Movies

Tora-san Our Lovable Tramp (1969) Originally titled It's Tough Being a Man. First installment of the decades-long 48 film Tora-san series, a Japanese treatment of the Cantinflas/Norman Wisdom character - a lower-class boob who skewers the foibles of the upper class, gets drunk and ruins everything, gets in fights with the neighbors, wrecks his sister's marriage prospects, falls in love with a woman hopelessly out of his league and weeps bitter tears in his loneliness. Considerably more realist and sentimental than the Mexican and British equivalents, with a touch of genuine tragedy in his continuous social disasters. Glad I finally saw a Tora-san movie after wanting to for thirty years or so since I first heard of them, but I don't feel the need to keep seeing more. A part of my cultural education. 7/10

Spice World (1997) The Spice Girls movie. There's this big show and it looks like they might not make it there in time! And there are these guys! And stuff happens, and they sing some songs and stuff! Before I saw this I didn't know anything about the Spice Girls, not even what their hit songs were or which girl was which and how they differed from each other. I just thought they were a sort of slightly more skilled Bananarama which shows you when I stopped paying attention. Now I have seen this movie. Fairly entertaining at times. Now I am wondering, having seen an '80s one (Can't Stop the Music) and a '90s one (this) what the 00's one of these is going to be that I will have to see. I hope it's not Hannah Montana. 6/10