I was wary of watching this for too reasons: Firstly, I have that Marvel fatigue where I’m nervous of not remembering all the things required to enjoy a MCU film, and secondly, I had heard it was Inception-like, so expected it would be complicated. Both those concerns were unfounded. It stands alone as a Marvel movie at the moment, and although there were Inception moments, it wasn’t a confusing concept. In fact, there weren’t just Inception moments, it felt like there was barely an original thought in there.

This is a fantastic album – it’s grungy rock but with a melody, epic guitars but with good purpose, I love it. Great songs, starting with Celebrity Skin which is a proper choon, and could threaten to overshadow the rest, but thankfully the full album stands up to the challenge.

A perfectly pleasant album but nowhere near as good as I was hoping. A bit plodding in places, but mostly a feel good hour of tracks, unfortunately for the most part instantly forgettable.

Love this film. I was really looking forward to it, being a fan of the lovely Haiz, and it didn’t disappoint. There are so many wonderful things about it, but the over-arching one is that it reminded me exactly what it was like to be a teenager - all the aching pains that come with despising your teenage self - it was like watching my previous life unfolding on screen.

Oh wonderful Carrie Fisher. I wish I had known more about her writing earlier, but there is still plenty of time to catch up on her works. This is a sort of memoir, sort of companion book to the stage show of the same name, an open and honest portrayal of what it’s like to be the woman who portrayed Princess Leia.

I’ve always been a bit nervous of watching this - I know that people love it, but it is high concept and that’s always a risk. Having seen it, I’m disappointed I didn’t watch it sooner!

This ended up being a lot better than I thought it was going to be - was after something slightly mindless just to chill out to, and it delivered that in spades. It wasn’t as good as some of the more classic teen rom-coms, but it was still totally watchable and entertaining.

It feels like Taylor really had some things to say with this album, a lot of the songs sound more personal and meaningful than previous efforts. There are some great songs on here, I love Story of Us, but some of the slower ballad types didn’t really do it for me. I like the increased amount of storytelling, though, you really can get invested in the songs.

Good album this, I knew more of the songs than I thought I did and it’s a fine pop album – lots of catchy songs that will make you dance. It’s reminiscent of Rihanna, so some of the tracks I wasn’t so keen on, but overall the balance makes for a strong first international album.

This film was broadly quite similar, Reacher doing what he does best, righting wrongs and sticking up for the little guy. I quite liked the dynamic between the three, Reacher’s no-nonsense, Turner’s military strength and the kid’s street smarts. They made a good team.

It felt a bit odd watching a Harry Potter universe film that I wasn’t already totally versed in, but it was easy to get totally immersed in the world again. Eddie Redmayne was brilliant, of course, but I thought the rest of the cast were up to the challenge. And it was believable as being in the 1920s, great graphics, wonderful costumes, and perfect dialogue.

At first, I thought this was just going to be another book about a taciturn Scandinavian man - an older gentleman, grumpy at the world but with a strong moral fibre and deep down a good heart. It was that, of course, but it was so much more. The way the story is structured, gradually filling in the back story of Ove’s life, whilst also gradually giving him reasons to keep going in the future, was perfect.

I wasn’t sure I’d like this album, Pet Shop Boys are great but a whole album could have been too much. Thankfully, there’s a mix of songs: slow and fast, meaningful and just fun, catchy and forgettable. It’s not one of my favourites but certainly a listenable 50 minutes of music.

I was expecting better things from this, if I’m honest. It’s a perfectly pleasant album but it’s just not memorable. It’s got a very laid back, relaxed, California beach vibe to it, which is nice, but the best songs are the first and last one, bookending the album. Everything in between is instantly forgettable.

On the one hand, I feel bad for having got to almost 750 films without watching Titanic, but on the other hand, have you seen the length of this film? When is there time to watch a 3+ hour film and really give it the attention it deserves? Well, I’ll tell you, it’s when you’re sick and don’t have anything to do other than sit on the sofa and weep at the fate of Jack and Rose.

Tricky one this. You can’t really argue with Sandy and Bradders being in a film together, and I liked the overall message - never worry about being different, find your own normal. That’s always a good thing to hear.

There are so many fundamental issues with this film, it’s impossible to enjoy it. The first half, until the IT guy goes rogue, is quite good - upping the suspense, wondering how it’s all going to come crashing down. But once he starts to exact his revenge, things go really wrong plot-wise.

The only word that can be used to describe this film is ‘random’. Whitney Houston produced it! Why? Stan Lee made a cameo appearance? How odd! The basic premise of having to get married in 30 days? Weird. Proper baby Abigail Breslin as one of the kids? Ace! Julie Andrews mattress surfing down the stairs? Things I never thought I’d see.

Difficult read this one. Grisham embarks on a non-fiction tale of wrongful conviction, a bit of a departure for him as he’s far more well known for criminal/law fiction instead. But this still reads something like a Grisham novel - establishing the characters, detailing the crime and then walking through the stages of law that follow - in particular the trial.

Really loved this album. I’ve spent plenty of time listening to Haim’s Beats1 show but not really paid much attention to their own music – and I’ve been missing out. They have a brilliant, unique sound, full of bass notes and guitar riffs and stop/start moments. Definitely a highlight of the year so far.

I’ve not been a huge Ed fan in the past, but gradually his evident talent and good songs have mellowed my stance a little. This is a good album, far better than I thought it would be, with the singles as stand-out songs and the rest doing a good supporting job. The end is a little melancholy and left me feeling depressed, but overall a really good job – even if I still don’t totally get the hype.

I’ve loved A Little Respect forever so was prepared to love the album that followed it. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say I loved it, but I did enjoy it. The songs are cheesy in places, and it’s a certain kind of dance pop that is hard to explain, but still somehow quite compelling. And A Little Respect is still awesome.

I knew this was a slightly different album from Lady Gaga, but it was far more intense and introspective than I’d anticipated. It’s good, some incredible vocals with well-crafted songs and I particularly liked the duet with Florence Welch. It’s not to be taken lightly though, this album, you can tell it’s more personal and meaningful than other efforts.

Hmm, interesting one this. I probably wouldn’t have read it if I hadn’t seen the TV show a while back, but even with that I liked the pilot far more than the full series that followed. I couldn’t remember the story going into this, so the mystery itself was still allowed to unfold - and that side of it was quite interesting.

Considering you go into it knowing what is going to happen (even if the details of how it came about are a revelation!), Peter Berg does an incredible job at building suspense. The first half of the film is tense and terrifying, despite it mostly being a bunch of engineers mooching around looking concerned.

This book is intensely dark and disturbing, telling the short story of a shiny new high-rise tower block in the 1970s gradually descending into a pit of death, despair and uncivilised behaviour. It’s brooding and depressing and generally left me feeling the world is a little bit worse than I thought.

Love this album. Shirley is brilliant and you get really drawn in to each and every song. I wish I’d listened to this album as a teenager, it’s got that intense brooding nature that you could really hibernate in a teenage room and shut out the world with.

I’ll admit, this only grabbed my attention because of the single featuring Sam Palladio from Nashville, but it turns out to be quite a good album. It’s sort of a mashup pop and country album, but it’s definitely more bubble gum than country – good songs but it lacks the emotion you often get from country artists.

Interesting little book this. Posing as the autobiography of everyone’s favourite wheeler/dealer Del Boy, the book really just charts the progression of those well known characters through the course of their lives - which in reality means threading each of the episode storylines together to make an autobiography of sorts.

It didn’t quite blow me away though, as other kid’s films have. It was intensely bright and psychedelic, which made it a bit hard to focus on. The songs felt like they were shoehorned it at times - except for True Colours and the earworm that is Can’t Stop the Feeling. Knowing the good remix work Anna has done on Pitch Perfect, these songs didn’t feel as though that much effort went into them.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with streaming music. At first I hated it because I wanted to be more in control of… well, everything. And then I loved it because I wouldn’t have been able to afford to listen to 100 albums in a year if I had to purchase every single one. Plus, I would have had to buy Drake’s album and that would not have made me very happy. Now I’m in a neutral place because for the most part I’ve let go of controlling my music, and I’m happy to just stream as and when I want. But I am a bit confused. I wanted to listen to Kelsea Ballerini’s effort again after she was nominated for a Grammy, but found this:

It was announced a couple of weeks ago that Peter Capaldi will be stepping down from the BBC role everyone’s talking about – no, not the lead of whatever baking show will replace GBBO, but in fact, the titular role of Doctor Who. It’s no secret that Capaldi hasn’t been my favourite Doctor, and I’ll admit that I have watched only two episodes of his since his tenure began. So unlike many, I’m glad that the show is adapting and changing once again, and I can only hope the replacement is more to my tastes.

Blatantly just Mr & Mrs Smith with the comedy ramped up, it took me a while to warm up to this film but when I did, I couldn’t stop laughing. It got off to a slow start and I think the key was to get the two couples working together in the limited way that they could - that’s where the comedy really started happening. I could have done with slightly less of no one believing Isla, and definitely less of the whole snake restaurant business.

I sort of knew I was in love with Amy Poehler simply for seeing her on Parks & Rec, and They Came Together. Now I know I am in love with her, because this memoir is a brilliant inspirational and wonderfully open piece of work. It starts by talking about how freaking difficult it is to write a book, which really sets the tone for the rest of the chapters.

I’ve just started reading Amy Poehler’s memoir Yes Please, and I only got as far as the introduction before I wanted to share some of the incredible wisdom. That’s the sign of a good book, I think. So what do I do? What do we do? How do we move forward when we are tired and afraid? What do we do when the voice in our head is yelling that WE ARE NEVER GONNA MAKE IT?

Liked this much better on the second listen through, I think the first time some of the screaming got to me but second time it wasn’t so bad. Love a few of the tracks on there and it stands up as a whole really well. Glad this has finally come to streaming so I can have a listen!

Great album. I had high expectations because he’s being talked about a lot and Human is an incredible song. Thankfully the rest of the album lived up to the hype, with brilliant soul vibes throughout but leaving you with an overall feel-good mood.

It all started with this note from my Zombieland Film Watch post: 5:06 – Recognise that petrol station from that music video. Because there was a shot of a petrol station right at the beginning, when he was laying out some of his ground rules for surviving the zombie apocalypse. Now, I know what you’re thinking - it looks like any petrol station ever, and… well, we’ll get to that. For now, stick with me. It rang a bell in my head as the same fuel depot as spotted in a country music video that I’d seen a year or two ago.

Well. My overall impression following that is: What on earth is all the fuss about? I can see the moments of brilliance in there: Leonardo is, of course, excellent. It never really felt like a three hour film which is impressive because I do get antsy the longer movies go on. Some good comedy moments, and some shocking ones as well.

Firstly, I must say this is a good story, interestingly written, and coming to a great conclusion. But even with that in mind, I can’t really tell whether I enjoyed it or not. I liked the way the story dipped back and forth between the uncomfortable present and the difficult past, and I really did like the ending - it left me with something of a warm glow.

Interesting book this, because it feels like it has a really good story at the heart of it, but it didn’t quite come across right for me. I wasn’t switched on to the main character which can be an issue - we followed her around on a lot of different emotional journeys, but still never really got to know her.

Good second album from Ms Swift, it’s quite fun working my way through her albums knowing how she develops and where she goes in the future. This, though, is solid country pop with some great singles, and a good mix of other tracks – none of which are a letdown, which is the sign of a good album.

I read an NME review of this album before listening, that described it as “13 tog duvet” music, and it is just that. There’s no thumping albums, it’s easy listening all the way, and I guess in the end I found it quite dull because of that. Perhaps good to de-stress and unwind, but not my favourite.

An espionage thriller that encompasses Russia, America, Germany, France and the UK, this is the story of an unwitting man getting himself involved in what could escalate to become a situation of global significance. It actually wasn’t one of my favourite action and adventure stories, because it all felt a bit out of reach.

It being Super Bowl weekend, we opted to go for a sports film, that is blatantly about the NFL even if they’re not allowed to actually say it. It was long, but for the most part enjoyable. The story was good, great cast, and although some of the actual football scenes were quite drawn out, the music made them interesting.

James Corden continues to do fab and fun things for his late night US talk show, but his latest exploits with Queen grabbed my attention like no other. A faux battle between him and current front man Adam Lambert saw the pair having something of a riff off with Brian and Roger backing them on guitar and drums. I’m so jealous of the things James gets to do and this tops the lot. Singing with actual Queen must be the biggest dream of all.

I expect this is a good film if you’re a teenage boy or have recently been a teenage boy, but it didn’t really mean anything to me. I quite liked the relationship between Cera and Hill, but that certainly wouldn’t have sustained me watching for the entire two hours. As the third of three comedy bundle disappointments, I was quite relieved to switch this one off and cross it off the list.

Comedy bundle attempt number two was perhaps the best of the three, but still seemed awful. And this is a film featuring lovely Mary Steenburgen. I’ve liked a lot of Will Ferrell movies before but this one just didn’t make any sense. The boys were so stupid and destructive, they would have been thrown out long before they started fighting on the front lawn.

So, the comedy bundle I bought on iTunes included three films that I was not looking forward to watching, and you will see why as the next three Film Watch updates document. This one, I don’t even understand how it got made. What is the point? Why is Sandler being Israeli? Where are the jokes? Just didn’t get it and couldn’t wait for our twenty minute switch off rule to come into effect.

A really fascinating book this one. It’s appeal is probably limited to those that understand finance and/or shares and trading, particularly as it opens with some quite in depth details about a day in the life of the protagonist - a portfolio manager.