As I've said many times before, I love a good movie novelisation. This was not a good movie novelisation. It tells the story of the film, fine, but the extra insight that you get from reading a book of the screenplay was... well, disturbing. ET has a whole backstory about being a botanist, but also as we get to know his thoughts through the activities on Earth, I'd rather not know. When you watch the film, he's a sweet lost alien. In the book, it's a very different tone. Also we get to know more about Mary, the mother, and that's worrying in itself too. It's an interesting read but if you have any affection for the film at all, I'd recommend giving this a miss.
I love a good novelisation and as The Sting is one of my favourite films, it's no surprise that this is right up there as a 5/5 for me. The story is just so good, the con is perfectly executed and has multiple layers that we know about. The characters are fascinating, there's a bit more in here around Luther and some of their activities before the big con starts, and it's just brilliant to revisit this story in a different medium.
When I was learning how to code, one of the problems I had was no specific idea for an app to create. A vague idea cropped up since then but having done absolutely nothing about it, I'm glad to see that Apple have done the hard work for me. Their new feature Genius Browse is an interactive feature to help you pick what to watch next. We have a ridiculously …
For a few years now, the goal has been to watch 100 movies during the year, with a nice mix of old and new along the way. Last year, we just scraped across the line with The Holdovers being the 100th movie in the last few days of December. The trouble is, whilst the films are still out there and calling out to be watched, streaming television has been SO …
I'm not really sure how this happened but I know it's worth commemorating - four film adaptations of War of the Worlds in a row! The first two were definitely planned but then whilst researching what other War of the Worlds movies were out there, I discovered I had a copy of Jeff Wayne's musical concert, and then of course had to go back to the 1950s and see how …
I’ve been intrigued by the play The Shark is Broken since I first heard about it, and was very keen to see it when it embarked on a UK tour. The show is set aboard the boat during the filming of the mega blockbuster Jaws, featuring as the only characters in the play, the three actors who star in the movie. They have plenty of time to spare as the …
This video popped up recently on the BBC Archives, featuring a short look back in the day over whether people would buy films if they could, rather than renting them. We know the answer to that now, my bulging Apple library is a testament to it, but back then it was DVDs, rentals, and Netflix in it's original rental-by-mail format was still a few years in the future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4g48YKs9RI It's …
Okay, I've sat with this for two weeks and I can't take it any more. I, like many people, trawl through the Superbowl adverts looking at who has sold out this year, and I was astounded to see Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal resurrecting their When Harry Met Sally characters to sell mayonnaise. It's awful. I wouldn't have minded if it had just been that once, but I've seen it …
There is so much content on Disney+ that it's easy to overlook some gems, and I'm glad to have uncovered one of them - Inside Pixar. The documentary series is twenty short episodes that delve into different aspects of making Pixar movies. Lots of behind the scenes insight into various roles, from artists to writers, but also less creative roles such as the admin assistant, the facilities manager, and even …
I'm a bit out of the loop on movies at the moment, we've not been doing very well on the film front as TV and particularly nostalgic stuff has taken more of a front-seat. But from the looks of things, there's not that much going on at the moment anyway. November has a few options to choose from but October and December are looking very light. October Woman of the …
It feels like the blockbusters have been on the low side recently, but the next few months have quite a few famous names and faces back on the big screen. We've drifted from keeping up with the immediate and more expensive releases, but am really enjoying digging out hidden gems and older classics. However, may have to make an exception for some of these! July The Garfield Movie I don't …
I wasn't expecting it, but the first couple of months of this year have seen a real uptick of movie watching in this household. There's no rhyme or reason to it but suddenly the bug to watch ALL THE FILMS is back and that means keeping an eye on what's upcoming actually feels like it has a purpose again, rather than just adding to an overlooked list. April Monkey Man …
A new year and new films. My count of films watched last year was a little low, partly due to less time but also because the time I did have I used to watch so much amazing TV. How can films compete with such great short-form content? Well, we'll have to see how this year goes and the next batch might help! January The Boys in the Boat A good …
I'm a little bit late posting this, we're already a week into the final quarter of the year - but the films will wait for me, I'm sure. There's a real mix of stuff coming up, but we're still on a bit of a lull from the various strikes and I'm also wondering what on earth the Christmas output is going to be like this year. But I've avoided the …
It feels like the output of both TV and films has slowed somewhat, presumably relating to the strikes that are ongoing. Although any situation that forces a strike is not great, it is a bit of a relief to have a minute to think about what we're watching and actually catch up a bit. I've been looking through the next few months of movie releases and there are quite a …
Even though the time and inspiration to watch films (particularly new ones) is still eluding me somewhat, I'm starting to feel just a shimmer of excitement about what's upcoming. These quarterly sneak peeks at the fresh releases are helping no end, and this quarter feels quite blockbuster heavy. Let's see what we've got in store. April On a Wing and a Prayer. This doesn't look all that great but is …
Wired writer Amelia Tait published an article this weekend about the fact that recent cinema releases have focused on a new kind of villain - the tech giant gone rogue. The new Knives Out movie is heavily focused on a tech billionaire, the surprisingly good Santa Clauses TV show had an Amazon style delivery company at heart, and further back the animations Ron’s Gone Wrong and Mitchells vs the Machines …
