Well, the obvious review of this film is that it’s nowhere near as good as the first one. Gal Gadot is great, as always, and Pedro Pascal was amazing at that heightened caricature of a baddie. The good bits were really good, but there was a lot that wasn’t good. The story didn’t make a lot of sense, there was a lot unexplained, and it raised questions that were far bigger than the space of a movie allowed.

The first two episodes of WandaVision appeared on Disney+ this week and I very quickly devoured them both. I wasn’t expecting to be as interested as I was, thought maybe I’d check it out when I had the time, but all the hype surrounding it completely sucked me in. Here are five immediate thoughts about the show: In navigating the menus to get to the show, Disney+ recommended their new Marvel Legends series and I’m so glad I watched this first. It introduces a bit of backstory to the characters that are appearing in their new line up of TV shows, so at the moment just two episodes of about eight minutes each featuring Wanda and then Vision. It was super useful. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I can’t keep up with the Marvel Universe even when I’m in the middle of the movies, so a quick reminder of their history made all the difference.

This album popped up because on Huey Lewis’ radio show, he claimed that Simple Minds were a one-hit wonder. Mr C found this quite offensive and then we realised I hadn’t done any of their albums! So, here we go! Woohoo, the 80s! It’s very firmly 80s in a good way, all the synths and sounds that make that decade what it is. I really enjoyed the album and actively want to listen to more from their back catalogue. Definitely not one-hit wonders!

I mean, there’s not a lot to say about this one, it’s a fine album. It’s Passenger doing what he does best - putting together some peaceful, calm songs. It was fine while I was listening to it, but I’m not going to remember this album in a couple of weeks.

I just found this one really readable, once I started it was so hard to put it down. Just like with the previous two, it can be a bit graphic in places but overall a great story. I couldn’t see how there was going to be a happy ending, and there almost wasn’t, but in the end everything worked out very well.

It makes no sense plotwise, but equally picks holes in its own plot problems. It’s meta in the way it dips in and out of the actual film but left me not quite sure what I was watching. And although I enjoy Gizmo being the hero at the end… he did a load of training and went into battle with just one arrow. What was his next plan?

I can’t believe I didn’t write anything after watching the first series of Staged in summer of last year. David Tennant and Michael Sheen bantering for 6 x 20 minute episodes. It was one of the bright spots of culture that came out of the specific circumstances of lockdown. Despite it being an epic piece of work, I suppose no one really wanted a second series as it meant life hadn’t got back to normal. But here we are, lockdown three is in full effect and the second series of Staged has brightened up a terrible January.

It’s a really good album. Old Dominion are a strong country band, never dipping too far into that deep country sound but also stopping just short of falling into the pop-country genre too. If I’m honest, the songs are all great but perhaps ultimately forgettable, except One Man Band - that is a real stand out song that gets stuck in my head every time I hear it. I also liked Some People Do, although it’s a bit of a downer way to end an album.

I loved it. It’s a new side to Miley, embracing that rock pop side more with incredible guest appearances from Joan Jett and Billy Idol. There’s a lot of tunes on there but obviously stand out tracks as well like Midnight Sky. I particularly liked Hate Me too. This is a great body of work and a brilliant kick start to the new year of albums.

I was very intrigued to see this series of How To books published by Stormzy’s Merky Books imprint. Short little books with guidance on a variety of subjects, this first one is about writing, publishing and getting the best out of your creativity. It took me a while to get used to the style of book - it’s not a writing guide, although it does have some exercises to try. It’s not a step by step to getting published, although there are some tips, lists and links to help.

I spend quite a lot of time avoiding the daily news because, you know, it’s awful. So I don’t know why I wanted to read this book from James O’Brien. In fact, I ended up with the second one so picked up this one to read first before moving on. It’s a very interesting read - I can’t say that I enjoyed it because it’s all very stressful and some of the people discussed within are idiots. But it’s a great book, taking various elements of the big debates of current times and giving examples of how to probe with a variety of questions to get to the heart of the argument.

