This week, we discovered the genius that is Wreck-It Ralph. The blurb says: “A video game villain wants to be a hero and sets out to fulfil his dream, but his quest brings havoc to the whole arcade where he lives.” The trailer says it’s going to be awesome. Wreck-It Ralph

I started this crazy Film Watch experiment way back in April 2009 - watching, noting and blogging each film that I watched in an attempt to remember what was good, and not so good. Along the way, it turned into a Life List thing, to watch 500 films. At first the goal seemed a million miles away, but gradually it has seemed more doable, and now I am halfway through! Also along the way, it has become less of a personal thing, and more of a thing that Mr C and I can enjoy together.

Oh. so. good. And I do love Ben Whishaw! Cannot wait.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World It’s a bit of a long title, but the trailer looks reeeally good. My only question is - where is Bruce? Also this week, a new Paddington poster has been revealed. The bear we know and love on the big screen. Hard to know how to feel about this, but the poster looks like a good enough start.

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. Pretty Halle, crazy Madonna, silly Pierce and driving fancy cars around a melting ice palace. What more do you need in life?

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!

Our fierce rate of consuming movies has abated somewhat, as we face a hectic start to 2012. It’s all good but it does mean we haven’t been keeping up with Film Watch as much as we had been towards the end of last year. The slower pace has given me pause for thought, however, and it occurred to me recently how much the process of completing a Film Watch post has changed.

Last weekend, I wrote up my reaction to the second episode of the latest series of Sherlock (got another post coming on the final episode just finding the time/gathering my thoughts), and prompted this reaction. Thank you for the wonderful SPOILER. GOOD JOB. Ever heard of a spoiler warning? Thankfully, I have a pretty prominent spoiler alert at the very top of the post, so I feel like I did my part in trying to avoid this exact situation. Even so, I do feel slightly dismayed to think I’ve spoiled someone else’s enjoyment of the show - it’s such a good one.

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.

My Life List is now something like two years old, and rather than the whole New Year’s Resolution thing, I like to have a quick look back at the things achieved this year, and then a quick look forward at what I hope the year ahead will bring. It’s fair to say that this year has not been as full of Life List success as I would have hoped, mostly because it was full of months of soul-searching, making life-changing decisions, and forging ahead with book-writing.

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. Seeing Formula One people tweet their thoughts on Jobs was a strange crossing of the streams.

I’ve been catching up with some episodes of The 404 and they mentioned this relatively new website that lets you create a social environment for listening to music. Outloud.fm allows you to create a chatroom with the added bonus of anyone invited able to upload music to a collaborative playlist. The queue of music then plays out for everyone at the same time. I love this concept. I’m no music afficionado. I like what I like and that’s pretty much the end of it. However, Mr C and I have been known to have the odd Friday night conversation about music, the kind that starts with Glastonbury and ends with the knowledge that Sergeant Wilson was the father of one of the Wombles.

A recent post on Kottke linked to the first part of a four-part video series on Vimeo called Everything’s a Remix. It is amazing. There are only two parts so far, one covering music and one covering films. Mr C and I watched them together and it’s fair to say that both of the videos blew our minds just a little bit.

As briefly mentioned in my Film Watch post of Red, John Malkovich’s character Marvin is a bit paranoid about the world around him and he has a bunker. Rather than having a hatch like in LOST, or a big door highlighting where his bunker is, he is so paranoid that he’s hidden the entrance as well. It’s marvellous. Here’s a clip of Malkovich’s first scenes in the movie, and more importantly, how he gets into his bunker (ignore the bit about LSD).

I’ve made lots and lots of New Year’s Resolutions before, both on the blog and in my head, and very few of them have worked out. This year, I changed the concept around completely and debuted the Life List - a long-term set of goals and things to aim at. Some are crazy, some are impossible, some are easy and most will take time. I figured a quick review for the year would be appropriate, with some thoughts on what is next.

