Two recent conversations about movies have made me realise there’s a key component of the digital rental process that is missing and would make life so much better. At the moment, on Apple in particular, you can buy a film for a high price initially that drops the longer a film has been in the world. Or you can rent a film for a slightly lower price but only keep it for a certain amount of time.

Just a bit of inspiration from an old episode of Radio 1’s Screen Time podcast with Ali Plumb. As I’ve said to people on Instagram and Twitter quite a lot lately, don’t be ashamed of your opinions. If you happen to, for example, not like The Favourite, and everyone’s saying how amazing it is, but you’re like, I don’t like it. Don’t feel ashamed, don’t be like, oh I’ve got to watch it again so I can teach myself to like it.

So I’ve just binge watched all six Rocky films in a row, not all in one day, I’m not a maniac, but without watching other films in between. Somehow despite having the least interest in, and probably actively disliking boxing, these films grabbed my attention and became something of an obsession. The drama is brilliant. The dialogue nutty. The training montages legendary. What I loved most of all, though, was how inspirational Rocky is as a character.

I turned my nose up when I heard about the Monsters Inc sequel idea. Not a sequel at all, but a prequel looking back at the monsters when they were at university together. Bah! What nonsense. What cashing in. But a teaser trailer is out, and I laughed out loud. Twice! I forgot how much I love Mike.

I’m sure you’ve all seen this by now, but the teaser trailer for the new James Bond looks gooood. Whilst I appreciate these new James Bond films for what they are, part of me does miss the silly Pierce Brosnan ones. Die Another Day was on TV yesterday and I didn’t get to see it but I wanted to. That was one of the few DVD’s I owned and I used to watch it over and over.

Despicable Me 2 Mr C said: “You’ll love this!” and played me the video. Unfortunately, the first time I heard it, I was listening audio only, and I was not impressed. “Turn it off!” I squealed. Then, of course, I saw the actual video itself, and - MINIONS! I do still think the song is annoying, but hey, it has a payoff at the end. And even more hey, it means there’s a Despicable Me 2!

The end of the year is always a bit review heavy, but you’re bound to have room for just a couple more. It’s time for Mr C’s annual look at his favourite films and music of the year. You know what I think about all the films we watch because I blog them incessantly, but Mr C lives through most of them as well, so it’s only fair that he gets a word in edgeways.

So, first up, the new Batman trailer. The Dark Knight Rises I like the idea that this is a set of Batman stories - a trilogy of Batman, not trying to keep the brand alive forever, not trying to take it over and push it in a new direction forever, but just taking the characters and telling a story and then moving on. Of course, that is until a fourth movie comes out and this all gets blown out of the water.

In Time This concept seems very intriguing - not quite the time travel that I love so much, but using time as a unit of currency instead. I’ve never quite been convinced of Justin Timberlake in the lead role, but he was good in the Social Network, so I can’t hold his Michael Jackson dance moves against him. The three women of different generations all looking the same freaks me out just a little bit though.

Yesterday, we watched Finding Nemo, partly as a way to make Mr C feel a bit better after his short but nasty bug, and partly as it seemed fitting after the sad death of Steve Jobs this week. When the news broke that he’d passed away, I wasn’t surprised to find my Twitter stream and RSS reader filled with posts about the man, but there were occasional crossover posts that surprised me.