I was so excited to see this new trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. It’s more years than I care to remember since I last read the book, it’s going onto my reading list so I can read it again in plenty of time before the film comes out next year.
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’ve just read the wonderful news that Angela Lansbury has been cast in Mary Poppins Returns. Apparently she’ll be playing the Balloon Lady, a character from the books.
I’m thrilled she’s going to be in this film, I love her and I’m really looking forward to the film so it seems like a great combination for me. This news has made me realise that I maybe should have read the books by now, Mary Poppins is a film I love dearly so it seems a little remiss of me to have not gone back and read the books that came before it. I’m going to read them before Mary Poppins Returns comes out.
The other thing this news has made me think of is this wonderful video of Angela Lansbury at last year’s 25th anniversary screening of Beauty and the Beast.
This morning I went to see Sing at the cinema, it was my last chance to use my Cineworld Unlimited card (currently the nearest Cineworld to home is about 4th on my list of cinemas I’d travel to). I’d seen the trailer a few times and liked the look of it from them plus I’d seen some positive reaction from others so I thought I’d give it a go.
I enjoyed it. There was a fairly brief section towards the middle where it dragged a little (the many young children in the audience all agreed with me on this) but overall it was enjoyable. Unsurprisingly for a film about a singing talent show there’s loads of music included, I was interested to see that quite a lot of the music was older music and not necessarily stuff that the target young audience (the film has a U certificate) would be familiar with.
One such inclusion was Queen and David Bowie’s Under Pressure – listening to it made me bemoan yet again that I didn’t seize the opportunity to see Queen and Adam Lambert when they toured the UK. I know they’ve recently announced new North America dates so I’m very much hoping that they’ll follow suit and return to the UK too. I think the pairing is brilliant, I’m a definite fan of Adam Lambert and have been impressed by his work with Queen.
When I got back I spotted a tweet that had me rushing straight to YouTube, it turns out that Thursday night’s episode of The Late Late Show included a front man off between Adam Lambert and James Corden. I ummed and ahhed briefly over whether to share it here – I have after all shared some stuff from The Late Late Show already. But it’s my space, and I decide what goes, so here it is!
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!