Variety published a story yesterday detailing a walkout by the jury at the Sundance film festival from a film where closed captioning wasn't available. They've been striving for greater accessability anyway, but in this instance it was a specific problem for the jury, which includes wonderful actress Marlee Matlin. The article suggests it was a dramatic walkout after a captioning device didn't work, whilst the statement from the Sundance organisers …
Thanks to a Halloween binge and the inevitable Christmas slush-fest of films, we just about managed to watch 100+ movies last year. That's always the aim, but it was a close run thing. There just haven't been many that really grab attention, aside from the regularly scheduled Marvel and Star Wars releases. But it's always worth keeping an eye on what else is coming up and these are the movies …
By all accounts, the film industry is going through a bit of a lull right now. Some of that is no doubt due to the ongoing health and safety effects relating to the global pandemic, but there's also talk of an issue around the huge television spectaculars (hobbits, dragons, superheroes and outer space, you know the type), plus certain streaming platforms snapping up their own VFX companies and thereby getting …
Before I started building up a digital bookshelf with seemingly every book available via Kindle or Apple Books, I used to pick up most of my reading material from charity shops. There's usually a good variety to choose from and one of the great things is seeing the older books that are dropped off for re-use. One of the best genres in this category is movie novelisations - an author's …
Recently, I watched The Butterfly Effect - a film I’ve seen before a long time ago and couldn’t remember a lot about. The movie features some kids going to the cinema in the 90s, opting to watch the thriller crime drama Se7en, and we get to see a few clips from that film-within-a-film. I hadn’t seen Se7en, something which was instantly rectified, but the fact that I watched it specifically …
I’ve mentioned before that I’m completely into the Top of the Pops replays on BBC Four at the moment, as they have reached the early nineties and I’m loving this era of music... we’re heading rapidly towards Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls and so much more goodness. They recently rounded out the year 1992 with the Christmas special, and at this moment in time, Whitney Houston had her vice-like grip …
Keeping track of what films are coming out when has been pretty difficult over the last couple of years, partly because of delays to release dates for obvious reasons, but also because it's never quite clear how something is going to hit our screens. With a deep desire not to go to the cinema, I'm reliant on streaming options instead, and whilst it's getting better all the time (Disney+ early …
It's fair to say, I watch a lot of movies. Since starting the Film Watch process back in 2009, as of yesterday, the total is 1273 and rising fast. Initially, the goal was to simply increase my knowledge of films, but soon it became bigger and bolder than that. The aim became to watch 100 movies a year, and then to try and beat the previous year's total, and that …
I don't remember which was the first Pitch Meeting video I watched, but I do know that ever since then, I've been obsessed. Ryan George, of the TV and film site ScreenRant, creates and features in these incredible videos that recreate what might have happened in the pitch meetings for a variety of different films. They are ridiculous and hilarious and, more than anything else, always completely spot on. A …
Of course the overarching plan is to watch all the films in the world, but there are quite a lot in existence already and then all these creative types just keep making more, so, you have to pick and choose. I'm sure you're well aware by now that I love a structured challenge and I saw Stephen King tweeting recently about his ongoing project - to watch a movie from …
When it was announced that we should all lock ourselves away and keep ourselves entertained within the four walls of our house, I didn't get too carried away thinking of all the things I could achieve. It's not like that. But I did think I might be able to blog a bit more than I have so far (read: no blogging at all). Unfortunately, marshalling the mind towards cohesive paragraphs …
So I did this round up last year, quickly running through other posts that had already collected upcoming releases and pulling out films that I thought I'd be interested in. Turns out, I picked twelve films and only managed to watch half of them. Oh well! Let's see how well I do this year. For reference, I've looked at the BBC, a selection from Total Film and a pretty long …
We watched the third movie in Netflix's Christmas Prince franchise this week and... huh. It was an experience. I've obviously reviewed the film itself in the proper place but I wanted to expand upon this with a note about the fiasco that is the credits. The normal movie credits roll, that's fine. Cast, crew, music and location credits. Then we get to the geographic specific stuff, the dubbing and additional …
I recently discovered the podcast Robot or Not which is an audio show where: "Jason Snell asks John Siracusa to rule on the meaning of various words and concepts. It’s not just about robots anymore." I have been listening to the entire back catalogue, partly because the episodes are so short but also because they're so fascinating. As the title suggests, the concept started out solely about robots but has …
Two recent conversations about movies have made me realise there's a key component of the digital rental process that is missing and would make life so much better. At the moment, on Apple in particular, you can buy a film for a high price initially that drops the longer a film has been in the world. Or you can rent a film for a slightly lower price but only keep …
Just a bit of inspiration from an old episode of Radio 1's Screen Time podcast with Ali Plumb. As I've said to people on Instagram and Twitter quite a lot lately, don't be ashamed of your opinions. If you happen to, for example, not like The Favourite, and everyone's saying how amazing it is, but you're like, I don't like it. Don't feel ashamed, don't be like, oh I've got …
