rich_jacko

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - I've said to people that the best parts of this film are the opening and end credits. That's no criticism of the film in-between, but the opening sequence just fills your heart with joy (one word: Groot), and the end credits include so many extra treats that I lost count. The rest of the film is like the biggest Saturday morning cartoon you'll ever see. If you weren't convinced by the first GOTG, this will do nothing to change your mind, but if you were won over by its over-the-top silliness and irreverence, you'll love it. It's also deceptively cleverly written. I was impressed by how every single character has an interesting story arc, and how seamlessly it all fits together. Rocket and baby Groot may be my favourite double-act, but I can't help loving the rest of the characters too.

Their Finest - A rather sweet comedy/drama set around British WW2 propaganda film-making. Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) is the writer hired to draft the "slop" (women's dialogue), Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin) the colleague she clashes with, and Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy, on top form as ever) the rather luvvie actor leading their cast. Sexism, politics, bombings and increasingly awkward relationships get in the way of the film they're trying to make, but give us a delightful film to watch - with a surprising sudden twist near the end. The constant battles of wills between not just Catrin versus the rest, but pretty much all the main characters, make it a juicy drama, but it's also warm-hearted and an affectionate feel-good film.

Alien: Covenant - Despite the title, this is very much a sequel to Prometheus. You don't need to have seen it to follow this one though. (In fact, don't ever see Prometheus; you'll be cursing the lost two hours of your life.) Returning to the mysterious planet seen in that film, the crew of the colony ship Covenant stumble across an abandoned settlement and one of them begins to fall ill... There's a definite attempt to add more of the classic Alien tropes this time around, which is an improvement. The problem is that Ridley Scott seems to have forgotten how to use them. You can always tell exactly when an alien's about to jump out, and gadgets like the life sign tracker defuse the tension rather than adding to it. Ultimately it's an okay film, redeemed a lot by Michael Fassbender's performance, which is scarier than any alien.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Salazar's Revenge - Similarly, this fifth entry in the Pirates franchise plays pretty much to type. Most of the old cast are back, there are CG-enhanced supernatural baddies galore, a quest for a magical MacGuffin, and an unnecessarily over-complicated plot. It's by no measure a great film, but it is the most fun entry in the series since Dead Man's Chest. I was especially fond of the classically Jack Sparrow bank robbery and the attack of the zombie sharks. Barbossa also gets a strong character arc this time. On the downside, Javier Bardem's Salazar is a less memorable baddie, and the attempt to flesh out Jack's backstory felt forced. Supposedly this is the final film in the series, although the post-credits sequence suggests otherwise...

Colossal - Unoriginality is the last complaint you can level at Colossal. I loved this film; it's quite unlike anything I've seen before. It's a black romantic comedy, a psychological study of standing up to abuse and bullying, and a trashy monster movie all in one. Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is an alcoholic mess. Thrown out by her boyfriend (Dan Stevens), she returns to her childhood town. There she bumps into old friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), who helps her out but is the opposite of what she needs to break her drinking habit. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in Seoul, a giant lizard monster is materialising out of thin air at the exact same time every night and trashing the city. Wait... what? How is this connected to Gloria's story? Well, to explain that would be to spoil it. Suffice to say this film is bonkers, inspired and highly recommended.

I went to an entertaining talk with Ben Aaronovitch this evening as part of Sheffield Uni's Arts & Humanities Festival. He was interviewed by a literature professor for an hour and then took (loads of) audience questions.

It was fascinating hearing Ben talk about the genesis of the series, from it's origins as a TV series pitch, and how it came about as an antithesis to every TV cop trope and Scandi noir detectives. The background to the Rivers was interesting too - It all started with Mama Thames as an immigrant goddess from a tiny stream in Sierra Leone.

This is an author who is clearly in love with the world he's created. He described the writing process in a very fun way, especially the way he envisages the characters talking to him ("why don't I have an arc?" "Some people need to learn when to stop talking." "You gave Lesley an arc..."). He was also very open about how much he's worked out and how much he's making up as he goes along, enjoying running to keep up with his characters as they go off in unexpected directions - much to his publisher's frustration!

