New Year’s Eve

Just reflecting on the season, the Christmas Holidays are nearly over and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I’m sorry that the Christmas bubble of present giving and socialising/drinking/indulging is over. On the other hand, I feel like it’s good to get back to normal life and living. We do over-indulge at Christmas, so you can’t do that for long without it having some kind of negative impact. I feel I drank more than I ought to have last night, for example, when we had friends over. And tonight it will be the New Year celebrations so I will have a new year drink as well. I’ve drunk a little Prosecco, a little Tia Maria, a little 43 and a fair amount of Carlsberg lager. That’s quite enough for a week and a half.

ATM (2012)

This film reminds me of the style of thrillers that have been made in the last few years where the setting is confined to one place and the situation keeps getting worse for the characters remaining. This film is a good example of these kind of films, which I personally don’t mind watching. The setting for this one is an unstaffed banking room in the middle of a car park. I don’t know why any bank would build one of these in the middle of a car park but that’s maybe something common in America? 3 Office workers, who just happen to work for a bank, stop off at the ATM to allow one of hem to get some cash to buy pizza on the way home from an office Christmas party. Personally, I would have told the idiot to get a cab. The other passenger is a girl that the other guy wants to ask out on a date and has offered to take her home. Instead of being a good friend, the other guy insists on being driven home and then insists on stopping for some cash to buy pizza, oh my God, why? It’s early in the morning. Hasn’t he had food at the party? It makes no sense.
So in the ATM there is a problem with his card and all 3 enter the room. Then things start to go bad. Between them and getting back to the car is a guy wearing a black coat whose face they can’t see. He looks mean and when a stranger appears walking his dog, this guy in the coat kills him in plain sight of the 3 in the room. This freaks them out. Instead of making a run for it, they stay in room. I told you it makes no sense. Things do indeed get worse as is the case with all of these sort of films. I won’t spoil it for you but needless to say that they don’t all make it out. There’s no happy ending, that’s a spoiler for you. I enjoyed watching it to see what would happen but a large part of me was frustrated with their behaviour.

Knowing (2009)

Now, this is a film starring Nichols Cage so my expectations were not high and I very nearly didn’t even start watching knowing that he was in it! Did you see what I did there? I got past my prejudice and started to watch. It’s a convoluted story about a school child who writes down a load of numbers 50 years ago instead of a drawing of the future (like the rest of the class), which all get buried in a time capsule. 50 Years later the capsule is opened and Cage’s son, called Caleb, is given the envelope with all the numbers in it. He takes it home wrongly. Cage as a father isn’t much good. He hasn’t got over the death of his wife and drinks heavily. So, what does he do but pick up the sheet of numbers and start analysing it! All night, he doesn’t even sleep. He connects series of numbers to major accidents that have happened around the world. It’s strange and hedoesn’t know what to do with it. It seems to predict something will happen in the future. He tries to prevent a couple of major accidents that just happen to be near where he lives. He narrowly misses getting killed by a large airliner crashing into the ground. Then he is involved in runaway subwa train derailment and crash. It gets worse but you’ve already probably lost the point. There is no point. The Earth is going to be incinerated by a solar flare and his son (with his new friend female friend: don’t ask!) are taken by aliens who have been trying to tell them the whole time. Fanciful, pointless twaddle. There is. No reason anyone should watch this film.

December update

I haven't really been actively watching new films for this blog channel, so there hasn't been a lot to post about. I'm not on a break, I've just put a lot of energy into other endeavours this year. It's been mainly photography of one kind or another but I haven't felt the need to post about that here.
At this time of year I end up watching films I've already seen, rather than new ones. I've recently  watched Gremlins, Home Alone, White Christmas, It's A Wonderful Life, A Night To Remember and Ready Player One. I'm sure there have been others but they come to mind most readily.
The last 3 days have been the Christmas bubble, so have felt a bit slow, vegetative and naturally full of just eating and drinking. My family have played Scrabble and cards in-between the TV programmes and meals. I must try to do something interesting before I return to work in a week from today.