As previously mentioned, Mr C was unable to narrow his shortlist of top songs down to just five. And by the time we got to talking about films we were both pretty exhausted by the whole subject. So, I let him get away with expanding his list to ten films as well! I’m such a pushover. Anyway, these are in alphabetical order with links to my Film Watch reviews for a bit more of an insight.

Last month, Mr C and I finished watching all of the Bond films. We’d been pondering the merits and pitfalls of doing such a thing, but when I bought the iTunes bundle of all 23 films up to and including Skyfall, it was inevitable. We finished the films just in time for the hype to start for the new film, Spectre, which means there’s a lot of great Bond content on TV and the internet just as our interest has peaked.

Just like many people, I’ve been curious how James Corden would get on in the wild world of late night US talk shows. You’ll have noticed my obsession with Jimmy Fallon, I’m sure, and the concept of these daily evening entertainment extravaganzas fascinates me. By all accounts, he did okay and there’s at least something to work with. From the clips I’ve seen, it’s a good start but I just have one question. Why would you ever put Tom Hanks in your first show because how are you ever going to top this??

Life is, predictably, very busy at the moment and instead of flailing around as I make my way through a day, I’ve had to start thinking in the morning: “This is what I have to achieve today, how will I fit it in?” That means a bit of forward planning, which in turn means that Hugh Grant was right all along with his system, highlighted in About a Boy. I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes.

The history My experiences with Harry Potter have been something of a rollercoaster. I enjoyed the books during their first run, but wasn’t hugely passionate about them - happy to wait for the paperback version, rather than stand in line at midnight for the final book’s release. I somehow ended up owning just six of the seven physical books, so was super keen to own them as ebooks so I could a) complete my collection and b) ditch the last standing physical books I owned. JK Rowling finally capitulated and I was able to plow through them all, on my Kindle, for a second read.

It’s that time of year again (a little late actually), the one where I force Mr C to decide on his top five songs and films from the year just gone. Usually, this is a fun process in which we discuss music and movies and have a bit of a laugh. This year, it’s been less enjoyable because there have been so many good songs and films that it’s been a bit of a wrench to cut the list down to just five. Nevertheless, we begin with films.

Despite this being an advert (although it’s for free popcorn so who can argue?), it’s worth sharing because the minions get all Christmassy and start singing carols. If you watched their last attempt at singing and were put off, understandably, then do give them a second chance. I’m so glad the minions have their own film coming out, although do wonder if they will be required to communicate better and thus lose just a little bit of their charm.

The first trailer for Jurassic World was released yesterday, and I hadn’t realised I was going to be excited about the film until I saw it and gasped. A lot. The music! Chris Pratt! The gates! The shark! When I first heard about another Jurassic Park sequel, my heart sank because, let’s face it, they already ruined it enough with the second one. But then watching this trailer - which is both brilliant but with all the cheese of the first one that makes it a classic - I realised that it already being ruined wipes the slate clean. They can’t do any worse, so why not try?

Pitch Perfect 2! A trailer! So much awesome! Fat Amy continues to steal the show, but I can’t wait to see the group back together. And bonus Hailee Steinfield who appears to be in every film ever these days.

While we were watching the Captain America sequel recently, there was one face that I felt like I recognised but couldn’t quite place. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? So distracting. This time, it was one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. henchmen, in it every so often but not exactly a big part. I’m not even sure it was a speaking part. It turns out this is Callan Mulvey, who used to be Drazic in Heartbreak High. Drazic! In Captain America!

Whilst I was in Houston, I went to the cinema. I haven’t been to a cinema in years, and have pretty good reasons for not doing so, but I thought hey, why not see how the Americans do it? Alright, in all honesty, I just wanted to see how big the popcorn was. It was huge. You can’t really tell because there’s no scale, but the drink is twice the size of normal UK sodas, and thus the popcorn is even more enormous.

If you’ve been following my adventures online for any sort of time, you might already know that I haven’t been big on the emotions. My Film Watch reviews, in particular, have shown that I’ve avoided getting swept up in romantic comedies, and those that are considered tearjerkers left me cold. Because everything is a Friends reference, I was kinda like Chandler. You may also have noted the past tense in that first paragraph.

