gone Girl that really sealed her reputation as an actor of note. Amy appeared to be all sweetness and light in public, but a nightmare in private. Pike is treading a similar path in this black comedy thriller. She plays Marla Grayson, who outwardly appears to be a kind and caring soul who puts the needs of others before her own. However, she’s really a high-class con artist who persuades judges to appoint her as the legal guardian of lonely pensioners before using her position to steal their money.
However, she could be in for a rude awakening when one of her charges turns out to have links to the mob. Peter Dinklage and Dianne Wiest are among the supporting cast.
For All Mankind (Apple TV+, from Fri)
A must for sci-fi fans, the opening series was one of the first shows to appear on Apple TV+ when it made its debut in November 2019. It was recommissioned for a second run before any episodes had been made available, and we already know that a third is on its way. For the uninitiated, it takes an alternative look at history, in which the Soviet Union landed a manned crew on the Moon before the US. The new run picks up a decade after the events of its predecessor. It’s now 1983, Ronald Reagan is the American President and the Cold War continues to rage. Any hopes of further space exploration are threatened by the need of the superpowers to secure the rights to control sites rich in resources on the Moon.
THESE days, what with digital technology and podcasting, anyone can have their own radio show. I’m pleased that Edwyn Collins and Grace Maxwell now have theirs.
The former Orange Juice frontman and wife Grace made their sweetly shambolic debut last Monday on Boogaloo Radio – “the world’s first 24hr radio station broadcasting from a pub,” it says on the website (boogalooradio.com). Actually, in their case, they were playing tunes not from the beer garden of said
London pub but from their home in Helmsdale.
Most of the musical choices were Edwyn’s. The result was a mostly comfortingly familiar selection of Bowie and Iggy Pop and The Animals.
Music from the 1980s, which makes up so much of music on radio stations even now, was noticeable for its absence. That was clearly a deliberate choice. “I like sixties,” Edwyn said at one point. “Seventies are cool. But eighties … Hmm … Apart from Orange Juice, of course.”
Really, though, what made the programme was the cajoling, joshing back and forth between husband and wife. Grace has long been Edwyn’s enabler since he suffered a stroke and two brain haemorrhages back in 2006 and she does a fine balancing act here between stepping in to finish a link and stepping back to give Edwyn room to finish his thoughts when the words won’t come due to his dysphasia. What they sound like during the links is an old married couple, bickering and teasing each other while remembering times past, both of them obviously still in love with music and each other.
Fresh from the pages of The Herald Magazine (see page 50), Jackie Kay talks about her love of Bessie Smith.
TEDDY JAMIESON
WE ARE THE BEST!
Channel 4, Friday, 1.05am
YOU may need to set the recorder for this Friday late-night offering, but it’s an absolute gem so well worth the effort. Directed by Swedish auteur Lukas Moodysson, it’s set in Stockholm in 1982 and covers a few months in the lives of 13-year-old friends Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin), school outcasts whose love for punk rock has made them a laughingstock among classmates who lean more towards the Human League or heavy metal. It’s based on the graphic novel Never Goodnight by Moodysson’s wife Coco, which charts her own background as a young punk in 1980s Sweden.
When local rock group Iron Fist are rude to them at the local youth club, Klara and Bobo demand they be given a chance to use the club’s equipment and so a band is born. The girls can’t play (“Does it use chords?” Bobo asks as she peers at the drum kit) and they only ever manage to write one song (Hate The Sport!, with the winning line: “People are in the morgue/ You’re watching Bjorn Borg”). But as anyone who has ever been in a band knows, it’s the coming together to make an unholy racket that really counts. And boy, do Bobo and Klara make a racket.
Things take a turn for the vaguely competent when they hook up with another outcast, demure Christian girl Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne), who just happens to be a whizz on the guitar. Soon their drums and bass combo has a lead guitarist and a place on the bill at Santa Rocks, a music competition to be held in nearby Vasteras. Think School Of Rock, then don’t, then think instead of that scene in The Blues Brothers where the boys perform behind chicken wire for a bunch of beer bottlethrowing rednecks. But worse.
In keeping with its subject