I’m officially obsessed with Mischief Theatre and their unique brand of comedy that is essentially messing things up on purpose. I’ve talked about them a couple of times before, but the joy of their Goes Wrong shows is how meticulously crafted it is to make it look so bad. The TV series that aired earlier in the year was a real highlight over Christmas and January, every episode had me in stitches. So I was happy to see the Goes Wrong Along rewatch that’s been happening over the past few weeks with everyone involved sharing their insights. It wasn’t just people tweeting about the show while they’re watching, but the cast actually filmed themselves sharing behind the scenes snippets and insider information.

This is an album that has associations for me so it’s taken quite a while to pluck up the courage to get through it. But it’s such a good one, it was worth it. I really love it, the more wistful, melancholy and inventive side of Coldplay, back when they were just starting out.

I thought this album might be a bit more old-school country but it wasn’t, it was pretty standard modern country stuff. That’s the problem with it, though, it was just pretty standard. I really enjoyed it whilst I was listening to it, bopped along to the tracks, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it now, despite having listened twice.

Loved this film! Was expecting it to be either pretty lame or a bit of an oddball one like Playing With Fire, but it wasn’t. It was a sensible story, very funny, and not predictable - I mean, obviously you knew where it was going with the big showdown, but they threw in a couple of twists and things didn’t go how you always thought they would.

I think Julia Louis-Dreyfus carries this film incredibly well, she’s got exactly the right mix of frustration, sadness, desperation, but loyalty and her facial expressions are on point. Will Ferrell seems completely out of place in this movie, totally mis-cast. The dark comedy doesn’t really come out of him well in this, and he plays a very wooden character so that it’s hard to see the motivation and thus hard for JLD to have anything to bounce off of.

The general consensus for this film is that it’s fine, a perfectly good movie, but not anywhere near Pixar at their best. And I agree with that to a degree. I thought both Chris Pratt and Tom Holland did a great job with lending their voices to this and had good chemistry as brothers trying to work out their relationship.

What a terrible film this is. I was in two minds going into it, really, but only because I thought it would be a bit too horror and not enough sci-fi. How wrong can one be? It wasn’t horror at all, it was just pointless.

This film is slow, and thoughtful, and introspective and really, on the face of it, nothing much happens. So I can totally see that this’ll be a film people love or hate. I thought it was brilliant. Firstly, I was in exactly the right mood for this. Tired after an exhausting week, just watching someone go about their day was soothing.

What’s not to like about this? First it has the absolute powerhouse that is Total Eclipse of the Heart on there, but second, the other songs stand up just as well. It’s that pop/rock/opera style that Meatloaf does so well too, and I really loved it.

Loved this. I was one of many who knew Lennon from her sister-duo on Nashville, and was intrigued to see her branch out into pop music on her own. But she’s not just gone straight up pop, this is individual, smooth and sophisticated music that showcases her talents in songwriting and vocals alike.

I wasn’t expecting to like this. In my head, I feel like I’ve had mixed responses to Guy Ritchie’s gangster-style work and I wasn’t sure this was going to be any good. I was so wrong. I loved it! Hugh Grant is incredible in this, slimy and sneaky, but bouncing so well off Charlie Hunnam’s implacable, quiet and stern character.

The biggest problem with this movie is with the name, it leads you into thinking you’re probably going to be watching a nice, gentle music movie but that’s not what this is. Once you get your head around it though, things get a lot better.

I used to like Olly Murs more than I do now - I think he’s gone a bit middle of the road. But this album features one of his best songs, with Demi Lovato. Up is just such a tune, it stands out as the real hit of this album.

I always think I like the idea of a Miranda album more than the actual experience of listening, as they often veer a bit too far to old-style country for my tastes, and can sometimes be a bit, dare I say it, whiny. However, this one broke the mould! I really liked it.

I took quite a long time to come round to this movie, and definitely considered stopping it at the twenty minute rule. But I’m glad I didn’t because after the first half hour or so, I started warming to it, and by the end I was completely on board.

The concept of this was more satisfying than the book itself – what would the world be like if it stopped turning and the sun was stationary over the same land for eternity? Great premise. And the descriptions of the scenery, the situations, the politics, all good.

I didn’t know about this Miss World demonstration or the events surrounding it so it was interesting to see the drama that unfolded before and after the protest. The film does a good job of displaying the hopes and dreams of everyone involved and the acting cast do a stellar job with a delicate story.