I always like to look at the iTunes Film Bundles section, to see what they’ve got on offer. They do a lot of franchise bundles - Back to the Future, Harry Potter, etc. - but this past week I noticed they were doing a set of genre collections instead. The brilliance of these bundles is that they are around the £40 mark, for ten films. And not ten rubbishy films, they’re pretty good movies, in HD format. That makes them about £4 each, which is a bargain by anyone’s standards.

Just as with the top five songs of the year, Mr C also likes to pass judgement on the movies we have watched over the past twelve months as well. This is a slightly more tricky selection to explain, as we live constantly about four months behind cinema release dates due to the rental window. So, it’s not quite “top five films released in 2013” and it’s not really “top five films watched in 2013” either, it’s more “top five films that were released between August 2012 and August 2013 that we watched in 2013.” But that’s not as catchy.

It’s the last day of the year, and this is the time when people start making New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t tend to do that anymore, instead working from a broader Life List instead. When I set about thinking of this annual round-up, I felt a little disappointed about how much (or how little) I’ve achieved this year. Looking back can be useful though, as I hadn’t quite realised I’d been to so many places!

The trailers Okay, so, we watched The Internship recently and it left a pretty awful taste in our mouths. I’m thinking that watching Vince Vaugn do something slightly less of a commercial might work, and thus the trailer for Delivery Man kinda works. It’s a pretty far-fetched concept, and all seems a bit contrived, but hey, I didn’t see any Google in the trailer, so I’m sold. Delivery Man

It’s been nearly two months since I posted one of these, and as you can imagine the trailers have amassed at quite a rate. I’ve a list of about a dozen films we’ve been intrigued by, but I’ll just post two trailers here today. The trailers First up, the obvious. Captain America. We didn’t think all that much of the first one, the second one looks an awful lot better. They’ve learnt heaps from The Avengers, it seems.

The trailers I can’t remember if I knew they were remaking Robocop, or if I’ve just forgotten but the trailer looks really good. I very much enjoyed the original one, except for the rather ridiculous blood-letting at the beginning. Most remakes are a letdown, and this will probably be the same, but it certainly looks okay from the short clips in the trailer.

The trailers I am so not sure where I stand on this trailer for Getaway - it looks good and intriguing but I just don’t understand why someone would want someone to drive quite so much. Also, I’m not sure what kind of goody-two-shoes Disney persona Selena ever had, but she’s shedding it quickly.

The trailers Seen three good trailers this week, the first of which is for The Monuments Men. This is George Clooney and Matt Damon sharing screen time again, which can only be a good thing. The film itself looks good, one of those that is entertaining if not perhaps completely historically accurate. Next up another trailer for the second Thor film. More of the same, it looks like.

The trailers There seems to be a trend in Hollywood at the moment to delve behind the scenes and show exactly how other films are made. Along with Hitchcock, we now have a look at the magical world of Walt Disney, and an explanation of how Mary Poppins came to the screen. This trailer pretty much gives away the whole film but it looks really good. Apparently this is the first time Mr Disney himself has been portrayed on screen, and who better than Tom Hanks?

Just two simple trailers this week, and both of them with the lovely Sandra Bullock. The first is Gravity, with some clips released recently that have been doing the rounds. When I first saw them, I thought it was for that Defying Gravity film and couldn’t remember Sandra being in that one. She’s not. This looks amazing, terrifying and a bit over-the-top all in one go. The other Sandy movie is completely different. With the ever-present Melissa McCarthy, it’s a good-cop bad-cop comedy called The Heat. I think this may already be out in cinemas but it’s new to me!

Loving the look of this trailer for Inside Llewyn Davis. Just three minutes of it is gorgeous viewing, I can’t imagine what the whole thing will be like. We’ve been catching a lot of films with bonus John Goodman in, and he always steals the show. I can’t guarantee that isn’t going to happen with this one, either.