He has plans to take Peter out of London again. Probably not to Sheffield, although he did expound on how he would characterise the River Don, and praised the virtues of Park Hill as a murder mystery location...

Afterwards, I got my copy of Rivers of London autographed, and chatted with Ben about book covers, comparisons with The Dresden Files, and why he chose deepest, darkest Herefordshire as the setting for book 5.

A good way to spend the evening. Plus I can report that The Riverside does a mighty fine burger. :o)

I will be having an open house party at my place on Saturday 20th May, from noon. There will be buffet.

It's not a significant birthday for me this May, but it is for Star Wars. The party will therefore roll into a movie evening from 4-5pm, when we will start watching a slightly different Star Wars trilogy: starting with Revenge of the Sith, then going on to Rogue One and finishing up with A New Hope.

Other May plans (so far):

• Lego Brickfest event at Meadowhead School 10am-4pm on Sun 14th


• Going to Liverpool to visit museums and stuff for my actual birthday on Wed 17th


• Julius Caesar is on at The Crucible from 17th May to 10th June - anyone interested in going with me?


• Edy and Rory's birthday celebrations on Sun 28th

Logan is, fundamentally, a film about getting old. Your mind and body start to pack up, and all your hopes and dreams fade away. Set in the not-too-distant future of 2029 (a deliberate Judgement Day parallel?), the X-Men are long gone, mutants are a dying species, and Logan (Hugh Jackman) ekes out a basic living while struggling to care for a 90-year-old Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart).

It's a far cry from the recent prequel trilogy which, for all that the world was constantly under threat from nuclear war / giant killer robots / ancient demigods, essentially painted a bright and shining future for the X-Men, full of endless possibilities. What went so horribly wrong? We're not told in any depth.

Things change, however, when Logan and Charles encounter Laura (Dafne Keen), a young mutant in a world where there are no young mutants. Bad guys are after her. It doesn't really matter why (although Richard E. Grant as a mad scientist is always going to be worth watching). She needs to escape north to Canada and has no one else to protect her.

Not that she seems to need much protecting. Seriously, this kid makes Hit-Girl look like a playground hair-puller. Logan has absolutely no interest in trying to play a father figure ("I really suck at this shit!"), but events overtake them and the trio go on the run.

It's a much smaller-scale, more personal film than previous X-Men (which you don't need to have seen to appreciate this), and a real tour de force for the lead actors. You really feel for Charles and Logan and, while Laura is more a MacGuffin than a character to begin with, she grows as the film progresses. The minor and incidental characters are well fleshed-out too.

On the downside, the film does at times feel like it's indulging Hugh Jackman (which it is). Also, while it's very different from other films in its genre in a lot of ways, it does stick excessively to predictable movie tropes - When they split the party, you know whoever's not with Wolverine is going to get attacked. Character X gets item Y, which you know means they're going to do action Z with it by the film's end. And so on.

These are minor gripes though, which don't seriously spoil what is solidly a four-star film. Lots of superhero movies claim to be dark and gritty, but this one really is. I don't mean in a dumb, moody-lighting-and-cool-anti-heroes, MTV style. Much of Logan is set in sunlit desert and none of the characters are remotely cool. I don't mean in terms of there being enough violent deaths and F-words to make even Tarantino proud, although there are both of those (The film definitely earns its 15 rating). I mean in the sense that it deals with grim realities and offers no easy, comforting answers. Every one of us gets old, is emotionally messed-up at times, and is occasionally very selfish. The world is a mess and no good deed goes unpunished.

If this all sounds rather bleak, it is. But this is also an action film, with chases and fight scenes galore. (Now, if only the director would hold the damn camera still for a second - although I suspect that if you got a better look, the frequent, bloody impalings would push the certificate up to an 18.) It's also not without hope for the future. The ending, while calculatingly sentimental, feels absolutely right. I defy anyone not to be moved by it.

