The Films I've Watched This Year #1

Film Right then, let's see how this goes. For reasons which will become more apparent towards the end of the year, I'm going to try and keep a running record of the films I've watched in 2014. Nothing too orderly and with any particular format, sometimes it might even be just a list, but it would be good to keep some kind of record and I might as well post it on this blog so it's all in one place. Of course, it's the 17th of the month already so I'm a bit behind but let me enter my mind palace and try to remember ...

Babylon AD
After Earth
Predators
Outland
Dreamcatcher
Everest (IMAX Experience)
Ready To Fly
I Married A Witch
The Sacrifice
Stalker
Blade Runner: The Final Cut
World War Z

Having been ill for most of January so far, bedridden, a cold, this list isn't as long as it could be and because I'm only covering film, this doesn't mention the time spent watching the UK and US versions of House of Cards one after the other or Doctor Who's Scream of the Shalka.

My current personal mini-festival is films set in the future, which explains all of the apocalyptic visions. Apart from Ready To Fly, the stand out forgotten film on that list is Lawrence Kasden's Dreamcatcher in which what amount to the four boys are gifted special psychological powers which in their future become really important during an alien invasion - it's essentially Stand-By-Me meets The Fog meets Outbreak. Oddball, flawed but really rather brilliant. It's definitely worth seeing if you have any interest in Sherlock, because Damian Lewis's character (and that's quite some performance in and of itself) has his own mind palace whose manifestation within the film as a kind of baroque archive must certainly have been an influence of Gatiss and Moffat or at least their production designers.

Spending two nights watching Tarkovsky was probably a bit much, though Stalker still manages to have one of my favourite comedy moments in all of cinema (the telephone) and The Sacrifice one of the most spectacular climaxes which shows unimaginable film making craft considering, as far as I can see, it's all one shot and no easy chance of a remake (the house). As for much of everything else, it just goes to show that audience, presumably because of ticket prices, expect too much of their films. After Earth isn't that bad. It's an old fashioned ticking clock chase film with some interesting performance choices that's only really weighted down by the unnecessarily epic prologue which suggests its going to be something it isn't. As for World War Z: $125m budget and it still ends up in Wales with a solution Torchwood would have rejected and a Dr Who actor. Amazing.