Really enjoyed this quote from a not-so-recent episode of the Frank Skinner radio show. On the subject of the Tom Cruise film Oblivion, Frank was less impressed with one of the romance scenes. There’s love scenes in it. Why do they have to have love scenes in films like that? And they’re really cheesy, ooh baby type. I hate love scenes. Here’s the thing, if you like love scenes go see a romantic movie and enjoy. But you know what? When you’re watching that romantic movie, don’t blame me if two aliens come in and blow the couple to pieces…

I’ve fallen a bit behind on trailers for upcoming films (or those coming soon to iTunes that I have yet to be aware of). That being the case, here’s a bumper crop of five trailers that recently caught my eye. Elysium A good bout of action, set in the future, with a dystopian Earth and Matt Damon? Sign me up right now. And what do I like just as much as dystopia? Well that would be time travel, and next up there’s a romantic comedy with a time travel element.

It wasn’t long into my Film Watch experiment that I faced the question of “What constitutes a film?” I had made notes on something that I watched via the iPlayer and then after a little bit of investigation, I found it was a made-for-TV movie. This made it less appealing to me in terms of Film Watch-ing it, and I decided not to publish it. From then on, I decided that if in doubt, I would check IMDB and if it had a Box Office takings figure, then I would count it as a film. This worked fine until just recently, when I had a crisis of consciousness over the criteria.

A couple of weeks on from watching Mission to Lars, Mr C and I settled down to watch another documentary film. This time, it was Side By Side - a film in which Keanu Reeves talks to a lot of directors, cinematographers, producers, actors and the like about the evolution from film to digital when it comes to making movies. Once again I didn’t think I was going to like it, so I was reading stuff on my iPad rather than paying attention. I wanted to see what it was like, because, you know, Keanu Reeves, but I didn’t think it would suck me in the same way Lars did. Thankfully, I was right this time. I picked up some bits and pieces here and there, and was half-listening for most of it, but I wasn’t in tears by the end.

Mr C rented the documentary Mission to Lars from iTunes, and settled down to watch it one evening. I sat, aloofly, browsing magazines on my iPad, mostly ignoring the TV. I’ve never managed to get into documentary films - for whatever reason they fail to grab my attention when it comes to trailers and thus I never really get round to giving them a go. The only documentary I can remember watching is Super Size Me, which did stay with me for a bit.

Looks good. Had forgotten how short Natalie is. And Loki’s hair!

I saw a trailer or description for the film Internship a while back, but just recently watched the new trailer for it. The Internship Some of this looks funny, a lot of it appears strained. They don’t seem like the type of people that wouldn’t be using mobile phones and tablets really. And also, how much is Google paying for this??

I have to buy a new coat. A riveting start to any story, I know, but this is a big deal. I haven’t bought a new coat in… well, six years. I have been wearing the precious Honda Dreamfields waterproof that we were given at Silverstone in 2007, and it’s served me very well. I went through one period where I thought I had better get a new outer garment back in 2010.

Rush And thus, my Formula One world collides with my Film Watch world again. This looks like a pretty solid effort, I’ve been watching Ron Howard tweet about it for what seems like forever. Thankfully, it’s all about to get going and we’ll be able to watch the results soon.

This first one looks like your traditional action movie fodder, but there are heaps of famous people in there! Olympus has Fallen I hadn’t heard of this spin off from Cars that Disney are making, called Planes (or if I had heard of it, I’d forgotten!). It does what it says on the tin, and even has a bonus appearance from one David Croft! Lofty Crofty, the blimp! Amazing.

After watching Skyfall, we browsed through some of the upcoming trailers on the Apple TV, and came across Oblivion, the new Tom Cruise movie. Good grief, that man works hard! Oblivion There’s another, earlier, trailer here that tells a bit more of the story. It looks interesting enough, although the amount of CGI it’s going to have worries me a little bit.

This week only one trailer crossed my path and it was for Emperor. Unfortunately, I just can’t get past the fact that this is Jack! Particularly in the opening scene where it is Jack, in a plane, heading towards an island! LOST really has ruined my life. Emperor

Mr C showed me this Tumblr site a good few weeks ago now, and I was instantly in love. In a nutshell, the Movie Barcodes are all the frames of a movie squidged up to make a colourful (or not so colourful) barcode style image. In some cases, they’re offered as prints, and I am sorely tempted to snap some up. Some of them are better than others, naturally, and I find some of those that have been created with fewer images make my brain go a little fuzzy, but the really good ones are so impressive.