This may be the first time in a long time that we have watched enough recent films to create any form of top five list. We have indulged in many a movie night, so I tasked Mr C to choose his top five films that were released in 2010, that we watched in 2010. Here is what he came up with: Inception. “The closest thing to the Matrix since the Matrix, which was the closest thing to perfection since forever. It was everything that Shutter Island should have been but wasn’t. Still needs a second viewing, though.” (Film Watch link) Kick-Ass. “The slow start lulled me into a completely false sense of security. The trailer had ruined it slightly, but once it got into it’s stride, it was the most remarkable film of the year.” (Film Watch link) The A-Team. “Because they flew a tank. Also, because they didn’t ruin the original. The only disappointment was BA, probably not as dominant as he is expected to be.” (Film Watch link) Green Zone. “For being the least Hollywood blockbuster Hollywood blockbuster portrayal of American military politics seen to date.” (Film Watch link) Leap Year/Cop Out. “These two are neck and neck, the introduction to Cop Out is the greatest five minutes of any movie sequence ever, but Leap Year has a lot of Guinness in it. I’m more likely to watch Leap Year a second time, so it should take the fifth spot.” (Film Watch link/Film Watch link) Mr C would like an honourable mention to go to The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was his favourite film that we watched all year long, but of course came from 2009.

I’ve done Top Ten lists before, but thought I would bring back the idea in a shorter form - half, in fact. This is not for every Friday, but if I feel like I might have a list to share, this would be the place to do it. I haven’t been to the cinema for years. I know the last time I approached one with the intent of going in, it was around the time of a Harry Potter movie, and the cinema said they reserved the right to use night vision goggles and essentially spy on you. I was appalled at the idea, decided to spend my evening elsewhere, and never returned.

We have done the community film watch thing over on Sidepodcast, all gathered together to live comment a movie - ensuring we all hit start at the same time. I’ve seen many people tweeting their way through TV shows and movies. It seems as though sharing the experience with someone else is becoming ever more popular - even if you are on opposite sides of the globe. So here is a website I would like, if I had the millions to pay off the movie industry, and hire engineers to build it: filmwatchlive.com.

I apologise for the multitude of Film Watch posts recently. I’ve been trying to catch up and sometimes it’s just easier to sit down and schedule a load of posts for the following few days. One of my New Year Resolutions was to reach Film Watch 50, and I think that is going to be achieved fairly soon. Perhaps after that I can work on the going outside thing. I also wanted to point film fans towards Lukeh’s review posts. He’s done two so far with three films apiece, the first features District 9, the second features Lost in Translation. I have seen one of the films he’s reviewed so far! Go me!

Ooh, at last, something from the movie industry that is both progressive and good! Presumably in an attempt to both halt the many unauthorised film clips available, and perhaps monetise it along the way, Paramount have opened up a site that allows you to select a clip from a movie, and purchase the licence to it. From the article where I learned of such things: Paramount will initially restrict use to business customers — advertising agencies, mobile carriers, foreign broadcasters — that want to license pieces of films for commercial use. The plan is to ultimately open the site to consumers. People wanting to embed a specific scene from “The Godfather” on their blog could go to ParamountClips.com and buy it.

After causing a bit of a kerfuffle with my harsh criticism of the special effects in The Terminator, I was intrigued to see the iTunes Film homepage feature some CGI Trailblazers. Now, we have already established that I am not an expert on movies, but some of these made me ponder. Terminator 2 - I’m saying nothing! Aliens - I’ve seen this one, although I don’t remember it enormously. I seem to recall the CGI being acceptable though. Final Fantasy - No idea. The Matrix - All that high-kicking freeze frame goodness, I’ve reviewed this one in Film Watch. Waterworld - Oooh, I love this film, but is it really that great in terms of graphics? Is it just because of the vast amount of water required? RoboCop 2 - No idea.