This is Hugh Jackman's last outing as Logan, easily the best of the standalone Wolverine films (Don't bother with the other two), and a damn good road movie in its own right. Go see it.

Another Doctor Who evening next Saturday (4th Feb), anyone? Go on, you know you want to :o)

This time it's all going cartoony-woony, as we run through the Time Lord's various animated adventures:

4:00pm: The Infinite Quest
The Tenth Doctor and Martha follow a trail of clues across alien worlds to find the location of a fabled, lost spaceship. More Star Wars than Doctor Who, featuring bounty hunters and space pirates. Originally broadcast on CBBC's Totally Doctor Who, it's definitely aimed at kids, but a welcome slice of space opera silliness nontheless.

5:00pm: Power of the Daleks
Pat Troughton's legendary first adventure, long missing from the archives and newly re-animated with the original soundtracks. The Second Doctor and his companions, Polly and Ben, do battle with their old enemies on the mysterious planet Vulcan. How will the companions cope with a new Doctor. How will he take to his new body after his first ever regeneration? I've only bought this recently and I've not seen it yet, so I'm looking forward to this special treat!

7:30pm: break for food

8:15pm: Scream of the Shalka
Richard E. Grant stars as (at the time) the Ninth Doctor, in this adventure created for the series' 40th anniversary in 2003. The TV series made a comeback with Christopher Eccleston before a full animated series was commissioned, but this is a fascinating glimpse at what might have been. It also features Derek Jacobi's first appearance as the Master, as the Doctor and UNIT battle against a race of underground alien invaders.

9:45pm: Dreamland
Back with the Tenth Doctor, near the end of his run and travelling alone. During a visit to Nevada in 1958, he befriends a waitress, Cassie, and her friend, Jimmy. He soon draws the attention of the mysterious Men in Black and the commander of the base at Area 51. The trio set out to rescue a stranded alien from the clutches of the American military and the terrifying Viperox.

10:30pm: end

As usual, let me know, so I've a rough idea of numbers. Hope to see you here.

Slightly fewer than in 2015, but I easily managed my self-imposed target of two books a month last year, even if I discount graphic novels and non-fiction. I also continued my "one new Pratchett a month" marathon, which sadly I will run out of material for some time this coming year.

I'm not going to write reviews of everything I read, as it would take too long, but the list (for my own record) is as follows:

• The Force Awakens (Alan Dean Foster)
• Dragons at Crumbling Castle, Shada, The Dark Side of the Sun, the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy, Dodger's Guide to London, Where's My Cow?, Nanny Ogg's Cookbook (Terry Pratchett)
• Time and Time Again (Ben Elton)
• Tigerman (Nick Harkaway)
• Bleak House (Charles Dickens)
• 1,234 QI Facts to Leave You Speechless (John Lloyd and the QI Elves)
• Angel - The End (Bill Willingham et al)
• Buffy / Angel & Faith Season 10 (Christos Gage, Rebekah Isaacs, Victor Gischler, Will Conrad et al)
• Transformers - ongoing IDW comics (James Roberts, Nick Roche, John Barber et al)
• The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Phil Szostak)
• The Art of Inside Out (Pete Docter et al)
• Wars of the Roses - Stormbird / Trinity / Bloodline (Conn Iggulden)
• The BFG (Roald Dahl)
• The Long Earth / War / Mars / Utopia (Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter)
• Hitman Anders And The Meaning Of It All (Jonas Jonasson)
• The Buffer Girls (Margaret Dickinson)
• The Aeronaut's Windlass (Jim Butcher)
• Star Wars: Allegiance (Timothy Zahn)

Special mention for Jonas Jonasson, for continuing to be the literary equivalent of Wes Anderson in his whimsical and casual approach to surreal storytelling ("One might, with good reason, suspect that a person who feels he must inform both the children's ombudsman and the Swedish Football Association about ongoing ecclesiastical crime is no longer thinking clearly.").

