I realised tonight that I have become somewhat risk averse when it comes to watching films. I spent the evening with my cousin and his wife, they invited me over for dinner and to watch a film. 

It had been at the back of my mind that we might end up watching something I would otherwise not choose, while the three of us have quite similar tastes for a lot of things, there are certain things I go out of my way to avoid. I will read reviews, and for films where I worry about the content I’ll actively seek out information about them – the BBFC website has the option to see detailed information about the content of a film, it’s there (I think) in theory for parents but I have found it invaluable.

We settled on Assassin’s Creed, a film I knew absolutely nothing about other than that I vaguely remembered a couple of friends enjoying it a lot when it was released. I’ve never played the games, have minimal knowledge about their storylines, it was like going into something completely blind. 

And do you know what? I enjoyed it. The film itself is pretty good with a few definite quibbles, but that’s not what I enjoyed. I actually found I enjoyed having no preconceptions about it, no idea about what might happen or why. It’s been so long since I’ve done that, I think it’s something I want to do more.

I’m not sure it’s going to be a complete and instant change in behaviour. There are still those few things that I’m always going to want to avoid in films, I’m still going to be keeping an eye out for them, but where I can I’m definitely going to try and watch more with the freshest eyes I can manage.

I went this morning to see Fast and Furious 8. It’s one of my favourite film franchises, I love the way it’s grown and evolved over the years. This latest installment is exactly what I was expecting, it made me laugh, made me gasp, made me squee with fannish excitement and so much more.

The film fun carried on this afternoon when the teaser trailer (though can they really be considered a teaser trailer at over 2 minutes long?) for the newest Star Wars film was released.

Based on this I’m already excited and looking forward to a festive cinema trip!

When I was out for coffee on Wednesday the conversation turned to books and reading (not an unusual topic), and then to stories with creepy dolls in them. Let’s be honest, dolls have the potential to be pretty creepy in pretty much any context outside of actual children playing with dolls – particularly those old fashioned dolls. Zoe mentioned that she’d watched an animated short featuring creepy dolls, I was so intrigued when she sent me the link to it.

The short is called Alma, it’s barely over 5 minutes long but it certainly delivers on the creepy dolls front. I thought it was only good and proper that I shared the delights!

Watching it, I realised that I never really watch shorts unless they come at the start of Pixar films. So if you have any recommendations then please send them my way!

I went to the cinema today to finally see Rogue One. I’d been planning to see it when it was first released, but life got in the way and it’s taken me this long to get myself organised.

I really enjoyed the film. Even though it’s been out with good few weeks now, and I spend a goodly amount of time online I’d managed to sit down this afternoon knowing very little about it. I was really glad about this, the emotional punches it brings in particular were as effective as they could be as I wasn’t expecting them at all. 

Star Wars has never been one of my areas of geeky interest. I was an adult before I got to see the original trilogy and so my interest is far new and as a result probably a fair amount thinner than some of my friends’. There will have been clever nods and little moments that I didn’t pick up on, but if anything this just makes me excited that with further watches there will be new things to spot.

It was great to see how full the cinema was for the film. There were heaps of kids there loving it, and their adults too. The kids were better behaved than many of the adults, maybe there’s hope for cinema going in the future after all!