Since I watched Rain Man, and learnt about this Abbott and Costello phenomenon, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. I keep bugging Mr C by saying “Who’s on First?” and then getting annoyed when he doesn’t know what to say. Not that either of us know any of the sketch to carry on with, but it’s fun catching him off guard. It is amazing to me that a sketch can continue to be timeless and supremely popular after 70 years. Wikipedia says it became a big hit in 1937, and has continued to get awards and top best comedy lists ever since.

I do not watch enough films. I used to watch loads of films, usually when they came out in the cinema. But that was when I lived with my friend who loved movies, when I had more free time, and I had enough money to spend on seeing the same thing many times over. I was put off going to the cinema because the nearest establishment to where I live is happy to spy on you with night vision goggles so you don’t pirate the film. Not impressed.

From Dan Meth: I love this. I don’t watch films extensively, but I have seen quite a few of the above. I think Back to the Future should be all blue, Jurassic Park should start higher, but The Matrix is dead on. What do you reckon?

Michael Crichton died yesterday, and I don’t think I’d be lying if I said he was my favourite author of all time. I didn’t even know he was ill, which is so unusual in this day and age that it makes me like him even more. Obviously the usual applies, with thoughts and feelings going out to his family, but on a purely selfish level, I’m sad that there will be no more books. Every novel I picked up I thought was going to be a nightmare to read, with so many scientific, technological, and futuristic plots. But Crichton has a way of making the complex understandable and from that it becomes enjoyable.

You can now buy or rent films on iTunes in the UK, and there’s quite a lot to choose from. Considering how few TV shows there were when that was first introduced on the UK store, I’m quite impressed. There are some questionable decisions on the part of Apple, when you look at the HD side of things. You can’t buy an HD film and you can only rent one if you have an Apple TV. At the moment, we don’t have an HD TV so it doesn’t really matter anyway, but that does seem an unusual tactic from Apple. I know they like to keep you using Apple products, but what harm would it do to allow users to download to their Macs?

Design revamp for ‘$100 laptop’ I always thought the old one looked like a cartoon, and whilst aimed at kids, I found it quite off-putting. The new one looks beautiful. Twitter: Something Is Technically Wrong Well, I gave up already. Gyllenhaal confirmed for ‘Prince of Persia’ Firstly, I didn’t know there was a film. Secondly, that Gemma Arterton is everywhere right now, and I still haven’t seen her in anything.

WALL•E trailer The newest film from Disney Pixar… to be honest, it doesn’t grab me as much as I’d hoped. Showbiz - News - Beckhams preferred to Brown in Downing St - Digital Spy I pray that this isn’t true.

In the good old days, I used to enjoy television at Christmas. Actually, let’s rephrase that, I used to enjoy television full stop. My dad has always been one for guessing plot lines before they happen, working out the twists, the jokes, even the next words out of an actor’s mouth. It was quite annoying, but I guess if you can see these things, you want to share them. Since we started podcasting, specifically video podcasting, we have been studying television programmes and production in general to see what we do that’s the same, what we don’t want to be doing, and where we need to head in the future.

I was reading one of the websites on my RSS feed list, and came across this question: Which is your favourite Tom Hanks movie? At first, I thought the answer was obvious - Cast Away. But then, when I thought about it a little bit more, there are so many others. Obviously, Forrest Gump, and I am a little bit partial to You’ve Got Mail, which although a weird film, is very loveable.

This DVD Day featured Sideways but I got bored with that halfway through and switched it off. I did rent Ocean’s Twelve but had to return the films before I could watch it, so look out for that one in another DVD day soon. The main film I watched this time was Closer and I really liked it. I thought the dialogue was brilliant, witty and smart and it kept the whole film moving along nicely. Julia Roberts wasn’t annoying like she usually is and Natalie Portman was good too, although I wasn’t really sure about all the different wigs. Originally being a play, I’m not sure that the story translates to a film very well, but I liked the end result.