Hooray for the dreaded time of year where I pick out the top five albums I’ve listened to over the past twelve months. Each week for 50 weeks, I listen to two albums. One is a new one (this year or the previous year) and one is an older one (from any time previous to that). So I can’t promise to have listened to every album that was released last year but of those I did, I’ve managed to narrow down five of the best.

Normally at this point, I write a post setting up some goals for the coming year. Like many people, I’m certain that setting new year’s resolutions is NOT the thing to do for 2021. I can’t even bring myself to look at my 2020 post to see the things I wanted to achieve that absolutely didn’t happen. 2020 was an unpredictable and unprecedented year that is best put behind us and even though setting specific goals isn’t the way forward, it’s still worth looking, thinking and hoping that the next twelve months will be better. I was lucky in a lot of ways last year and count my blessings, but for everyone’s sake I’m hoping that 2021 will bring us all good things and life can settle just a little into whatever the new normal is going to be.

Managed to squeeze in this Christmas book before the festive season came to a close, and I’m so glad I did, it was lovely. I thought the premise sounded a bit bizarre - random strangers collecting at a beach hut over Christmas? How does that work? But actually, in context it made perfect sense and was such a warm read. This disparate group of people escaping from their real lives and coming together to help each other out. It all came to a happy but not totally sappy ending.

There’s an enormous amount of TV out there - existing and brand new, bingeable and streaming weekly - and the vast catalogue is only going to keep on growing. In fact, the appetite for amazing TV seems to be growing with many famous names and faces making the transition from the big screen to the small screen… and, of course, the big screen not being so big at the moment!

Browsing the news today and this post caught my eye describing the surge in purchases of physical cassette tapes. They make a point of saying that it’s still a tiny fraction of music sales that are happening on tape but my big question is WHY? I can understand the resurgence in vinyl even if I’m not on board with it personally. I get that some people prefer to have an actual physical object and I can see the romance in the vinyl and record player, the sleeve notes, the great artwork, all of that. What is there to like about a cassette tape?

As we’re still unable to go to theatres at the moment, the Mischief crew have decided to bring the theatre into our homes - hooray! Their improvised show Mischief Movie Night has gone online, starting yesterday and streaming every day until New Year’s Eve. I was lucky enough to see this show in person a few year’s ago and although I’ve never been entirely comfortable with improv, you know you’re in safe hands with this crew.

Not everyone loves Christmas, obviously, and even more so when the festive season is taken out of context and moved to a different season than you’re used to. Peter Kay’s YouTube channel popped this video of Car Share clips up recently, highlighting when Kayleigh brought her Christmas CD into the car during the height of summer. John wasn’t impressed, to say the least! My favourite quotes:

I listened to the audiobook version of this, read by Hugh Quarshie, and it was a great reading but I can’t promise that I enjoyed the book as much as I was hoping. I was surprised at how close it was to the first film in the Bond series - I recognised a lot of the scenes in my head as they played out.

This is a work of art - a brand new Christmas musical has just popped up out of nowhere! It’s not perfect, the town is ridiculous, Dolly is as camp as ever, and I have a few questions about the story but if you put all that aside, it’s lovely.

One thing that’s become clear over the past year or so of chaos is that it’s helpful to focus on the things that you can control. With that in mind, I focused in on achieving my Apple activity badges each month - the personalised ones, not the all-three-rings-every-single-day one. At first it was just a bit of fun, and then, despite my best intentions, it became a complete the full year of badges project.

I think I liked this more than the first one - the story seems to hold together better and it’s interesting to see where the characters are growing together and growing up. Snowman having constant existential crises is incredible. There were areas that felt quite dark for a kid’s film, but you can’t underestimate kids these days, I guess.

In a festive season where everyone’s plans have gone awry, we instead focus on the Christmas content we know and love. There are so many TV Christmas specials out there, but only a few that I revisit on a regular basis. Here’s a countdown of five of them… Vicar of Dibley - The Christmas Lunch Incident Just a joy from start to finish - Geraldine trying to do the best for her parishioners at the expense of her own sanity, as usual! The brussel sprout competition, the giant portions, the incredible conversations at Alice’s house. It’s lovely.

