Ian Fleming and the Curse of James Bond; Wrestling With Trump; Off Campus

“Watch Ian Fleming and the Curse of James Bond (Sky Arts) — for anyone who loves Bond it’s a must — and it’s clear that when it comes to cosmopolitan cool, still no one does it better. See Sean Connery’s Bond laconically order down his hotel room telephone, “Green figs. Yoghurt. Coffee, very black,” and you don’t just immediately want to imitate him saying it, you want to book a trip to Istanbul and order that very breakfast. While others struggle with the impossible task of dreaming up a way for Bond to be relevant in the 2020s, this alluring documentary reminds you of several things: why you loved the character in the first place; why, in a way, he was the spy who killed his creator; and why Jamaica was such a part of 007.”
James Jackson, The Times

“Though the documentary was informative, with an impressive roster of novelists and actors paying homage, the claim that James Bond somehow took over the author’s soul and destroyed him from the inside was voodoo nonsense. What killed Fleming, who died aged 56 in 1964, was half a bottle of Scotch and four packets of cigarettes every day. He’d been living on borrowed time for three years after suffering a heart attack. To suggest he was burned out by an overdose of success, after selling 20 million books, or that he was exhausted by the effort of competing with his all-action hero, is not plausible.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Trump is the ultimate showman. He’s a master of it, a billionaire Barnum, but with a greed so insatiable it moves him ever further from entertainment into malevolence. If the Democrats had realised this earlier and recognised the strength the man was playing to and the particular voting public weaknesses he was preying upon, instead of sneering with distaste, then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. In fact, if they had done what comedian and satirist Munya Chawawa does in his punchy, passionate and weirdly uplifting documentary Wrestling With Trump, it might be a slightly better world today. Chawawa takes the not-new but certainly underused idea that Trump and his team’s campaigns and style of government use the same playbook as that created by the US pro-wrestling industry’s most famous promoters, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). WWE was founded by Vince McMahon and his since-estranged wife, Linda. Vince resigned from various business roles in 2024 in the wake of allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault (he has vigorously denied these allegations). Linda is now the US secretary of education.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Off Campus is, in all senses, a straight copy of Heated Rivalry. The latter was based on the wildly popular gay romance novel series by Rachel Reid. The former is an adaptation of the wildly popular heterosexual romance novel series by Elle Kennedy. It’s a slick, soapy, spicy load of fun set in the world of hot twentysomething hockey-playing college students instead of pro-hockey teams and their hot twentysomething rising stars. I can recommend it to all who appreciate hot twentysomethings, bums, boobs, hockey (though as with Heated Rivalry there’s only a bit of that and mostly to get them naked in the showers again) and perfectly made trash TV. Sit back with your beverage of choice, turn off your brain and relax. As with its progenitor-competitor, Off Campus knows exactly what it’s doing, where it’s going and why – and so do you. It is deeply soothing and incredibly moreish.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian