This felt like two different films. The first was quite similar to the previous Bad Boys movie, although it felt like they upped the comedy quite a lot. I was certainly laughing more than I’d expected. And then, when the whole gang turned up in Cuba, the film became out and out action. There were some gorgeous shots, it was like Top Gun!

Tove Lo has a new album out but I figured I should do a little bit of homework first. This is considered an essential album and I can see why, it’s really good! It’s got elements of pop, dance and even a little rock, but it stands apart from others with great songs and personal lyrics.

I’ve not really been aware of Sam Fender up to this point, but his debut album packs a real punch. I loved it! It’s got a rock sound that is reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen and The Killers and others, but also has its own sound that works well. I feel like I’m going to need to listen several more times to move past just enjoying the sound of it to listening to the lyrics as well, as the effort that’s gone into them sounds like it’ll be worth it.

Like many others, I saw the film adaptation of this non-fiction book without knowing anything of the subject matter beforehand. It was a moving story, of course, heroic bravery in the face of almost insurmountable odds and in the end, a victory for mankind against Mother Nature. But when you come to read the book, although still feeling dramatic and, honestly, quite horrific, there’s a steadfast nature about the writing that at first unsteadied me.

You know how people often say that technology can fix problems they didn’t even know they had? Well, Apple have fixed a problem that I definitely didn’t have – not enough access to games. Their recent launch of Apple Arcade is interesting and exciting for many reasons, but more than anything, when am I going to find time to play all of these titles? On the one hand, I never really thought the app gaming world needed a revolution or a boost – there was plenty out there to play, free games, paid games, lots of choice, lots of variety. But on the other hand, if Apple can help put a bit of a spanner in the free-to-start-with-but-then-pay-to-actually-get-any-enjoyment-out-of-the-game model that has taken the app world by storm, then I’m probably glad to see it.

So, we’ve all seen the first episode of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing competition and what an extravaganza it was. Immediately, I have to go back on two things I said in my previous post: That I didn’t know any of the contestants this year and was more likely to want to get on with my life than get to know them. But no, no, one show in and I was obsessed. My concerns about Motsi. I still stand by the feeling that the BBC have put themselves in a difficult position having sisters as judge and competitor, but I can see why they’ve taken the risk. Motsi is properly brilliant. So, having clarified that I loved it, here’s a stream of consciousness as I watched.

This was a really good film, I was surprised! The tension was there from the very beginning, and although it took a little while for the fires to actually start, it helped to build up a picture of how casually most people were taking the situation… right until the situation caught up with them. It was a long film, but I didn’t mind that so much. My only real complaint was that the characters felt under-developed. It was a huge cast with ridiculously famous names, but actually the only ones I cared about were Fred Astaire and Jennifer Jones. The rest never really had time or space to generate interest, despite an almost three hour film.

The underlying story is okay but dude, the violence. I don’t understand it. The guns seem to blow people to absolute pieces, what kind of machinery is this? It was gruesome and gory and gross and although not out of place - I can totally see it would be a violent world out there - it was gratuitous. Just not interested in watching any more of this series, whether forwards or backwards in the franchise.

Will Smith is excellent, as always, in fact much better than the other actor which does make it a bit annoying when so much focus is on the other guy. I also couldn’t work out what to make of Téa Leoni. I mean, we know Michael Bay doesn’t know what to do with women but this character’s story arc was the weirdest thing ever.

We all know Fugees are epic and this album is a classic but somehow I’d never actually listened to the full thing. I loved the music, but some of the bits and bobs around the songs weren’t quite my cup of tea. I’m always grumpy about clips and talking and radio and stuff, and there was a little too much of that for me. BUT, how can you argue with an album that has Ready or Not and Killing Me Softly on it?

This is tricky. I really love a couple of the singles on this - 1999 is brilliant, and Gone with Christine and the Queens is epic. Even Haim make an appearance! But the rest of it was really not for me. I feel guilty because I listened to an interview with Charli saying it was her best work and she thought it would stand the test of time, but I really didn’t enjoy it.

It’s unfortunate that this came out around the same time as Bohemian Rhapsody because it’s impossible not to compare the two - but they’re different beasts really. Bohemian Rhapsody felt like the story of Freddie with some Queen songs thrown in. This was more of a crafted jukebox musical, dancing in the street, and the family doing an early group number. I loved this movie, Taron does an absolutely stunning job and in some of the shots and outfits looks eerily like the man he’s trying to portray.

I’m sure you’ve seen this by now, but Jennifer Lopez gave a bit of a dancing masterclass on Jimmy Fallon’s talk show this week, as the pair of them demonstrated the evolution of dance in music videos. I particularly like the bit for Waterfalls, which I didn’t know what an iconic dance but must be, the Wrecking Ball space hoppers, and the Bad Guy hoodies.

I loved this so much. Wasn’t expecting to, because whilst I like Charlize a lot, I’m not so keen on Seth Rogen. Here, though, he seems to have grown up a little bit - just enough to make this a hilarious and moving movie, but not so much that he loses his humour. I was laughing almost from the beginning and throughout the whole thing, it was quirky and funny but had a lot of heart. There were some deep subjects beneath it about politics and family and difficult choices and optics, and I loved how it approached sexism and racism with frank openness.

This album is an old favourite, I suspect I had a physical copy as I knew all the songs throughout and had a lot of the lyrics in my head. It’s an interesting one because it’s a downbeat record, lazy and drifting, reminding me quite a lot of Coldplay’s debut album - not in the songs themselves but in the mood.

I knew a couple of songs from this album after they’ve been featured on Beats 1 over the months, and I’ve liked what I’ve heard. The album follows in the same vein as the initial singles - fantastic old school R&B with great beats, strong messages, and fantastic vocals.

Having gotten through the Avengers Endgame ordeal with only minor spoilers, attention now turns back to Agents of Shield. Previous seasons, we have paused watching this show because there are links to the big bad Marvel world and we didn’t want to go around spoiling ourselves as that would just be silly. Turns out, we needn’t have worried. There aren’t any spoilers in season six of Agents of Shield, due to several reasons.

Of the wide variety of museums to visit in London, for some reason, I opted to go to the London Transport Museum. I say for some reason, as though I am not actually a total nerd for trains and the underground and the history of both. It’s really a wonder I haven’t been before. The museum is situated near Covent Garden and claims to let you “discover London’s history at the world’s leading museum of urban transport, online, in our Museum and at our Depot. Our Depot houses over 320,000 objects from our collection, including trains, buses, signs, photographs, posters, and large objects - to name a few!”

I was vaguely aware of there being a TV adaptation of this book but knew very little about it, except there was a small time travelling element. Of course that spoke to me, so whilst having not seen the TV show, I thought I’d check out the book. The time travel is only a small part of it, the rest being more of a historical romance drama, but it does still have an impact at various points along the way.

When the sun’s been out, we’ve been sneaking quick trips to the South West Coast Path at various points along its length. None of them have been particularly exciting trips but there are enough now to make a quick scrapbook. This batch includes a walk returning by train, a walk returning by bus, a walk that was stopped by a massive hill that we just couldn’t face, and a trip down Newquay streets which covered more of the path than I thought it was going to.

I’ve heard of this film, I mean who doesn’t know that morning greeting, but I really didn’t know anything about it. Was glad to have watched it, it’s a movie that showcases just how gripping watching Robin Williams do anything can be. He’s off on his own, riffing on the radio, no doubt improvising all of it, and I didn’t understand half of what he was saying but still loved it.

Another good entry in the John Wick franchise, I hadn’t realised how much I’d been looking forward to it until it popped up available to watch. The violence at the beginning was… a bit much for me, if I’m honest. I don’t remember the others being quite so bad - I think because there was so much hand-to-hand and knife stuff. After Wick got his hands on some guns, it was a little better.

