The Rest is Entertainment, The Last Video Store + the year in review, the photo edit
I went for quiiite a while, but I'm back reading (actually, not reading), listening, watching and cooking.
I’m back! I took a (much) longer break than expected for entirely undramatic reasons. (Life? Picking things up off the floor? Folding washing?) Subscribers formerly known as paid subscribers will know that I turned off paid subscriptions in Feb and had to take a break to work on some other projects. So no more paids! Just free, infrequent, newsletters. I’m feeling easy-breezy about it.
Let’s get in.
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To a podcast
I’ve been loving The Rest is Entertainment podcast by English writer and columnist Marina Hyde and TV host/producer and author Richard Osman. Part of the ‘Rest is’ family (The Rest is History, The Rest is Politics, etc), the podcast features inside baseball commentary from two connected British pop culture players. Hyde writes a weekly Guardian column, and is known for her insightful and cutting writing, and Osman is mad-keen for TV in all its forms and is the writer of the seriously popular Thursday Murder Club books. The pair banter merrily and pull back the curtain on how TV shows are written/quiz shows are judged/books are promoted, and loads more. And if you’re a fan of the Thursday Murder Club book and sequels, tune in for Osman’s insights into how the movie is progressing. The recent cast member announcement was made on the podcast.
The show covers current events, so if you don’t feel like going back and listening to the back catalogue, don’t. Jump in on their latest episode. The Tuesday releases cover timely topics and in the Thursday episodes they answer questions from the listenership about how “entertainment” is made.
To another podcast
Comedian and podcaster Alexei Toliopoulos is always such good value. On past projects he’s teamed up with Cameron James, but with The Last Video Store (presented by The Betoota Advocate) he’s solo, and so good.
Toliopoulos invites guests into his ‘video store’ and gets them to pick a new release and two weeklies. He then gives the guest a movie recommendation, based on their tastes, aka ‘a staff pick’. His film knowledge, charisma, and genuine interest in his guests combines to make The Last Video Store a unique, inclusive and uplifting offering.
You MUST listen to episode three with Polly Bennett who was the choreographer for Saltburn, and the movement coach for Elvis (plus loads more). It’s a supremely entertaining chat – the way she got Austin Butler to think about the way he moved his body as Elvis = fascinating.
I also really enjoyed Miranda Tapsell’s ep (episode 10) – she chats about a bunch of romantic comedies, and reveals that there will be a sequel TV version of Top End Wedding on small screens sometime soonish. Troy Cassar-Daley’s episode (number 15) is an excellent one too – he speaks really movingly about his relationship with his mum, particularly in relation to one of his picks: The Color Purple. And chuck the George Miller, Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth one a listen too (ep 16), because it’s fun to hear big stars answer thoughtful questions.
To a longish-read
Disconnection, explains the doctor, involves whipping the whole colon out – here he mimes pulling a rabbit from a hat – and diverting my digestion through a hole in my abdomen called a stoma. He sketches my new anatomy on a piece of paper, quick as a high-street caricaturist. He cannot imagine what it is like to receive this news – to hear your body will change for ever and with it your whole life too – just as I cannot imagine what it is to break it. I want to grab his hand, ask him how. How does a body give birth to a healthy baby and then burst into flames?
I gobbled this one up as I sat beside my sleeping daughter in the phone-lit peace of post-bedtime, and immediately text it around. It’s a stayer. In ‘I felt myself split into before and after’: how giving birth triggered a life-changing illness’, Lauren Bensted writes in The Guardian about her experience of giving birth and then immediately being thrown into a painful extended hospital stay that changed her day-to-day life forever. The piece is very clear-sighted about the banishment of shame (“I had planned to tell only those closest to me about my stoma. But at some point I realise that discretion’s closest relative is shame and cannot stop talking.”), and is pierced with beams of hope amidst the uncertainty of ill health.
To a TV show
About five years after everyone else, I recently ripped through Morning Wars (Apple TV). You’ve probably seen it so I won’t do a big synopsis. Briefly, it’s about the on- and off-screen drama surrounding a TV morning show (in fact it was called The Morning Show in every other territory except Australia and Indonesia). Jennifer Aniston and Reece Witherspoon are really great in it. The first season, especially, was incredibly gripping. The storyline won’t stick in my mind, but it’s what I needed at the time: popcorn. There are three seasons, and the fourth is expected to be released in 2025.
To a movie
I love seeing that Caroline O’Donoghue has featured something on Sentimental Garbage and then going and consuming said thing and then listening to her talk about it with a fun guest. I did this with Under the Tuscan Sun this past fortnight. I listened to the first twenty minutes of the episode, skipped off and watched the movie (over two separate Saturday nights – gawd) and then listened to O’Donoghue and Jen Cownie chit chat about it from their holiday in Tuscany. Bellissimo.
I think I must have seen it when it came out? But it was 2003 (the year I finished school) so maybe I missed it? (Not because I was studying hard – I wasn’t – but because it feels like a movie made for women my age now, not 17.)
The movie follows writer and critic Frances (Diane Lane) as she gets outta San Fran following her divorce and lands in Italy on a holiday gifted to her by her best friend, Patti (wonderfully played by Sandra Oh). Frances decides to stay and embarks on a huge renovation of an old villa, while she also works on an exploration of herself and her capabilities. She has flings, makes friends, and builds a community and life for herself away from everything she used to know – a good life.
It’s hopeful, a bit silly, and visually, very beautiful. Watch it and then take a listen to O’Donoghue and Cownie get emotional about it (and cross about the ending). What a treat. You can find Under the Tuscan Sun on Disney, or buy/rent it on v.o.d.
The last few months
I have barely read a book (that wasn’t for work) the whole year, but I have …
… made this sausage casserole from Recipe Tin Eats that looks … exactly like the photo in the book?
Until next time! Rach
So happy you’re back. Many bits that resonate for me. I too love to read Marina Hyde in the Guardian and have read and enjoyed Richard Osman’s “Thursday Murder Club” books. Plus, I’ve just come back from a trip to Italy, much of it spent in Tuscany and couldn’t help myself watching “Under the Tuscan Sun” on the flight home when I saw it on the inflight list. It’s sentimental and all of that but so what! Xxxxx