The naked truth? Hot new films leave me cold

Times

3 days ago

The hot comedy of the summer is The Naked Gun, so, obviously, I went to see it, at the cinema, in a heatwave. When people ask, 'So, Hilary, what do you think of the hot film of the summer?', as they surely will, I need to be ready with something pithy yet pertinent. Instead, I'm baffled. It's amiable nonsense, but is it funny? I never even cracked a smile, yet the critics raved.
I love the idea that the on-screen romance between Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson is now real, but the film? I don't get it and this isn't the first time. Barbie irritated me. Oppenheimer bored me. I've struggled with all of George Clooney's films except Ocean's Eleven, even though I've been a true believer since his ER days and know that Amal is only a stepping stone on his road to me.
The trailers at the cinema this week left me equally baffled. The Roses, a remake of The War of the Roses, which starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, looked epically dreadful, so I look forward to critics hailing it as Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch's finest, funniest work. Another trailer, billed as a comedy, featured someone named Hutch thumping someone else while saying, 'I am on vacation.' To date, no one's asked me what I think of the hot film of the summer. It's probably just as well.
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Flip-flops are obviously not the solution to anything except a beach and yet still, inexplicably, people wear them around town, apparently just because it's hot. The fact that there's a market for three-figure designer flip-flops is proof that the heat has gone to your head and the only sensible person around here is me. With Burberry flip-flops costing nearly 500 quid and Balmain's £300, at least my Manolos have sides and a sole. But 2025 is clearly the summer of the city flip-flop because they're on the Tube, in supermarkets and shuffling through airports.
You're mad, the lot of you. Naturally, your feet are foul to look at and I bitterly resent that you're flaunting them, but that's my problem, not yours. Your problem is different. Do you want your bare skin touching supermarket tarmac, the filthy floor of a Tube train or a plane? All that clammy rubber, with no cushioning or support, will play havoc with your arches.
And if you don't believe me, believe Tom Ford, who is always right about everything. 'Flip-flops and shorts in the city,' he once said, 'are never appropriate.'
My eightysomething mother is getting a new car and she's not messing around. Her current wheels are a Smart car so old and asthmatic you have to kick your heels and say 'giddy-up, Dobbin' to get it up hills. I assumed she'd go for something solid, not too fast and high up for ease of access. What she's actually getting is a sporty little low-slung Mini Cooper with a top speed of 146mph that does 0-60 in less than seven seconds.
Her very first car was a Mini, she says gleefully, and this Mini will be her last. Not so much 'giddy-up, Dobbin' as 'whoa there, Granny'.
Getting to the cinema took me through Borough Market, where the big tourist attraction isn't artisan sourdough because tourists have about as much use for artisan sourdough as they do for a pork chop. I sometimes wonder who buys all the pork chops in that market, but presumably someone does or they wouldn't sell them.
What they do sell, in their thousands, are £8.50 plastic pint pots of Instagrammable strawberries covered in chocolatey gloop. The queue for them is around the block, but you would wince if I told you what the lads on the fish stall opposite say about that chocolatey gloop.