MOVIE SEASON

I’m of a vintage that makes me old enough to remember a time when one of the most exciting things about Christmas was the fact that almost every channel (there were 4) had a Big Movie – around two years old – premiering on either Christmas Day or New Years Day. That would be a real event because obviously if you weren’t parked in front of your TV when the movie started then you were going to miss it; VCRs didn’t always exist you know and DVRs weren’t even a twitch in some techies brain. Add that to the perennials like Miracle on 34th Street, Wizard of Oz and A Wonderful Life and you begin to realise the 12 days of Christmas meant a movie a day (and no school).
The current equivalent of that cultural phenomenon is sitting down to watch those DVDs that family members received as gifts, even if you wouldn’t normally pick that movie yourself, or watching the only movie on 8 Sky movie channels that you haven’t seen already. That’s how we find ourselves viewing some classics like Finding Nemo, despite being over 40, and praying for your life back when counting the minutes watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
This Christmas was no exception and I got the opportunity to marvel at the opening sequence to Skyfall (despite catching it on the big screen already), letting Wolverine make me forget superheroes aren’t real (but Santa is), wondering why future depictions of Earth almost always show devastation – Pacific Rim and Elysium, and laughing my socks off at the Lone Ranger.
So faithful reader brace yourself for some revealing reviews over the coming weeks. Don’t say you haven’t been warned!