“Christmas is over and we’re going back to work?”

I watched twelve films in total over January (five) and February (seven). And with the exception of a trifling, mere handful they were mostly recent releases. Well, by recent I mean released in the last couple of years. Here’s the full list –

Steve Jobs (2015)
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Sausage Party (2016)
The Ring (2002)
Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)
Bruno (2009)
Fear (1996)
Amy (2015)
Catch Me if you Can (2002)
Rings (2017)
Goodnight Mommy (2014)
Horns (2013)

Steve Jobs I bought on DVD last September and only just got round to watching. I enjoyed it for a film I probably won’t watch again. Only because though, why would you watch a film like that again? It was interesting to watch once and I enjoyed the dialogue, story and performances. But it’s not a particularly emotional or incredible tale is it. I mean, kudos for making a successful film out of it in the first place (quite frankly).

Insidious: Chapter 3 I reviewed a while back (here) and reading it now I realise I was being unreasonably fair. Watching it again recently on Prime (during a lovely lazy weekend), well I was rather bored to be honest. Either I’m getting hard in my old age or the film just wasn’t that great – vote below. And in contrast I re-watched another horror in the shape of The Ring and was struck by how decent a film it really is. It scared me a lot when it came out (fifteen years ago) and though, thankfully, it doesn’t have that killer effect now I still think it’s a good film. I watched the Rings sequel a couple of weeks ago at the cinema and obviously it didn’t hit the same spot, though it was earnest trying. Read my double horror review of Rings and Goodnight Mommy here.

Hooray and ten points for me, because I finally watched 10 Cloverfield Lane. It had been on my watch list, for like, forever dude. I enjoyed it a lot. OF COURSE the ending was a little weird and I spent some time debating whether I liked it or not (maybe fifteen minutes in all). But the bulk of the movie was really good. I don’t think the ending quite lived up to the beginning and middle parts of the film but they were always going to be hard to top. The mystery, the fun in being clueless and trying to piece stuff together. I know I’m probably the last person on the planet to watch this, but if you’re even more of a loser than me and haven’t seen this yet, you really should.

Amy I watched again for the third time, which was slightly weird timing because I watched it around the same time last year too. A very good documentary about the life of the doomed singer (also available on Prime) and reviewed by me here.

And now onto some raucous – and to some people probably the lowest common denominator of – comedy now, with Bruno and Sausage Party. I really like Bruno, always have. It’s my favourite of all Sacha Baron Cohen’s films and it definitely pushes its limits to the max. Even now I find the final scene (where Bruno and his assistant make out in a wresting ring, causing mayhem within a strictly heterosexual and unworldly audience), one of the craziest things I’ve seen on celluloid. I admire Cohen, both as a film maker slash comedian and a little bit sexually too (though not when he’s dressed like any of his characters obvs).

Sausage Party was fun but easily forgettable. Actually now, maybe a month after watching it I’m struggling to remember exactly what happened. But yeah it was fun if you like This Usual Crew. So Seth Rogen is a sausage and girlfriend Kirsten Wiig is a bun (so yeah, his job in life is to ‘slot’ inside her – ho ho ho). Jonah Hill and Michael Cera are both sausages too but Michael Cera is a deformed, wimpy sausage. Then we have Salma Hayek as a saucy, lesbian Mexican taco shell, James Franco as an actual real life drug dealer (in the movie I hasten to add) and I’m sure you’re getting the cliché-yet-still-a-formula-that-works picture. Quite strange watching a film that for all intents and purposes looks like it’s for kids, but is actually rude, gross and in places very funny. The douche was a bit scary.

So as I’ve whipped over these rather and intentionally fast, that just leaves Fear, Catch Me If You Can (both re-watches) and Horns (for the first time). Horns I actually bought on DVD based on seeing a random fifteen minutes on TV and thinking it looked good. And as anyone who cares to listen will know, I do really like Daniel Radcliffe. Who, by the by, was typically great in this strange, but quite good movie which follows his character waking up to find his girlfriend murdered and devil like horns sprouted up through his forehead. The film is original and the script quite funny, there were some really bizarre, basically surreal scenes at the beginning which were great. In the end it got a little far out for me and I never really ‘got’ what point the film was trying to make, assuming there was one at all. I was not surprised to find out it was based on a book. It had that I’m-based-on-a-book kind of atmosphere.

Another based on a book, Catch Me if You Can – the incredible story of young fraudster Frank Abagnale, who posed illegally as an airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer and proved just how much you can get away with if you have a bit of a brain and a lot of bollocks. I’ve read his book and I’d seen the film before too, so remembered the story fairly well. I did forget though, just how good the film is. Good and also very funny. Both Leonardo DiCaprio (Frank Abagnale) and Tom Hanks (the guy trying to catch him) are perfectly cast  – though perhaps a little generous.

I’m sorry, that was unnecessary. And Leo looks a bit amphibious in that picture anyway.

So anyway, on a sad, lonely, standard Friday night where I drink average priced wine and eat a pot noodle (to clarify I actually LOVE Friday nights where I do this) I ended up watching 90s thriller classic (kind of) Fear, where Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon and Alyssa Milano look so hot it’s ridiculous. Alyssa Milano plays the slutty school friend, who is a bad influence on the innocent school friend Reese Witherspoon who is very naive and cute skipping around in over-the-knee socks and miniature tartan skirts. She falls for bad boy Mark Wahlberg who ends up being a total, scary, murderous psycho who kills a dog (you know someone is a cunt when they kill a dog). All in all I really like this film though there is an awfully cringe scene where Wahlberg (looking smug and creepy) fingers Witherspoon on a ferris wheel whilst a terrible song plays in the background about wild horses tearing me away. I actually hate that scene and weirdly Mark Wahlberg himself a little bit, whenever I watch it.

Sorry for using the word (or in this instance the phrase) “fingers”.