This was a good one, I’ve never heard of it before but I enjoyed it. It probably hasn’t aged all that well but not as badly as other movies we’ve attempted from this era. The swinging around from a cigarette at the end wasn’t all that believable but it worked.

So, yea, I’ve been doing this album thing for five years now and I’ve only just got around to listening to a Beatles record. If I’m honest, I’ve been avoiding them because the Beatles aren’t my favourite. They’ve got a lot of good, classic songs, obviously, and we know they’re super important to the music world, but mostly, they’re just not my thing.

I thought I was going to love this album, because I’ve heard people talking about how strong the 80s influence is, and Blinding Lights is one of my favourite songs of late. I don’t think it lived quite up to my expectations but it is a solid album.

Based on nothing but my faith in Roland Emmerich, I purchased this film and was quite looking forward to it. What a let down! It made no sense, bombing sequence after bombing sequence, flitting here and there, and not really making any progress with the plot. They were explaining things but I couldn’t follow it.

It’s almost impossible to know what to write about this film. It’s such a weird one! The concept is pretty straight-forward, and as I mentioned at some point, has a lot of similarities with Three Men & a Baby, except with firefighters.

This was good, funny, and Rose and Tiffany were both great. I’m not sure the story totally held up - it was super short so it felt like they sort of ran out of ideas. I’ve got nothing against a short film, it’s a breath of fresh air in the current Hollywood climate, but I think Salma’s character should have messed with them more for it to really have the effect that it did.

Quick and easy read, this one, and I wasn’t sure it was going to compel me for long as I started, but somehow it kept drawing me further and further in. There’s not a lot of action, really, with most of the story taking two forms – Paige is a widow who channels some of her grief into digging a vegetable garden in her back yard, to the disgust of her neighbours. And at the same time, her new boss is instigating competitions to try and get the best from the team and it’s not sitting well with everyone.

It was good! I’ve been trying to avoid most things Star Wars in anticipation of the film so I hadn’t realised there was such a negative reaction to this movie, I can’t really see what’s wrong with it? Good story, great characters, huge respect to Carrie Fisher, fun new creatures, interesting twist to the Rey story, and a big battle scene at the end. Sounds pretty Star Wars to me.

Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. The story basically makes sense, there were a couple of moments where I laughed, and Sonic at least didn’t look horrific anymore. But it really wasn’t a good movie, Jim Carrey’s star-power couldn’t cover the fact that he didn’t really have any good lines, and I just felt sorry for Marsden having to act against nothing for most of the time.

Going into this lockdown, I wasn’t particularly worried about staying entertained as there’s enough content out there to last a lifetime. I am super impressed with some of the things people are coming up with though, to help bring a bit of joy into everyone’s life, and if we’re honest, also to keep themselves busy as well. I wanted to give a shout out to Jimmy Carr’s Little Tiny Quiz of the Lockdown - a daily ten question quiz that is a lot of fun and a significant highlight of the day. Part of it is the set up of the quiz - five general knowledge, five on a usually more visual theme, at 6pm every day with answers coming at 8pm. Part of it is Jimmy Carr’s deadpan style, and I’m loving the consistency of it. Every day, you can rely on getting some questions to answer.

I was perusing through some older audiobook purchases and discovered Stephen Fry reading through the second Paddington book. What could be more perfect in the current crazed situation than going on some adventures with a beloved bear? It’s simple, it’s fun, it has great characters and it’s well-read by Mr Fry. Perfect.

I love this movie. It’s not a good film, I grant you, but it’s a cult classic and one of my favourites. Good ol’ Kevin Costner wielding the bow and arrow, against Alan Rickman’s incredibly camp Sheriff. Actually, the film stood up better than I thought it would, although the first half really does seem low budget - the sets are so obviously put together, it’s wild.

It’s hard to describe this movie. It’s powerful, awful, perfect. Jordan is great as the lawyer who is doing great work but remains humble. Foxx does a good turn of wronged but realistic, quiet but all the more moving for it.

A good second book in the Will Robie canon, and one that very cleverly introduces a new character to the series. Robie’s meticulousness has taken a hit after the events of the last book but he’s still on top form as he uncovers the bigger plot beneath his orders.

The only highlight of the movie was seeing the familiar faces. It was good to get a glimpse of Starfleet and how that part of things works, but that was overshadowed by literally everything else. Very little characterisation, against a neat mystery to unravel but that could have been told in half the time.

