And so into 2006...

It's the end of March and I've seen 5 films at the cinema. Pathetic. A foot operation has rendered me immobile, thus missing the entire Oscar season (secretly grateful, otherwise I'd have spent two months being morbidly depressed)

As my cinema days approach once more, I'll recap briefly on the start of the year.

7th Jan 06 - March of the Penguins (7)
Look at the little penguins. I do think they're cute. And oh, they fell over. Ha ha. This is a documentary along the same lines of the recent BBC series Planet Earth. It's stunning to look at, but the information content is a tad sparse. What was that big thing that just attacked the babies? Oh, you're not going to say. Ok. (Luckily I'm incredibly knowledgable when it comes to topics like this, so I can guess albatross)
This film was 'nice', probably difficult and cold to film, but I didn't come away knowing anything more, and was entertained for a short while. You can't see the facial expression I'm making, but imagine eating something very sour, while being patronising to a small child.

11th Jan 06 - Brokeback Mountain (7.75)
Ah Jake. Lovely Jake. Yeah, Heath played it well, even when he was being affectionate he was rough and gruff and mumbly like a big bear. But lovely Jake with his lovely little grin. Branded 'the gay cowboy movie', it pulls away from the labels almost immediately. You can see the love between these two. The fact they're both men loses its novelty, and you're left with one of those very long, drawn out, crushingly depressing tragic love stories, that I usually hate. If I wanted my despair to be very slowly dragged across time I'd employ someone to follow me everywhere and mutter 'you will die someday' into my ear every five minutes. So, this is why, what is essentially a 'good film' (albiet a little too long) doesn't score the magic 8. I just don't like films like this that much.

25th Jan 06 - Jarhead (7.5)
Ah Jake. Lovely Jake. More importantly - Jake in a santa thong. He's bald and beefy and struggling to cope with the violence that's been trained into him, and that's used for narthing. Usual army training scenes with shouty guys doing shouty things, and it looks like hell but the shouty ones do it because it's their life. What saves this from being another bloody war film is that its focus is purely on the mental effects on the soldiers, before and after. It won't blow you away, but it ain't half bad, and you see Jake in the shower.

1st Feb 06 - A Cock and Bull Story (8)
Some might say this film is so far up its own arse you can't even see anything except a little tiny dot of light in the middle of the screen. Thankfully, because I'm so far up my own arse, I saw this film in its entirety. The comparison between Steve Coogan and his character is all too clear in my poncey analyst eyes, and with that in mind this film makes for a bold, different take. Sometimes amusing, but not an out-and-out comedy, I found this to be a refreshing attempt at something new. Imagine!

8th Feb 06 - Munich (8)
Being the last cinema venture before I was in a different type of theatre (the operating kind) I decided to opt for a jolly tale. Long and brutal and unclear. Yep, that's my idea of jolly. I watched this film with unease, not because of the frank violence, but because I could tell my brain would be a'thinking afterwards. Trouble was, I didn't have time to be a'thinking during, because there were too many other things going on. This is a dark film that digs up everything you thought about terrorism and makes you sit and ponder it and the people involved. I wasn't alive when this all happened, so I didn't know very much about it. I still don't, really. I'm not entirely sure why these two groups were fighting, but, as this film suggests, did they?