Cinema Year in Review: 2017

This year I saw 13 films in the cinema, a slight drop from 17 last year. Raising a toddler makes it hard to get to the theatre; but on a positive note, we took the little one to his very first film in the cinema this summer. It was Cars 3, and a good time was had by all.

Top 5 Movies

This year had an embarrassment of good movies. Four excellent superhero films (Logan, Lego Batman, Wonder Woman, Thor: Ragnarok) might have made the top five in some other year, but not this time. My top five are:

1. Dunkirk. Another mighty achievement from Christopher Nolan.
2. Blade Runner 2049. A worthy sequel to the original.
3. T2: Trainspotting. Another long-delayed sequel which was worth the wait. The characters from the last film reassemble, filled with middle-aged regret and ready to settle some old scores.
4. Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Terrific fun, and surprisingly thoughtful. My review here.
5. Paddington 2. Absolutely lovely; funny, charming and heartwarming from start to finish.

It's only after I finished this list that I realised four of the five titles are sequels. Is it a sign Hollywood is running low on fresh ideas? Some would say so; but I think there's still a healthy supply of original material, and this just happened to be a very good year for sequels.

Honourable mention

Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Seen in its 25th anniversary re-release. The 3D conversion didn't really add much, but it's still a tremendous film which occupies an important place in my heart. Some more of my thoughts on the Terminator films here.

Guilty pleasure

The critics hated it. There are some gigantic plot holes; it doesn't fully grapple with the monstrous and possibly unforgivable act committed by its protagonist; and it ends with pretty much a literal deus ex machina. But I still enjoyed Passengers very much. (My review here, with major spoilers.)

Wooden spoon

Ghost in the Shell. Not exactly a bad film, just terribly disappointing. The legendary source material and a promising set-up devolve into yet another punch-up aimed at adolescent males. Its approach to sensitive issues of race and colonisation is clumsy and oblivious at best. A few worthy moments which could have been made into something better, but it was not to be. (My review here.)

Third Blogiversary

As of the 1st of March, I've been writing this blog for three years. I'm still enjoying it very much and intend to continue. In these times especially, it's good to have a space to sort out my thoughts on the direction of our society; rant about my frustrations with the same; and post cat pictures to try and maintain sanity.

My ten most viewed posts in the year are:

1. Cute Cat Friday 2017-01-27: Joni
2. Parliament: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: On Parliament, Donald Trump, and Brexit
3. On the Stupidity of David Cameron: My immediate reaction, the morning after the European referendum result. Lots of NSFW language.
4. Full Circle: On the grotesque caricature of Western capitalism practiced in Russia, and how the Trump administration sees it as a model to be followed.
5. Please Vote Remain: My heartfelt argument to vote Remain. I was one of many people saying things like this, but as it turned out, not enough.
6. Mad Hatter Democracy: On the chaotic aftermath of the Brexit vote.
7. Cute Cat Friday 2016-03-11: Joni
8. Reasons to be Afraid: My post on the eve of the US election, pointing out that it was not in the bag for Hillary Clinton.
9. Assorted US Election Thoughts: Observations from the primary season, on Hillary versus Bernie and Trump versus Everyone.
10. The Deplorables of Punxsutawney: On the voters in small Pennsylvanian towns who helped hand Trump the election.

Inevitably, they're dominated by Brexit and Trump. Here's hoping the next twelve months are a little more positive. If not, there's still Cute Cat Friday to sustain us.

A couple of less-political posts I'd like to highlight:

• On the British Monarchy
• The Inner Conflict of Han Solo

Thanks to all my readers, and to the lovely Joni, star of Cute Cat Friday.

Cinema Year in Review: 2016

This year I saw seventeen films in the cinema, slightly over a 50% increase on last year. Looking after a toddler continues to restrict my movie-going, although I wouldn't have it any other way.

The excellent Arts Picturehouse Cambridge, venue for many happy cinema visits.

Top 5 Movies

1. Arrival: A highly intelligent and visually spectacular science fiction film, with believable characters I could really care about.
2. Rogue One: An exciting, witty, and action-packed Star Wars adventure. Disney shows once again the galaxy far, far away is in safe hands.
3. Embrace of the Serpent: The story of a shaman in the Amazon and his contact with the outside world over a period of decades. Brilliant, fascinating and challenging cinema.
4. Doctor Strange: The Marvel Universe visits the realms of magic, as arrogant Benedict Cumberbatch learns to battle evil under the tutelage of mystical Tilda Swinton.
5. Tale of Tales: Adaptations of three interwoven fairy tales, with all the nasty bits left in. Great storytelling, and a rich feast of sensual detail.