The concept of t.A.T.u. is a bit gimmicky, but if you brush aside the novelty act they were going for, this is still actually a really good album. I like the songs, the way they are put together, that sort of on-the-run, the-worlds-against-us vibe, it draws you in.

Such a good album! I was expecting good things because I really, really love Nice to Meet Ya but actually the whole album stacks up against it. It’s some good guitar-style pop, well crafted and sung well, what’s not to like?

I don’t quite know how I’ve got this far in my lifetime without reading this - considered the original time travel story! It’s a good one, I thought, showing great imagination but along with that grounding in science. Don’t just expect people to go along with something, at least try to make it something possible.

It was okay as a sequel but it didn’t quite live up to the first one. Tommy Lee Jones was excellent, really stole quite a lot of the scenes and it was disappointing he didn’t have anyone as good as Harrison Ford to play off. The story wasn’t as good, too complicated, and by the end, when the adorable one got shot, I just checked out, really.

It wasn’t that great, really. It introduces all the characters we need to know for the movie, and of course opens up a lot of questions in terms of timelines, but it’s fine. I thought there was too much fighting and not enough story, but I did like the relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka. There were a good couple of twists at the end too, I suppose.

Actually, the story made more sense than the trailer made it seem. It was still loud and bright and glittery but I didn’t end up with a headache. I felt like the songs weren’t as strong, but I did enjoy country trolls and there was quite a lot of fun in guessing who all the famous people behind the voices were. So that’s something.

One of the things keeping everyone going during lockdown is bonus quizzing from a variety of sources, and that has reminded me that I have been meaning to do a Mastermind update. I rarely pay attention to the quiz show, as good as it is, but just occasionally they pop up with a subject I love and then I can’t help but share the questions. Previously celebrities have taken on Back to the Future, Friends and The Archers. This time, it was a non-celebrity edition and once again everyone’s favourite time travel trilogy was the specialist subject.

I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting to like this one that much, as I already thought Irish Son was a great song and I’ve loved Almost Here with Delta Goodrem since I first heard it. The rest of the album totally stacks up - although I have to admit to not being surprised Guy Chambers had his hands all over it.

Great album! I’m loving how the current state of pop music is firmly rooted in the 80s, and Dua is a perfect example of that. She’s embracing the vibe and running through it from start to finish. You can tell that she’s grown up a little for this album and has some things to say. Boys Will Be Boys is a great song that a lot of girls are going to relate to.

It was very similar to the first in terms of crazy action sequences within the game, lots of over-acting, great fun seeing the characters inhabiting different bodies at different times (although a bit confusing) and underneath it all, an actually heart-warming story about friends and growing up (either to adulthood, or coming to terms with growing older).

Obviously, the music is epic, and you can easily see John Travolta outperforming everyone around him, but otherwise it was pretty boring, hasn’t aged at all well, no one in it is a particularly nice character, and I know that that only gets worse as the story progresses.

We’ve had a sort of love/hate relationship with these ‘Has Fallen’ movies, because they’ve not been very good but they are completely entertaining so it’s not the end of the world. I’m not sure we would have gotten around to this one if we weren’t looking for something particularly action-heavy and thinking-light.

Another good book in the Death in Paradise series. I love the TV show, still, even though it is predictable as anything these days and not featuring any of the original cast. The book, however, that is stuck in the past with the original crew, and it’s quite nice to revisit those days.

This film completely crept up on me. We were looking for some kind of mindless action to distract from the world right now, and Apple had discounted this one as a rental, so in a rare decisive mood, I just went for it. I wasn’t expecting anything and actually it was a pleasant surprise.

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 isn’t that easy when there’s a global apocalypse happening outside the window. What I have been managing to do is distract myself with music, movies and books, and then write about those. So that’s something.

I climbed aboard the High Flying Birds train on Who Built the Moon, so was interested to see how it all began for Noel and his new band. I really enjoyed this album, actually, it’s got echoes of what I love in the third studio album but is its own thing - and probably closer to the old Oasis days.

Yay! Third album from Kelsea, and she’s still not let us down. Great songs right from the start but there are some stand-outs. Hole in the Bottle is an unapologetic tale of getting through the day the only way you know how.

It’s a great way of showing the side of the story for those left behind, but also that there’s a great bond of friendship for people thrust together in unusual circumstances. Funny moments, sad moments, breakthroughs, arguments, tantrums and ultimately an inspirational performance. Perfect.