Film '18

I've been having a discussion on Facebook, prompted by the Oscar nominations, about films. I have to say that the idea of sitting in a cinema is becoming less and less appealing as I get older. At risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, people in cinemas get on my wick.

First we have to pay nearly ten pounds a pop for the privilege of sitting in there with people who won't sit in their allocated seats (I was once given short shrift by a guy at a cinema in Nottingham when I informed him that he was sitting in my seat for a performance of far-fetched Brad Pitt WWII film Fury. Flaming pillock).
Then they have to bring in all manner of food. I mean, those nachos they insist on serving these days look horrific. What is that fluorescent orange gloop they have to smother them with? It looks radioactive. And that's before we've even got started on rattling sweet wrappers and bags. Then, when they're not pushing food into their hungry maws, they're talking. Or looking at mobile phones. It's only in the past decade that I've actually seen people being ejected from a cinema for bad behaviour (The Woman in Black in Birmingham). Is that because people no longer know how to sit quietly for a couple of hours?

Then there's the films themselves. That's when you can actually get to the main feature part. You can put another thirty minutes on the stated start time because first we have to sit through half an hour of adverts, which wouldn't be so bad if they were still like this. The main features are rubbish these days too. I went to the cinema five times last year, two of those films (Trainspotting 2, Dunkirk) were rubbish, one was okay-ish (Murder on the Orient Express), one was quite good (The Death of Stalin) and the other one was Dave Gilmour* at Pompeii, so I knew what I was getting with that. All films these days seem to be based on comics, and not the sort of comics I like either. If someone made a film based on The Tough of the Track (Alf Tupper), Braddock VC or Billy's Boots then I'd be well up for that. If they're not based on comics it has to be a historical drama where they get all the facts wrong. And if it's not those then it's some worthy old bollocks. Why does nobody make daft comedies any more? Police Academy, Trading Places, Groundhog Day, Rita Sue and Bob Too, those stupid-but-good films with John Candy, Chevy Chase or Dan Aykroyd?

I dunno, maybe I'm just more into television these days. Namely imported television. Deutschland 83, Witnesses, Modus, that silly Swedish Scooby Doo thing that BBC4 showed in the autumn. All much more deserving of my time, I think. I'm currently well into French law and order procedural Spiral. We've only discovered it on series 6 but it was my birthday last week and Mrs Ambassador gave me the first four series in a boxset. I can't wait to sink my teeth into all 4000+ minutes of that.
It's either that or I stick to the excellent television channel Talking Pictures TV.

*I say 'Dave' because he insists on being called 'David'

Brum Brum.

Ah, 2018 then. How are you? Oh right, excellent. Anyway, enough about you, as it's a new year and a chance to set out some new life goals, I thought I'd go back to blogging. The micro-blogging of Twitter doesn't interest me at the moment so I thought I'd have a go at this again. See how it goes, and all that. Just a quick one to ease me in:

There is absolutely nothing I don't love about this photograph.

It's Rush outside the Holiday Inn in Birmingham in 1978. A very West Midlands' decade, were the 70s, think about it: ELO, Black Sabbath, Wizzard, Trevor Francis at Birmingham City, Spaghetti Junction, Jasper Carrott, Tiswas ATVLand Birmingham B1 2JP, John Swallow, Red Robbo, the Bull Ring, Crossroads etc. The Brutalism architecture in Brum is one of its great strengths, I find. What a pity theses days that the city seems intent on erasing every last piece of it. I mean, look at the concrete in that Holiday Inn. Also look at the Renault 16. They were everywhere then. I really hope that's the car which will transport the Canadian rockers to the Birmingham Odeon. A very Renault decade was the 70s. And look at Rush, a very Rush decade was the 70s, with their epic twenty minute songs, moustaches and Geddy Lee's boots...