Firstly, this really is an incredible cast, and I really liked the individual stories. It’s natural to compare it to Love Actually - all those separate strands winding together towards the end. Unfortunately, the ending wasn’t the best part though, because I didn’t really buy them as a family. How are those two sisters? And the Arkin, Helms, Chalamet trio seem as unrelated as it’s possible to be.

Yea, I didn’t enjoy this. I was quite looking forward to a Christmas movie that wasn’t all festive and joy and light. Die Hard, anyone? But I didn’t know what was going on, the tone of it was all over the place, and I felt like it was going to take a long time to get going so… other Christmas movies to watch, thanks. Mel Gibson looked like he was doing a good job, though.

Now that I’ve finished watching the second season of The Mandalorian, I’ve been catching up with some of the news surrounding it. Whilst the show is on, I try and avoid articles because of spoilers, even if we were all watching at the same weekly pace. A story I read recently made me think about how great this second series has been for women - strong characters, great actors, and all those behind the scenes as well. Here are three things that have stood out to me:

This movie is an assault on the senses from the get-go. It has an incredible cast and an interesting premise, but it has that problem that we occasionally find with movies - we were totally on board with them as they were before. So you just know it’s all going to go downhill as they discover the joy of Christmas and babies and weddings and stuff. Boooooo. It’s fun, but stressful, and loud, and chaos and… well quite a lot like Christmas, actually!

I’ve listened to more audiobooks this year and delving into the world more has opened up a few surprises. I was hugely looking forward to the audiobook of Troubled Blood, the fifth book in the Cormoran Strike series. I’ve exclusively listened to the first four books via Audible because Robert Glenister’s narration is so good, and the content is so detailed and dense that having it read to me helps me not to miss anything. Hooray!

It’s a serviceable murder mystery but the cast of characters was too big to get to know anyone in the short time available. And that meant it was hard to get involved properly in the whodunit, and the big reveal a bit less impactful than it otherwise could have been. But you really get a sense of the place and its three lighthouses!

The good thing about the first series of The Mandalorian taking so long to come to the UK is that we didn’t have that long to wait after watching it for the second series to begin. The bad thing is, now we’re going to have to wait ages for the next installment. However, series two did come to an impressive conclusion this past week, with a guest appearance that seems almost impossible to have kept secret this whole time. And yet, they managed it! I won’t dig into the details too much here because I’m still toying with writing more in depth episodic reviews, but overall, what an incredible show.

Yay for Christmas novels! Another area where you can wrap up warm, settle down with a hot chocolate and revel in the festive spirit. This was a good story although it was really obvious where it was going from the start. I felt like the characters were quite remote, despite a lot of soul-searching, I didn’t necessarily find myself connecting with any of them. Except maybe Brodie, and he wasn’t the central focus. A nice, festive read but not one of my favourites.

It’s another film with an odd premise - someone (?) is going to shut down the fairy godmother school so to stop that happening the only young eager godmother left heads down to earth to save the day. It takes ages to get going, you have to really like Jillian Bell to stick with it.

It feels like Apple Fitness+ was announced so long ago - time moves slowly these days, right? But finally, mid-December, the new service launched and I was very keen to try it out. It’s a subscription service that you can either purchase separately or as part of a bundle of Apple services (my option), but it’s squarely aimed at people who have an Apple Watch as well. Once you’re on board, the integration with the watch is incredible and makes it all worthwhile - without a Watch, I’m not 100% sure it stacks up against the vast array of fitness alternatives.

This is a brilliant film. It’s got an incredible cast to start with, and they are all believable as family or friends or adversaries, or potential partners. Great chemistry and even when they’re not being particularly nice to each other, you understand their reasons and what they’re going through. Relatable even when they’re being awful.

Thankfully, it’s brilliant. It probably has a bit of a benefit from following on the slow-pace chill-fest of Taylor’s latest album, but even without that, it’s just good soft rock. One is genuinely one of the greatest songs ever, but even with that it doesn’t overshadow everything around it - they all stand up.

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite like this album as much as I did the last one. Folklore has grown on me since I listened to it earlier in the year and some of the songs are starting to resonate. It’s not my favourite Swift album by far but I like it. This one is just so slow, so chill, so very Dessner, it doesn’t grab me at all. I was really not looking forward to the second listen through, although it was nowhere near as bad as I had built it up in my head.