Tigerman was also very good - Nick Harkaway continues to be one of my favourite authors. I read Bleak House following Dickensian on the telly, and re-read The BFG following the new film. Wars of the Roses was solid Conn Iggulden writing, and The Aeronaut's Windlass was solid Jim Butcher writing - both on form.

Buffy & Angel Season 10's writers are clearly having fun playing in the altered world set up by the end of Season 9, but it seems a bit directionless by comparison. I've not quite got to the end yet though.

I bookended the year with a Star Wars novel. Don't bother with The Force Awakens novelisation; it adds nothing to the film. Allegiance was much better. I read it to satisfy my need for Star Wars while waiting to watch Rogue One, and was very amused to find that the new film uses exactly the same "I have a bad feeling about this" gag! :o)

I had a good time in Edinburgh, and I'll write that up, um... soon. In the meantime, here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, whatever you're up to over the next few days. Hope to see many of you around the New Year!

I love my godson's imagination.

He's figured out that telling me stories is an effective way of delaying going to bed. Last night, he was telling me all about Evil Santa.

Unlike Good Santa, who lives at the North Pole and delivers presents to sleeping children, Evil Santa lives at the South Pole, breaks into people's houses when they are asleep, and steals their presents.

Good Santa is clever, and worked out how to fool Evil Santa by hiding presents in stockings. Evil Santa thought they were just socks and didn't steal them. That is why we leave out stockings for Good Santa on Christmas Eve.

This story has a happy ending. Luckily, there were Night Detectives on the lookout for Evil Santa. In 2001 they finally managed to capture him and put him in prison. While he was in prison, Evil Santa thought about the presents he had stolen, and it made him feel sad. So eventually he was let out of prison and now he lives at the North Pole, where he helps Good Santa deliver presents. (Nice to see the rehabilitation system working effectively!)

Since Evil Santa no longer lives at the South Pole, some dinosaurs have moved in and live there now...

[It was at this point I sensed we were going off on a new tangent. I suggested the Bug tell me about the dinosaurs another day, and he should go and clean his teeth.]

Warning: This film contains distressing scenes of violence against books from the very beginning.

Fortunately, it's a moral tale, and the villain in question has cause to regret said bibliophobic behaviour by the end.

That aside, this is bonkers. No, I mean really, REALLY bonkers. Dr Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch, in a role almost made for him) is a brilliant but arrogant surgeon. After suffering an accident, he travels to Kathmandu (as you do) in search of healing, becomes a sorcerer (Er, what?), and ends up getting conned into joining an ancient order, who are trying to save the Earth from inter-dimensional invasion (Okaaay...). It's confusing and quite hard to follow exactly what's going on for the first half, but just go with it and it works.

The first thing you notice is that the CGI wizards are obviously having fun showing off. The world-bending tricks are visually quite different from normal action fare, which makes for a very interesting-looking film. At times, it feels slightly reminiscent of The Matrix.

More importantly though, this is a Marvel Studios film that's back on form after a few slightly disappointing instalments of late. All the ingredients are here - Origin story: check. Tongue-in-cheek humour: check. Complex, flawed, engaging characters: check. Stan Lee cameo: check. Credit cookies: check, and check again (Make sure you stay to the very end!). References to other films in the franchise: check, but they're cleverly and sparingly done, and work very effectively.

There's also a bald Tilda Swinton, who is as brilliant as ever. IMHO, she ought to be in every film.

Yeah, this is a good one. Recommended.

P.S. - It was preceded by the latest Rogue One trailer. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. They seem to have made not-a-Star-Wars-film set in the Star Wars universe. This will either turn out to be a stroke of genius or an unmitigated disaster. I'm all for broadening out with new characters and stories, but they seem to be going for a totally different feel. I tried asking myself, "Would I be interested in seeing this if it wasn't Star Wars?" I'm still not sure.

P.P.S. - I am going to see it, of course.

It's been the summer hols, which has meant quite a few kids films on the trot. And now that the schools are back, some bleak and miserable adult drama as well :o)

( 7 reviews under cut )