Bicester Village has a couple of bears keeping watch over all the shoppers. Not going to argue with them!

Checked Paddington off the list of fictional things to photograph in London railway stations. Next up, Platform 9 and 3 / 4.

Been flitting around here and there on the South West Coast Path, and whilst you can’t deny the beauty of the Jurassic Coast, there’s something very special about Cornish shorelines as well.

I was expecting this to be more of a rock/punk album, all guitars and shouting, but actually it was a bit more muso than that. There was a lot of drumming, lots of musical interludes, and a variety of vocals - singing, shouting, talking, all sorts.

You have to go into this album knowing that it’s old school country, but once you’ve got the right head on, it’s a really good collection of tracks. There are some great collaborators on board, including Stevie Nicks, Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, James Taylor and Johnny Cash.

This was such a disappointment. Putting two great women together like this should work out with a great movie, but it just didn’t work from start to finish. It took too long to get them together, and then they were enemies rather than working together to con someone which would have been far more fun.

I’ve watched this one a lot when I was a kid but not so much since then, and when it was recently released on Apple TV, I wanted to snap it up and watch it again. Convincing Mr C to get on board wasn’t easy but eventually I wore him down. I couldn’t promise him that it was a good film, because in my memories it wasn’t the best, despite the fact that I loved it. But actually, on this latest watch, I was pleasantly surprised.

I didn’t know much about Hairspray before seeing the live version in 2016, and since then have also seen it in the theatre. I thought it was about time we saw the musical film version because, my god, what a cast! Every single person is a huge name and together it becomes a melting pot of talent. In fact, the only person that doesn’t really work for me is John Travolta. And that’s not because he’s not brilliant, but I didn’t like his Dr Evil take on the mum.

This movie was not what I’d expected it to be at all! The start and the end kinda were - women sticking it to the man and getting one over on their misogynistic boss - but the middle, oh boy that goes places I certainly didn’t expect. Stealing bodies from hospitals, tying up people for weeks, WEEKS, in their own homes, the dream sequences with cartoon bunnies and stuff… I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.

Actually, not an elephant, but the unique selling point of Dudley Zoo is that it’s also a castle. The animals are milling around the ruin walls and you get the experience of visiting a zoo but also visiting a castle. There’s a variety of animals in the castle grounds, and the zoo does a good job of offering up some good views and some things I’d not seen before - the ability to go through a little tunnel and pop up in a little cupola in the middle of the lynx exhibit, for example. That was kinda freaky, but fun too.

Oh, this was such a predictable film. We basically knew the ending before it even started, and it was such a poor man’s Save the Last Dance, I couldn’t quite believe it. The story was very similar, but I wasn’t convinced that the stakes that got the boy killed were high enough and a lot of decisions made by the characters along the way didn’t make sense.

I had a sudden desire to watch a detective movie, so searched for a list of the best and this one popped up. I’d never heard of it, and it seems like it should be more famous than it is - it’s got a tremendous cast and tells an interesting story.

My word, what is this film? It feels like it desperately wanted to be Die Hard on a boat but it fails at almost every turn. Seagal has almost no expression or chemistry or maybe even acting ability, and teamed up with Eleniak… well, it’s not a relationship that is going to go far.

Some of the recent Marvel news that has been filtering out of Hollywood has made me feel like this is a film series I just don’t want to follow anymore. Combine that with how much I didn’t enjoy the two-part Infinity War and Endgame story, and I was losing interest by the second. I was confident that every single film that went by was getting lower and lower scores from me and that it was all going to hell in a handbasket.

This is just a solid Billy Ocean album. If you like his style, old school R&B, then you’ll like the album, and I really do. There’s some standout tracks, obviously the single Love really Hurts Without You, and some that don’t quite age as well as you’d hope. Any song that talks about little girls doesn’t work anymore, even if it doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means.