I really loved this movie. It’s not a new idea to take a mythical creature and put them fish-out-of-water in modern day society, but I really liked how this one came together. All the odd decisions Noelle made actually made sense in her world, and the whole time there was an undercurrent of saving Christmas whilst simultaneously breaking down the patriarchy which I wholeheartedly support.

I found this to be a bit of an odd read. The structure of it was good, starting at the funeral of a man and looking around at the congregation considering who might have been involved with his death. Then we dip back and forth in time to piece together what did happen.

If ever there was a film of two halves, it’s this. You start out with a reasonably cute rom-com, Kate dealing with her difficult family, recovery from a serious condition, a job that only seems relevant for maybe one month of the year, and aspirations to just be a better human without making any effort… she meets a guy who is too-good-to-be-true and their relationship develops. Then, oh my, you’re slapped with the cold, heard, truth and it turns the movie completely on its head!

Anyway, this is their debut album and what an amazing body of work to kick off your career with! There aren’t really hte amazing stand out songs that feature later in their career but it’s some really good rock to get you going. I was confused why Seven Seas of Rhye is on there and also on the second album, but this was a shorter instrumental version that obviously went down quite well because it came a fully fledged song by the next album. Mm, what a great journey.

I don’t know if I had any expectations going into this one, other than quite liking Sweet but Psycho that always ends up stuck in my head. It was such a good album! It’s labelled as pop and I suppose it is but it reminded me so much of the high concept dramatics from the likes of Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler - pop but with a dark side.

It’s a good collection and very moving, but if I’m honest I think there are only so many things to say about the festive season so by the end I felt it was lacking a bit of variety. Still, it’s always interesting to read essays from different viewpoints, so it’s worth a look whether or not you’ve seen the film.

This was better than I thought it was going to be. The concept isn’t exactly a new one - parent going crazy trying to find a toy that is completely out of reach - but it’s good. The adventure he goes on has some wacky moments and you have to suspend your disbelief a bit, but I think up to the point of the parade, it’s pretty good.

This was so beautifully written. There are a lot of memoirs out there about working in the medical professions but this was a special one. It flows beautifully, it describes an incredible journey of finding yourself whilst supporting so many grateful people.

Hmm. If I remember rightly, I was really keen on the first movie, expecting it to be pretty rubbish and it being a pleasant surprise. This was kinda the opposite. I wasn’t anticipating great things, if I’m honest, but it didn’t even meet those expectations! Fundamentally, it’s an ok film, has a good structure, a good guy, a bad guy, etc, etc. But the pace of it, the flow, the glaring errors in the script… it was so weird.

Really loved this. It’s a Christmas film that starts with the first words being ‘Eff holidays’ so you know you’re off to a good start. But it’s fun, Emma Roberts is great as a sort of selfish but messed up woman trying to get over what was clearly the wrong guy for her. And the connection between the two leads is nice, too, very believable as friends both with and without benefits.

A very good album from Mr Ocean kicks off with the most excellent but long-titled first track. I was introduced to that track via the Boyzone charity version but you can’t fault the original. This is a short album, just nine songs, but they’re all well done and go together well. It felt quite dated, very in the 80s and of its time, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t know that I’ll seek it out again but a good album to start wrapping up the year with.

This was a surprisingly good album! I was expecting it to be, you know, very Steps, and it was recognisably them but it also wasn’t cringeworthy or too poppy. It doesn’t have anything in there that’s going to massively stand the test of time, but I must admit whilst I was listening and bopping along, it was a really fun way to spend an hour. Just some really clean, clear, concise, fun pop songs. A very good job!

This is a great read with some valuable advice on how to live your best life. It takes a while to get through all the pre-amble, the proof that it’s worth doing and selling the idea to us but once it does, you get to the good stuff.

This was quite a quick read, following our protagonist as she’s brought out of FBI retirement to investigate some murders in her neighbourhood. I wasn’t sure if it was totally believable how that happened, or that they would make a new job for her. Surely retirement rules are there for a reason?