I always start these anniversary posts with the warning that "I don't usually like to celebrate such things but here I am going to anyway." I have realised, though, that it's something to do with the ten year anniversary of things. That's the one I like because it's a nice round number and because it seems like a long time. Ten years is the one that Film Watch is celebrating. …
So I've just binge watched all six Rocky films in a row, not all in one day, I'm not a maniac, but without watching other films in between. Somehow despite having the least interest in, and probably actively disliking boxing, these films grabbed my attention and became something of an obsession. The drama is brilliant. The dialogue nutty. The training montages legendary. What I loved most of all, though, was …
Catching up with a recent Graham Norton Show episode, The 1975 were on to promote their latest album and tour and whatnot, and I believe they might have told the greatest story that's been on that show. Matty Healy, talking on behalf of his bandmate, described to Saoirse Ronan and assembled guests a situation regarding one of her movies. Adam came into rehearsal ages ago, once, and he said to …
An interesting piece about film credits aired on Marketplace last week, discussing why the in- and out- credits on films have gotten so much longer than previously. It explained why this has occurred and started with a look at the closing scroll on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. --- "The credits last a whopping nine minutes and thirty seconds, that's an addition of more than three minutes over the original 1993 …
There are lots of articles written at this time of year looking back on the months gone and looking forward to the next twelve, and I’ve been intrigued by the variety of “best upcoming films” that have been touted. How many of them am I looking forward to? I had a browse through a few articles (Wired and The Guardian, in particular) and picked out the films that stood out …
I've seen a lot of debate recently about the usefulness of new year's resolutions - are we putting too much pressure on ourselves? Are we pushing for hard to achieve activities when we should be revelling more in what we have and who we are? I think there can be an element of this and I can respect those who don't care for a resolution one way or the other. …
In direct contrast to my post this week about struggling to care for the Westworldian robots, now I’m all over-excited at the thought of this Transformer’s spin-off featuring the one and only Bumblebee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAIX12F6958 Of course, part of that is because Haiz is in it, but equally, it’s hard not to love that big yellow beast, isn’t it? I wonder why I care more about the machine with headlights for …
Soon, Film Watch will reach its ninth birthday, having catalogued over 800 films so far and still going strong. More than anything, for me, it’s a handy reminder of what’s been viewed and an easy way to settle arguments between Mr C and myself about a) whether we have watched a film before and b) what we thought of it. The actual live blogging of the film is less important …
At first glance, this film looks like it pushes all the right buttons. A lonely man with a big idea fighting against all odds, some misfits who just want to be accepted, and... well, and Zac Efron. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMKKCh_prl4 But all you need to remember from this trailer, and hopefully from the movie is this: No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else. Wisdom.
Oh my stars. Unlike Baywatch, where I had all the expectations in the world and was a bit disappointed by the trailer, for Jumanji, I had nothing. When I rewatched the original for Film Watch, it wasn't as good as I remembered, so why would this be any better? Well, the first trailer was released today and already, I am loving the look of this remake. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7QVVsgje6M I'm really hoping …
This looks AMAZING. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvsz3lhrE1o One of the bonuses of this film is that there's a documentary about this subject too, which is on my documentary to-watch list that never gets looked at. If they could just go ahead and dramatise all of them, I'd be able to cross a lot more off that list!
New trailer released for The Golden Circle, the sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service (which I can't believe I watched two whole years ago!). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nxc-3WpMbg I actually ended viewing this trailer with my mouth agape. The first film garnered a 5 out of 5 stars rave review from me, and this second one looks just as good. It's also a great excuse to have to re-watch the first one again... …
Anyone who has been following this site for a while will know that at the end of each year, I like to hand over the reigns to Mr C to share his top five songs and films of the previous twelve months. Last year was an absolute disgrace as he was unable to narrow down his shortlist to five and after a full month of arguing about it, we ended …
It has become a tradition in our household to watch Love Actually at some point over the festive holidays. It’s a sugary sweet treat, although usually ends up in both happy and sad tears, particularly as each year passes and makes us feel ever more closer to the characters involved. Anyway, we indulged this year and instead of the floods I was expecting, I actually found the whole thing to …
A long, long while back, I wrote my five reasons for not going to the cinema anymore, and occasionally if I’m ever asked why I dislike watching films on the big screen, I point people towards that post. All of it still holds true, and as I get more cranky and my TV setup at home gets more awesome, there’s less of a reason to fork out for cinema tickets …
Beauty and the Beast was never one of my favourite Disney films but with Emma Watson in the live action remake, I'm interested to see how it comes to the big screen. A teaser trailer was released this past week, with just a few glimpses of the lady in question, and no sign of the beast at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c38r-SAnTWM I'm a bit concerned that this teaser doesn't really do much …
A new trailer for the third installment of the Star Trek reboot was released recently and it looks quite a lot like the previous two! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpUWZ1qQ5qQ This time, however, it's co-written by Simon Pegg and directed by Justin Lin, who played a big part in getting me hooked on the Fast and Furious franchise (something I'm still not totally over!) J.J. Abrams has had to hand over the baton to …