Guilty Pleasure

Central Intelligence: Kevin Hart plays a man whose mediocre life is disrupted by the arrival of an old classmate (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), who has transformed himself from lonely, bullied fat kid to fearsome secret agent. The results are reminiscent of Grosse Pointe Blank, from the point of view of John Cusack's pal who stayed home and became a car salesman. It's not as clever as Grosse Pointe Blank, but there are plenty of laughs to be had.

Honourable Mention

Ran, Akira Kurosawa's transferal of King Lear to feudal Japan, which we saw on re-release in the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse. Magnificent in every way.

Wooden Spoon

I'm leaving this slot empty. With limited opportunity to get to the cinema, I try and be discerning, and I honestly can't say I've seen a bad film in 2016. Current events may be distressing, but we are living in a good time for movies.

Second Blogiversary

As of today, I've been writing this blog for two years. Hurrah!

Here are the ten most viewed posts I've published in the last year, starting with the most popular:

1. Bad Motivator: Star Wars Episode 3. One of a series of posts written before Episode 7 came out, and arguing the key flaw in the prequel films was bad character motivation.
2. Bad Motivator: Star Wars Episode 1
3. Acts of Cowardice: The SNP and GMOs. Criticising the SNP's extraordinary decision to enact a blanket ban on GM organisms in Scotland, which it openly admits was done for public relations and marketing, not science.
4. Why I'm voting for Julian Huppert: The excellent Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, who narrowly lost his seat in the 2015 General Election.
5. Bad Motivator: Star Wars Episode 2
6. A Good Feature of The Phantom Menace. Yes, it has at least one good idea, although as usual George Lucas botched the execution.
7. Magic Sugar Pills: On our leaders' embrace of homeopathy; and how it makes Jeremy Corbyn not only a bad leader, but a bad socialist.
8. Farewell to Belle: In January we reluctantly had to rehome our cat Belle, who had been stressed and unhappy since the arrival of our baby son and our older cat Dexter's passing away. She has now been adopted, and we wish her all the best.
9. Birth and taxes: Why I wasn't angry at having to pay a large tax demand.
10. Clean Reader: Because It's Obscene. On the Clean Reader software, which bowdlerises e-books with a search-and-replace on certain words.

Of the older posts, Death and Facebook still gets a great deal of traffic. The subject of Facebook's inhumanity is not going away in the foreseeable future.

Cute Cat Friday remains a perennial favourite, now starring the lovely Joni (pictured).

I'm very glad to have kept the blog going through all the challenges of becoming a parent. I'm still enjoying it very much, and looking forward to many more years posting here.

Cinema Year in Review: 2015

As predicted, looking after a new baby has drastically reduced my cinema-going. I saw ten films in the cinema this year, and thought I was doing well to manage that.

The Plaza Cinema, Skipton. A great little place we discovered this year.

Given the limited opportunity, I did my best to choose films carefully, and there have been some excellent releases this year. So, I'm going to do my usual breakdown anyway. For the sake of completeness, I'll do a top seven instead of a top five, so everything I saw gets a mention.

1st Blogiversary

As of today, I've been writing this blog for a year! Thanks to all my readers.

My most viewed posts are as follows:

1. Death and Facebook: Facebook's business model is to mine our emotions for profit, and its algorithms do not care if anyone is hurt in the process. Even when it works "correctly", it circulates some astoundingly thoughtless remarks. This post has the highest number of pageviews, by far; many from a comment on Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty by Eric Meyer.
2. Waste of Space: An Open Letter to Nigel Farage: Denouncing the odious leader of UKIP, on an occasion when he claimed immigrants like myself are literally a waste of space. 
3. Scotland's Vote 23: Yes or No: My final summary of the debate on Scottish independence, the day before the referendum. I tried very hard to make it compact, informative and even-handed, and I think I largely succeeded.
4. Cute Cat Friday 2015-01-09: Belle: I don't know why this particular one is so popular, but isn't she a beautiful cat? (Photo appears below.)
5. Scotland's Vote 7: The SNP Disparity: Written two months before the referendum vote, and looking at the disparity between support for the SNP and support for independence. Nationalist myth-making aside, this points to the best explanation of why Yes lost.

I'm enjoying this space to comment and rant about the things which interest me, so here's to many more years of blogging.

Cinema Year in Review: 2014

In 2014 I saw 33 films in 7 different cinemas, not bad but a little below my previous record of 56 in 2009. Not being a professional film critic, I missed out on a few films which looked interesting, and a lot more which looked like utter dreck. Here is a personal review of what I saw at the cinema in 2014.

The marvellous Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge, venue for 18 of my 33 films in 2014.