Snatch
Rating: 🤩 Category: Film URL: imdb.com One of my all-time favourites. Watched with Tabitha; I don't think she likes it as much as I do. I love that about the age she's at now; developing her own taste. I did think she'd like it though.
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The Odyssey
Rating: 🤩 Category: Cinema URL: imdb.com I'm torn between ⭐ and 🤩 on this one. Allow me to tell you why: American actors playing ancient Greeks - no matter how good they are - are just goofy. It's just weird. And yes I would've had Greek actors speaking Ancient Greek. That's how much I think this film deserved it. This shouldn't count against it so I'm not going to, but here's a mini-review of…
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Rating: 🤩 Category: Cinema URL: imdb.com I love these films. Whoever's making them just gets it. It's a bit long, but what isn't these days? Structurally reminded me of the Marvel's Spider-Man video game. Went in totally blind, as I always like to, and really enjoyed all the crossover story elements.
No Time To Die
Rating: 😡 Category: Film URL: imdb.com This is so long. It's so long . And I don't know who it's for. Maybe I'm alone in this but I don't care if James Bond finds love. Why have we become obsessed with James Bond being motivated by love? He's a goddamn bullet-proof spy! It's a shame because Rami Malek is obviously amazing; Léa Seydoux is brilliant. Even Ana De Armas, under-used as she is, is…
Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Strife
Rating: 🤩 Category: Book URL: panmacmillan.com I wish I could say that this took me four months because it's the fourth book in a trilogy, and that I wanted to savour it. But no, that's not the case. It took me four months because I'll easily go weeks without picking a book up, then a week doing nothing else. This was a slow book, though. The Children of Time trilogy invites you to a familiar…
Employee of the Month
Rating: ⭐️ Category: Film URL: imdb.com Watched with Tabitha. I love this movie. Don't even care if it's a 5.6; I like what I like. I could still live without Andy Dick though.
The Prestige
Rating: 🤩 Category: Film URL: imdb.com I loved this. I put it on just for something to watch, so I wasn't 100% focussed on it at the start, but that changed very quickly. Fantastic story. You can see elements of Inception, as each magician's deceit grows deeper and you begin to question who really has the upper hand. I'm surprised this isn't more talked about when people talk about Nolan. I…
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Rating: ⭐️ Category: TV URL: imdb.com Season: 1 The first ¾ of this is A Knight's Tale, but the end is very different and I enjoyed it a lot. Likeable characters, links well to the main show (though a little hand-holding with some of the references!), and good pacing. Weird watching shows like this with thirty minute episodes though.
Spider-Noir
Rating: 🤩 Category: TV URL: imdb.com Season: 1 This post contains spoilers. Please click through to read them.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Rating: ⭐️ Category: Film URL: imdb.com Another with Tabitha. This is my favourite one but I love Japanese cars. I love some of the songs on this soundtrack too. Need to watch something with some substance soon. These comfort films can get too comfortable.
2 Fast 2 Furious
Rating: ⭐️ Category: Film URL: imdb.com Tabitha's first watch. I love the first three films in this series and she enjoyed it too. Good brain-off stuff.
Project Hail Mary
Rating: ⭐️ Category: Cinema URL: imdb.com A rewatch exacerbated my previous issues with pacing, but I still enjoyed it. I think a rewatch in a year or two maybe. The cinema was so full . Couldn't believe it - it was almost as full as when we saw it opening night.
Moneyball
Rating: 🤩 Category: Film URL: imdb.com This was one of my comfort films but I haven't seen it for quite a while now. Still holds up. Probably more now that I've actually seen some baseball and understand the game a bit better. It's definitely going back into rotation; I've watched The Big Short and Wolf of Wall Street too much.
Donnie Darko
Rating: 🤩 Category: Film URL: imdb.com A perfect film. A singular, and absolutely wonderful gem. I haven't watched this in such a long time and it continues to speak to me in new and different ways. I'm genuinely glad and grateful that this exists.
Andy Weir - Artemis
Rating: 🤷 Category: Book URL: andyweirauthor.com Not fussed about this one. Can't quite put my finger on it but I think there's a fine line between stories having a good quick pace, and being rushed. This felt rushed to me. Especially the last quarter. It was entertaining enough, but nowhere near the standard of Project Hail Mary , for me.
Project Hail Mary
Rating: 🤩 Category: Cinema URL: imdb.com This post contains spoilers. Please click through to read them.
Blake Crouch - Upgrade
Rating: 🤩 Category: Book URL: blakecrouch.com I like to read Blake Crouch after reading something I struggled with. He is the sci-fi Dan Brown; great stories, and some of the most awful prose I've ever read. Reading the acknowledgements, I learned that this book was apparently proofread. I noticed typos, clumsy turns of phrase, tautologies, parenthetical dumbings-down, and clunky exposition. But…
William Gibson - Neuromancer
Rating: ⭐️ Category: Book As with The Peripheral , I felt very along-for-the-ride with this book. For most of it I wasn't really sure specifically what was going on or who was who, but I felt like I was always able to visualise something that made sense, and I enjoyed that. I don't get that with other authors. I think it probably means I'm not smart enough for these books, but I enjoy them on some…
Senna
Rating: ⭐️ Category: Film URL: imdb.com The editing in this is absolutely masterful; it plays like a film in many ways. You think about Senna as such a senseless death, and it does feel avoidable by today's safety standards, but when you see his attitude to racing - the only things that mattered to him were racing and God - dying in a Formula 1 car felt like the only way his story would end.…
Frankenstein (2025)
Rating: 😒 Category: Film URL: imdb.com I don't understand the Best Picture nomination. This drags, and I was frequently bored and distracted. The costumes are amazing - feels like we're in a golden age of cinematic costume design right now - but everything else is just...why?