Alexander Larman

Very few of us, whether celebrities or mere mortals, manage to arrange the circumstances of our departure from this world in order to leave in a blaze of glory. Up until today, the only example I could think of was David Bowie, who died two days after his glorious final album, Blackstar, was released. But now he is joined in whatever Valhalla rock stars congregate in by none other than Black Sabbath’s Ozzy Osbourne, who has died at the age of 76. His death comes a mere two and a half weeks after his former band played their final gig in Villa Park in Birmingham, England, where the band hailed from. The concert, “Back to the Beginning,” saw Osbourne clearly in failing health, unable to stand or walk due to his Parkinson’s disease, and seated, appropriately enough, on a throne.

I preface this review by saying that – unless you are the greatest admirer of Lena Dunham or anyone in the (admittedly impressive) cast of her new Netflix series, Too Much – it is very easy to give this particular show a miss. It is a tedious, unfunny collection of clichés, strange American-centric perspectives on life in London, a charmless, Dunhamesque lead, a chemistry-free central pairing and guest appearances from her famous friends that seem somewhere between embarrassed and incongruous. Yet there are many worse shows on streaming services, most of which have not attracted anything like The Discourse that Too Much has thus far – and which, I am painfully aware, this article is contributing to. Why this? Why now?

It must feel pretty good to be Seth Rogen today. His Apple TV series The Studio –in which he stars as a beleaguered studio chief attempting to walk the fine line between commercial and artistic respectability – has been nominated for an impressive 23 Emmy awards. This ties the second season of The Bear (2023) for the most nominations for a comedy. Rogen himself could potentially win plaudits for writing, acting and directing, and the show itself looks like the one to beat in the category of best comedy series. The show’s opponents include The Bear – which ceased to be funny at least two seasons ago – as well as Hacks and Only Murders in the Building, both of which have had their moment in the sun.

The news that Pixar’s latest picture, the alien-contact family comedy Elio, has been an egregious flop at the American box office, grossing a mere $20.8 million on its opening weekend, has been greeted with both surprise and disappointment. Surprise, because Pixar has long been seen as the gold standard of contemporary animation, and disappointment, because its films are not supposed to flop. No fewer than 13 of their pictures are in the 50 highest-grossing animated films of all time roster, and nine have won Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, most recently 2020’s Soul. And if there had been rumors that the company was in trouble, these were apparently put to bed by the enormous, epochal success of Inside Out 2 last summer, which grossed $1.7 billion at the box office.

When I studied English literature at Oxford about two decades ago, the issue of tutor-student relations was a vexed one. On the one hand – so the reasoning went – students were adults, over the age of consent and entitled to make their own decision as to whether they wanted to indulge in sexual congress with the men and women responsible for inculcating a knowledge and, hopefully, love of their subject into them. On the other, there were clear – although sometimes blurred – conflicts of interest relating to these invariably older figures also on occasion being responsible for marking their favored students’ examinations.