How to Feed a Dictator review – what was on the menu for some of the world’s most evil men

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Andrew Neel’s documentary contrasts the lavish dishes eaten by heads of repressive states – served by largely unrepentant staff – with the starvation faced by their citizens There are moments in this sly documentary that evoke regular food porn, with crisply lit footage of vegetables being chopped and simmered, meat getting grilled, fat bubbling and browning – all the culinary sizzle is on display. Then there are climactic money shots, obligatory overhead views of the finished product, elegantly garnished, accompanied by text identifying the dish as, say, a Chilean country stew, or a whole roast goat, made precisely to suit the taste of a very specific client. It’s just that the clients these chefs served were despots, including Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Augusto Pinochet and Kim Jong-il. Charles Otonde Odera once prepared a human heart “perfectly” for Amin, though at the time he thought better than to ask where the raw offal came from. Director Andrew Neel and editor Brad Turn...
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Family Switch review – Netflix yuletide body-swap comedy is overstuffed

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Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms can’t save a lukewarm family comedy that’s over-reliant on potty humor and eye-rolling contrivances

There comes a time, in just about any modern family, when the youngest member of the household is old enough to warrant the commencement of “movie night”. About midway through the pandemic, when our daughter’s tastes graduated from Australian mermaid dramas to more palatable fare like The Baby-Sitters Club and Gilmore Girls, my husband and I celebrated by screening Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock films for our kids, who loved them as much as we did! But then the world opened back up, and personal preferences splintered off. Our son now likes watching football games, and football dramas, and while I can stand the latter, it’s hard to imagine subjecting his little sister to Friday Night Lights’ tequila shots and threesomes. Besides, she’d much rather hide away in her room and watch some Netflix show about cake.

That same streamer’s Family Switch, out in time for the holidays, is an arrow that was unapologetically calibrated to hit straight at the heart of the multi-gen-viewing dilemma. Directed by McG and starring Jennifer Garner (who also produced, and is as plucky and puckered as ever), the yuletide drama takes a more-the-merrier approach to the trading-places trope, offering a smorgasbord of stock characters for couch-bound viewers to relate to: the Walker family has something for everyone – Sporty, Techy, Wistful and Work-Obsessed. And like so many family units who are no longer living in lockdown, the once tight-knit household is unraveling, everyone drifting off into their own private directions. Might some old-fashioned living in other people’s shoes be the portal back to together time?

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