It’s catch up time on the whole trailer front, as I’ve been seeing them pass me by but not quite finding time to post them. First up, The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp. It’s fun to see Depp try new characters, but I’m not at all convinced by this one. I don’t know the original Lone Ranger particularly well, so curious what fans think of this remake. The Lone Ranger

Mr C’s back for his second roundup of the 2012 year. Last week it was all about music, this week it’s all about the visual arts. To recap the rules, initially we wanted this to be a “top five 2012 films seen in 2012” but the problem is we run about six months behind thanks to windowing and all that nonsense. Instead, the rules are relaxed a little to include the 2011 films that we didn’t catch in time last year, plus the 2012 films we have managed to see so far.

Turbo This is one of the latest efforts from DreamWorks Animation, and features a snail who feels the need for speed. The blurb is bizarre (but then I suppose these things always are): A freak accident might just help an everyday garden snail achieve his biggest dream: winning the Indy 500.

Instead of making New Year’s Resolutions each January, I have a long-running Life List that does the same job, only is a constant reminder of the things I want to, and am trying to, achieve. It’s time to have a quick recap of what has been happening on my Life List over the last twelve months. The Amazing A-Z Adventure I’ve only managed two more visits this year, and now we’re getting to the trickier half of the alphabet. Qs, Xs, Zs, that kind of thing. In 2012, I went for a bit of a walk around a park, and a bit of a walk around a gin distillery. I had a plan for Q that did not come to pass, so that will require some rethinking. 2012 involved a bit of saving money, but 2013 may involve more travel.

Mr C reckons this trailer reminds him of Prometheus which is very worrying to me. I can see what he means, but also… it looks brilliant! And there appears to be distinctly less lens flare than the previous outing. Phew! Star Trek Into Darkness

Gangster Squad Where do I begin with this? Oh yes, Ryan Gosling. Mmm. And Emma Stone with her proper red hair. And the guy who was incredible and freaky in Men in Black 3. And Ryan Gosling! Oh, and the film looks okay too.

I stumbled across a post on Wired.co.uk a while back and I thought it was fascinating. Apparently, DC Comics are going to have Superman storm out of the Daily Planet, preferring to take his chances in the online journalism world with his own blog. I had never really thought about the fact that Superman/Clark Kent as a journalist in the Daily Planet was starting to be a bit old school. Although, having said that, the appearance of the Daily Bugle in Spider-Man did seem a bit out of place - much as I loved the snarky editor.

This week, we watched the new reboot of the Spider-Man series with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. It was really very good and when you compare it to the trilogy that came before, I can totally understand why they wanted to ditch that franchise and start all over again. The comic book movie genre doesn’t seem to be losing any of the momentum it has gained, with the Avengers planning individual and group sequels, along with talk of a Justice League film as well. Spider-man has been revitalised, whilst the Batman trilogy has drawn to a colossal close.

I’ve noticed a couple of trailers for potentially watchable romantic comedies recently. This is not my favourite genre, but when done well, it’s a good way of winding down for a couple of hours. Admission Corny as anything, I know, but I like Tina Fey and I love Paul Rudd. Maybe they can sell it.

This week I spotted two trailers for films and both of them are about zombies, but they each take a completely different form. The first, World War Z, plunges Brad Pitt in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The trailer looks okay but it doesn’t really give a hint to any kind of actual story. World War Z

There’s a new trailer for the sequel to Despicable Me. If you did not enjoy the last one that included some incredible/awful singing, don’t worry. This one only has a few seconds of much more tolerable minion singing. Despicable Me 2 I am very concerned about the final clip though - with the minion opening the door to what appears to be a friendly face, only to be attacked. No minions must get hurt in the making of this film!!

On the very day that my Trailer Tuesday post was due to go up last week, the new Iron Man 3 trailer was released. I meant to go back and update that post, but… I didn’t. And then I thought, actually, this deserves a post of its own, even if it is a week late. Iron Man 3

It’s been said over and over, but Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher is plain odd. I haven’t read the books in a long while, so I’m not really able to pass judgement fully, but I know that deep down it doesn’t seem right. There’s a new trailer which puts a different spin on things, because it looks like a really good film! Jack Reacher

We’ve seen Moneyball and “if you build it they will come” and when I saw the trailer for 42, I really wanted to see it! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baseball game but I really like movies about it. I should probably see about watching some of the actual action, but in the meantime, this looks good. 42