Took a little while to get my head around this one, after the bitterness of Reputation. The first track is something of a similar vibe and I was worried we were going to be in for another hour of ranting at the enemy. Thankfully, Taylor seems to have mellowed a little, and this album is much more like 1989.

It took me a long time to get round to watching this film, despite the fact Mr C has been saying how good it is for many years. I think it might be because Madonna is in it, and, for whatever reason, that was putting me off. Never mind though, because I’ve watched it now and oh my god, I loved it. I really think it has shot up to be one of my favourite films. The women are all brilliant, the relationships interesting, the situation stressful and competitive and sporting and sad and overwhelming all in equal measure.

Loved this! From start to finish it was brilliant. Funny, good story and a legitimate spy action thriller underneath it all. I didn’t even see the twist coming, although probably should have done. Loved the relationship between Kunis and McKinnon and how it evolved and eventually got closer.

It was a weird one. Couldn’t quite place the tone of it, and so many odd things were happening. And I didn’t really get the Les character at all, he was kind of annoying, didn’t have much of a personality, and clearly didn’t want to be a bad kid - either go rogue or don’t kiddo, otherwise don’t waste my time.

I’ve seen this once or twice before when I was younger, and I vaguely remembered it being one of those movies that is full of cringeworthy moments. They’re not really my thing anymore. But we got it in a bundle of movies and thought it was worth a shot. It wasn’t. Just not funny. Twenty minute rule very much in effect.

Stumbled across this beauty on my Jurassic Coast travels. The Geoneedle features many different types of rock to commemorate just how much history is on display in the area. From the National Trust page: The Geoneedle at Orcombe Point is an impressive landmark constructed of the various rock types found along the World Heritage coastline. It was commissioned from public artist, sculptor and designer Michael Fairfax to commemorate the opening of the World Heritage Site and was unveiled by HRH the Prince of Wales in 2002.

Had to get the National Parks badge on my Apple Watch, so where better to go for a bit-more-than-a-stroll than the Jurassic Coast?

Quite liked this one, although I did think it went on a bit. I liked the whodunit at the heart of it, the mystery and the guessing game of who could possibly have done such terrible things. I wasn’t convinced by Michael Douglas’ off-the-rails cop and how quickly he fell for this woman. As if his job means literally nothing to him, he didn’t even think twice.

Having watched the very young Jonas Brothers in the movie Camp Rock, it seemed only right to hear what their debut album was all about. It was quite good, actually, just some pure pop. It actually put me in mind of Busted - I feel like Jonas are the band that Busted want to be, truly American, with the guitars and jumping around and pop-ness.

I had very few preconceptions of what this album would be like going in - I’ve found Kaiser Chiefs to be hit and miss in the pass. Some hits but more recently perhaps a few misses. Thankfully, this album I found to be really good. Short and sweet, lots of tunes, the occasional anthem. It’s stacked full of confidence and some uplifting messages - people know how to love one another. I really enjoyed it.

I really thought this was going to be a problematic movie - the concept doesn’t lend itself well to the more modern gender discussions we’re all having at the moment. But actually, put your trust in Garry Marshall, it wasn’t too bad.

I love a good sports film, and this had everything a good sports film needs - the heroes, the villains, the hope, the glory, the triumph and tragedy, and a last gasp, all eyes pinned on the final moments… to then deliver the results one way or the other. But on top of all that, it also had some interesting drama. I’m not gonna come out and say these guys are the best actors I’ve ever seen, but you really felt for them being stuck in this small town where football is considered the only way out.

So the new trailer for Apple TV+ series The Morning Show looks gooood. I didn’t want it to be good because I have too much TV to watch as it is, but trust Apple to dive in with some quality TV straight from the off. It’s some of my favourite people and it looks dramatic and interesting and dammit… gonna have to clear some time in my schedule.