Second attempt at The Whole Ten Yards. I didn’t think it was as good as the first one, and was disappointed with the way it started, but I got into it about halfway through. With that achieved, I settled down to watch Strictly Dance Fever, which was brilliant, and has, of course, bumped my old favourite dance, to be replaced by the Charlston. And I’ve narrowed down my favourite couples to just three. Only Lord Of The Rings, Casualty, a pack of Doritos and some of the coke separates me from my bed, where I can relax and hope for better weather tomorrow. (Which, by the way, will include Birth and National Treasure.)

I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I have a question. At the end, it turns out that he was frozen, awaiting the time when he could be unfrozen and medicine will have progressed far enough to fix his face, and in that time he was having the Lucid Dream treatment. This meant he thought he was living but really he was dreaming and he could choose how the dream went, although he didn’t realise he could do that. I know, it’s crazy, I didn’t really get it either.

I was expecting Secret Window to be a slasher horror type, which is why I didn’t watch it with Mr C, and I was mystified as to why Johnny Depp would star in such a film. But of course, this is no such film. It’s actually a really intense, clever, psychological thriller with a huge twist at the end. I did not see it coming. Followed by The Incredibles which was up to Pixar’s usual brilliant standard and doesn’t really need me to sing it’s praises, it does that by itself. My only thought about this one was that it seemed really adult. The characters talked and moved fast and used big words like ‘anonymity’ which I can’t even say let alone imagine a five year old understanding. But either way, it was good stuff.

A disappointing week this week. Starting with Resident Evil 2 and The Talented Mr Ripley (which was recorded off the television, not rented), both of which left me feeling I’d missed something. Resident Evil suffered from the fatal “sequel disease”, the symptoms of which include trying too hard to come up with a story that doesn’t really work thus include much more shooting and monsters to try and make up for it. These were swiftly followed by Wimbledon and Bridget Jones 2, accompanied with some homemade trifle.

The Bourne Supremacy was a disappointment but only because my memory doesn’t stretch as far back as the previous film. The Terminal was the complete opposite: a surprise hit. Funny and heart-warming, even if some people didn’t recognise Catherine Zeta-Jones until we got to the end of the film and I said “It was good, but Catherine Z-J was a bit annoying.” He was astonished. My main gripe about her was when her character said she was 39, and she just doesn’t look it. In real life, she’s actually 36, which isn’t exactly far off, but she doesn’t look it at all. I might even use the word stunning, but that would be pushing it.

Each day, 1 in 4 Americans visits a fast food restaurant. In 1972, we spent 3 billion a year on fast food - today we spend more than 110 billion. McDonald’s feeds more than 46 million people a day - that’s more than the entire population of Spain. French Fries are the most eaten vegetable in America. You would have to walk for seven hours straight to burn off a Super Sized Coke, fries and Big Mac. 60% of all Americans are either overweight or obese. One in every three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime. The average child sees 10,000 TV advertisements per year. Only seven items on McDonald’s entire menu contain no sugar. McDonald’s distributes more toys per year than Toys-R-Us. McDonald’s say: “Any processing our foods undergo makes them more dangerous than unprocessed foods.” McDonald’s calls people who eat a lot of their food “Heavy Users”. McDonald’s operates more than 30,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries on 6 continents. Before most children can speak they can recognise McDonald’s. 40% of American meals are eaten outside of the home. McDonald’s represents 43% of the total US fast food market. Taken from Super Size Me.

Today involved Super Size Me, The Whole Ten Yards and a plateful of nachos. Unfortunately, Mr C hasn’t seen The Whole Nine Yards and given the amount of time we needed to spend at our computers this weekend, watching three films was just asking a bit too much. But never mind, there’s always next time. Super Size Me was a real eye opener, and I think it’s a good job we ate before we watched it. Who knew that eating McDonald’s three times a day, every single day could cause your liver as much damage as being an alcoholic does? Even the doctors were surprised!

