I did manage to see Rogue One at the cinema before going into my self-imposed hibernation mode over Christmas and New Year. I loved it and will be popping back to see it again – I hope. It felt like a grown up Star Wars movie and gave a great set up for A New Hope. Of course, having seen it, and considering the happenings over Xmas, I may have re-watched A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. 🙂

In my attempts to reduce the epic To Be Watched list (films I have stockpiled on DVDs and hard drives) I saw the following (all from the comfort of my couch):

* A Little Chaos (2014)
* Aladdin (1992)
* Ant Man (2015)
* Australia (2008)
* Bad Teacher (2011)
* Becoming Jane (2007)
* Before I Go To Sleep (2014)
* Born of Hope (2009)
* Dracula Untold (2014)
* Fracture (2007)
* Gangster Squad (2013)
* Into The Storm (2014)
* Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
* Predestination (2014)
* Serenity (2005)
* Spectre (2015)
* The Hunger Games – Mockingjay Pt 1 (2014)
* The Ledge (2011)
* Zulu (2013)

Which is, I admit, a somewhat eclectic mix 🙂

I loved A Little Chaos – Rickman, Winslet, Tucci, snark and gardening and sex – all in a historical context (though I bet Le Notre was not nearly as sexy as the delicious Matthias Schoenaerts). Also there was a glorious shirt-off-water-cascading-down-ripped-torso moment in Australia which very much reminded me of a similar scene in one of my much loved 1990s/00s TV shows – Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Ant Man was also considerably better than I’d expected it to be.

Luke Evans suitably strutted his stuff as Dracula and Ethan Hawke’s Predestination was an entertaining couple of hours – though I spotted both the big reveals very quickly.

Before I Go To Sleep was very well acted but as creepy as fuck and should come with a giant warning sign. I do not recommend at all.

The rest were entertaining but not remarkable. And I was long overdue for a Serenity re-watch – along with a Jupiter Rising re-watch (space wolves with wings – what else could a girl want?) which was my New Year’s Eve viewing!

I started the New Year with two more films:

* Another Country (1984)
* The Lazarus Effect (2015)

I saw the stage play of Another Country a couple of times in 2014 but I’d never seen the original film which stars very young and floppy-haired Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Cary Elwes. Both stage play and film were brilliant.

The Lazarus Effect was a standard bring someone back from the dead horror movie. Possibly not the best thing to watch before heading to bed.

My cunning plan for this year is to see a few more films at the cinema (and not just cram 20 or so into the BFR Flare Fest and the London Film Fest but catch some more consistently month on month) and also have a designated ‘movie night’ once a week to try and cut through some of that backlog!