January 2012 – Your Mom Got Chased By A Shark Once

2012 began like any other, with a look forward to the year at hand and lists of the most and least anticipated movies of the coming twelve months. With neither producing a movie until February, I tuned into Watchmen on TV, bought The Tree of Life on DVD and waited for the first set of releases to arrive in cinemas.

This month I set about catching up on all of the awards contenders that I hadn’t yet seen, falling instantly in love with Michel Hazanavicius’ exceptional The Artist, Kenneth Lonergan’s long-awaited Margaret, Steven Spielberg’s emotional War Horse, Steve McQueen’s impressive Shame and Alexander Payne’s Oscar-tipped The Descendants.

Also released this month was toothless Meryl Streep vehicle The Iron Lady, nonsensical alien invasion flick The Darkest Hour, unwanted Underworld fourquel Awakening and the brutally botched Haywire. For The Darkest Hour, I prepared a brief criticism for Moviejuice, STV’s film review programme. Invited to join fellow Edinburgh-based movie lovers, we spoke our pieces to camera and found ourselves united in dread of the inevitable broadcast.

Elsewhere this month, I contributed a number of reviews and a list of my most anticipated animated features to BestforFilm, alongside a defensive piece in support of director Richard Kelly and a showcase of my favourite video game for HeyUGuys. Just in case you’re interested (the cinema adaptation is probably already on the way), it’s Banjo-Kazooie.

As with the last twelve months, I ended this one with James Bond for Blogalongabond. January was the month of Octopussy, and, you know what, it was alright.

Film of the month: Margaret

Best for Film’s Hollywood Haiku Competition #5

Following the massive success of their Write Christmas competition, Best for Film are back with another chance to win big – this time boasting a shiny new Blu-ray player as the main prize.

Here’s how to enter.

How to submit your Hollywood Haiku to our writing competition

Closing date for entries: 20 May 2011
1. Review the film of your choice in the form of a haiku (3 lines: 5-7-5 syllables). Don’t forget to state which film your Hollywood Haiku relates to.
2. Post your Hollywood Haiku on your blog. You can enter as many times as you like – but please make a new blog post for each haiku.
3. Include the following link under your haiku, copy and pasting the yellow text below:
This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.
4. Email the url of your blog’s haiku entry to competitions@bestforfilm.com. Put HAIKU in the subject header of the email. In the body of your email, include your entry’s url, and the description of your blog you’d like us to use if you win.

Here is the fifth of most likely many entries, as I fail and fail again at counting syllables and avoiding the inevitable death of DVD.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Indiana Jones
can nuke my fridge any day.
Prairie dogs and all.

This is an entry for Best For Film’s Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

Too much of life is lost in waiting.

Best for Film’s Hollywood Haiku Competition #3

Following the massive success of their Write Christmas competition, Best for Film are back with another chance to win big – this time boasting a shiny new Blu-ray player as the main prize.

Here’s how to enter.

How to submit your Hollywood Haiku to our writing competition

Closing date for entries: 20 May 2011
1. Review the film of your choice in the form of a haiku (3 lines: 5-7-5 syllables). Don’t forget to state which film your Hollywood Haiku relates to.
2. Post your Hollywood Haiku on your blog. You can enter as many times as you like – but please make a new blog post for each haiku.
3. Include the following link under your haiku, copy and pasting the yellow text below:
This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.
4. Email the url of your blog’s haiku entry to competitions@bestforfilm.com. Put HAIKU in the subject header of the email. In the body of your email, include your entry’s url, and the description of your blog you’d like us to use if you win.

Here is the third of most likely many entries, as I fail and fail again at counting syllables and avoiding the inevitable death of DVD.

The Dark Knight.

Christopher Nolan
sacrifices humour for
a yawn in the dark.

This is an entry for Best For Film’s Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

Why so serious?

Best for Film’s Hollywood Haiku Competition #2

Following the massive success of their Write Christmas competition, Best for Film are back with another chance to win big – this time boasting a shiny new Blu-ray player as the main prize.

Here’s how to enter.

How to submit your Hollywood Haiku to our writing competition

Closing date for entries: 20 May 2011
1. Review the film of your choice in the form of a haiku (3 lines: 5-7-5 syllables). Don’t forget to state which film your Hollywood Haiku relates to.
2. Post your Hollywood Haiku on your blog. You can enter as many times as you like – but please make a new blog post for each haiku.
3. Include the following link under your haiku, copy and pasting the yellow text below:
This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.
4. Email the url of your blog’s haiku entry to competitions@bestforfilm.com. Put HAIKU in the subject header of the email. In the body of your email, include your entry’s url, and the description of your blog you’d like us to use if you win.

Here is the second of most likely many entries, as I fail and fail again at counting syllables and avoiding the inevitable death of DVD.

Hocus Pocus.

Don’t you just hate it
when Sanderson Sisters ruin
your Halloween date.

This is an entry for Best For Film’s Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

Hello, I want my book. Bonjour, je veux mon livre.

Best For Film’s Hollywood Haiku Competition #1

Following the massive success of their Write Christmas competition, Best for Film are back with another chance to win big – this time boasting a shiny new Blu-ray player as the main prize.