Today I’m having a solo DVD Day, which only involves one film - Open Water. I was not a fan of Blair Witch, so the cover advertising it as the next best thing was not really something that made me want to watch it. But Mr C definitely didn’t want to see it and I was curious, so while selecting DVDs for DVD Day #5 (you can read about that one tomorrow), I picked this up.

I forgot to write about DVD Day #2, which included Spiderman 2 (not as good as the first) and Garfield (not as good as the trailer), so it wasn’t really worth talking about. Today, whilst partaking in popcorn, Pringles and dips, we’ve seen I, Robot and King Arthur. I, Robot was brilliant, funny and unusual, and I didn’t find myself picking many holes in it at all. Plus, Will Smith is pretty much always a guaranteed success. King Arthur could have been a little too predictable, but was forgiven because of Ioan and Keira.

We so should have called our film festival DVD Day. Anyway, we watched The Day After Tomorrow and Troy. During the week, Mr C purchased Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure and Live Aid 4 Disc Special Edition. He’d previously seen Dave Gorman live on stage, and laughed so much that DG actually stopped and looked at him, so my expectations were pretty high. I only managed to watch half of it in one go, but it was funny. I remembered parts of it from the book, which helped, as he talks really fast. It was good though, I’m going to watch the second half soon.

I so desperately wanted to call it “Film Fest Friday” for alliteration and general coolness reasons, but unfortunately it takes place on a Sunday. Following a complaint from me about the amount of Quality Time we were spending together, Mr C made a special effort and we are now taking part in our second Film Fest Sunday. This involves me renting us two films, us digesting the first along with a bucketful of popcorn, then walking and discussing what we have just seen before watching the second film. And at some point dinner can take place, depending on how much popcorn we have stuffed.

Lots to say so I’ll just get on with it. I’ve been buying games by the truckload, even though I wasn’t really done with the ones I had before. Have now got The Simpsons Hit & Run (very funny), Pirates of The Caribbean game (a little hard to control but I’ve not given up yet!) and Zoo Tycoon Marine Mania, which is really fun and adds dolphins and jellyfish and sharks to my zoos. It’s hard to get anything done these days.

Anyway… website update - 101 Words will have its own site very soon. I apologise for the delay but learning PHP and MySql is bound to take more than a day and it happens that I keep getting distracted by iTunes and Prince of Persia! And on the subject of iTunes, please note the new iMix section, I just discovered playlists and will probably be up till the early hours creating them! And to do that, I’m probably going to have to download some new music. Shame.

Although not a day to be curled up inside, I felt like watching some films. I thought instead of wasting the weather, I could manoeuvre the television and sit in the sunlight. Now, you should all know that I’m quite a big Queen fan, if not you obviously haven’t been reading this journal for very long. I was recommended to watch Highlander, the film which ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’, my favourite song ever, is famous for. When I was in the video shop last, I could only think of Braveheart, which I was informed at a rather loud volume later, was completely different. So, today, I picked up Highlander (the guy from Holby City’s in it!!) and also Timeline.

I wanted to go in today, but it was kinda insisted that I stay in bed. Of course, I got itchy feet and was up a few minutes after the house was empty. But I guess it was right, it’s probably best that I’m at home today, I’m still a bit poorly and I’ll definitely go back tomorrow, and there’ll probably be lots of work to do, always a plus.

I wanted to watch Unbreakable last night because I just knew any film with Bruce in it was going to be worth watching… I was wrong. I suddenly realised it was over and I’d not been touched by it at all. Both actors were good, the settings and scenes were all mysterious but they didn’t stitch together properly. It spent so long trying to persuade Willis’ character that he’s unbreakable that nothing else happens. The thing the director seems to have missed is that movie-goers are open to anything, we don’t need to have an hour and a half of proof to make us believe something is possible in the world of film (- we swallow the Matrix without blinking, don’t we?).