I found myself re-reading Elizabeth Taylor this week ... dank mists, rain on laurels, bronze chrysanthemums in slimy water ... it seemed like heaven. I'm so not a summer person; I'd like to be - but I'm the one wilting and sighing, 'I'm too hooottttt.'
So I've been reading in cold baths and hiding away in air-conditioned cinemas as even sun-worshipping friends are admitting they've had enough.  But oh, no! Mamma Mia 2 ... what a disappointment! Only 3* from me. Clearly, they'd used up all the best songs in the first film - and now Meryl Streep has died (but how? strangled by a giant Greek squid? I needed to know!) and Cher, three years older in real life, plays her mother. I know we're supposed to be impressed by Cher but all I could think was that her mortician/embalmer deserves an Oscar. And this time it's not even filmed in Greece which is a bit cheeky given that they're virtue-signalling over the economic plight of Greek fishermen.
It all fell a bit flat. Actually, far and away the best bit was the dopey young intern from W1A  - sorry, can't be bothered googling his name - who has all the gauche, twitchy mannerisms of a young Colin Firth.

Unfortunately, I can't get the music out of my head - and for days now life has been conducted to a soundtrack of ABBA. Which seems to fit every domestic scenario:

Look into his angel eyes
I hope that these scones will rise
Bu-ut - they're not nice - if they taste of - baaaking powder ...

I am available to write the lyrics of Mamma Mia 3. For a fee.



I went to this on my own, knowing very little about it - and honestly, there's no point phoning a friend on a sunny evening to say, 'Fancy a low-budget movie about Jehovah's Witnesses in Manchester?'
It turned out to be one of the best films I've seen all year. Brilliant acting - so real it's almost like a documentary - and absolutely gripping. (Despite the desperately uncomfortable seats at the BFI.) It's about a mother and two daughters, torn apart when one sister refuses a blood transfusion and the other tries to escape from the sect and is shunned. Their lives - especially as a low-status, single-parent family of females - are completely controlled by the Elders, men in cheap suits who in any other walk of life would be utterly insignificant.  It's heartbreaking - fascinating - sympathetic - and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. The director is a former-Witness and his mother has refused even to watch the trailer for his film.
At the end of the film, they asked if there were any former-Witnesses in the audience. I thought perhaps a dozen people would raise their hands - but it was more like half the cinema.
5* from me. Brilliant reviews everywhere. Still haven't convinced anyone else to go!