Here’s how to enter.

How to submit your Hollywood Haiku to our writing competition

Closing date for entries: 20 May 2011
1. Review the film of your choice in the form of a haiku (3 lines: 5-7-5 syllables). Don’t forget to state which film your Hollywood Haiku relates to.
2. Post your Hollywood Haiku on your blog. You can enter as many times as you like – but please make a new blog post for each haiku.
3. Include the following link under your haiku, copy and pasting the yellow text below:
This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.
4. Email the url of your blog’s haiku entry to competitions@bestforfilm.com. Put HAIKU in the subject header of the email. In the body of your email, include your entry’s url, and the description of your blog you’d like us to use if you win.

Here is the first of most likely many entries, as I fail and fail again at counting syllables and avoiding the inevitable death of DVD.

South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.

Welcome to South Park
where fuck, shit and bastard let
Satan out of Hell.

This is an entry for Best For Film’s Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

Because that’s what Brian Boitano’d do.

March 2011 – You made me…a period mix?

Despite being a bit of a non-month event-wise, March has been one of my busiest months in terms of reviews and features since London.

In addition to reporting the good (Walden Media Go Back To The Beginning For Narnia 4), the bad (Jennifer Garner IS Miss Marple) and the downright weird movie (Channing Tatum Believes in Faries – He Does, He Does!) news this month, I have reviewed Chalet Girl and Battle: LA for HeyUGuys, Route Irish and Chalet Girl for BestforFilm, and The Rite, The Adjustment Bureau, Rango, Fair Game, Anuvahood, No Strings Attached, Unkown, Submarine, Limitless and Country Strong for this blog.

Inspired by Mother’s Day, The King’s (sweary) Speech and Jodie Foster’s decrepit Beaver, I have written features listing five movie matriarchs and what to get them for Mother’s Day, asking if the 12A certificate is still valid and exampling the use of anthropomorphisation in cinema.

This month has also seen my starting to write for a new website, the endlessly entertaining Oh Yeah Me Too. In a change of lanes that saw me complaining writing about things other than film, I decided to list five institutions that aren’t as awesome as they used to be (since when was the weekend a disappointing luxury in which town became unpassable?) and four things that scientists can stop inventing now (*cough* thirst pockets *cough*).

Excitingly, March has also seen a number of other developments. While HeyUGuys were revamping their site and the Shop went live at BestforFilm, my Tangled review made an appearance on the Vue website as an official critical review.

I ended March, as I have so far ended every month this year, in a desperate attempt to finish blogging along a Bond in time for any pinching and punching. This month’s film was Goldfinger, perhaps the best film in the series (I seriously hope we haven’t peaked already), a five star cheese-dream in which Sean Connery disguises himself as a seagull, statues are decapitated by bowler hats and people die from “skin suffocation”. Compared to the recent preference for serious Bond, I loved it.

Film of the month: Rango

January 2011 – It’s on like Donkey Kong

Since bringing in this new year with shots of Danish Aquavit and a sizeable slab of brie, I have tried to kick-start my year into shape and set my numerous resolutions into motion with a new blog and a new mindset. Thoroughly failing to reboot my life with a new job and daily productivity so far, I have nevertheless sustained a half-decent blog through the first month of 2011. Go team me.

Beginning the new year with the obligatory list of my 10 favourite movies of 2010 and a review of my highlights working for HeyUGuys, I also posed a series of actresses who might be able to save the inevitable Buffy reboot from total travesty. Wasting no time in rounding up my most anticipated and dreaded releases of this coming year, I was finally free to set about reviewing the films already taken by other writers for HeyUGuys and BestforFilm.

So far this year I have watched: The Kings Speech (magisterial), Bridge to Terabithia (surprisingly poignant), Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (disarming), Casino Royale (21 months early), Tangled (for which I have the monopoly with reviews at HUG, BFF and on this here blog), Tron: Legacy (snore), The X-Files: I Want to Believe (ponderous), 127 Hours (arresting), Cloverfield (engaging)  Blue Valentine (devastating), The Emperor’s New Groove (perfection), Step Up 3D (entertaining), Season of the Witch (crap), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I (enchanting), The Green Hornet 3D (insulting), The Next Three Days (acceptable), Morning Glory (wonderful), Black Swan (infectious), Conviction (passable) and Hereafter (underestimated).

January was the month in which How to Train Your Dragon 2 was thoroughly demystified, Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy were cast in The Dark Knight Rises and we caught our first glimpse of Andrew Garfield as Spider-man. January was also – as is often the case – home to Burns Night, spurring a list of the eight most random Scots cameos in film.

With 22 months remaining until the release of Bond 23, January also proved the perfect opportunity for a franchise retrospective. Joining The Invisible Suit and a whole host of other bloggers, I have endeavoured to watch a Bond movie a month for the BlogalongaBond challenge.  Starting 2011 with Dr. No, I have only 21 months left until I am free of this beautifully pointless exercise.

So, January has been a busy month. While I have yet to escape to greener (journalism-centric) pastures, I have founded a place to vent my frustration at idiotic customer questions and commit my overwhelming popcornaddiction to web.

Film of the month: Morning Glory.