Thursday

I hadn't been particularly keen to see Watchmen, until I was offered the chance to watch it at the IMAX - London's largest cinema screen. It is an impressive size, but once you begin watching the film, you quickly forget. It is not a huge step beyond most cinema screens, and as such seems a bit over-hyped. Perhaps a 3-D film would be more interesting. As for Watchmen itself, I have to say the plot was fairly lame. I'm not sure how much we were supposed to take seriously, the characters took themselves very seriously, but it was comical, and there was a rather adolescent philosophy. The character of Dr Manhattan was rather absurd, and seemed like he belonged in the Blue Man group. The film's plot was more complicated than it needed to be, and it built to a slight, morally ambiguous, anti-climax. Nonetheless, I am seduced by the style of these movies - the great soundtrack, the slow-motion, the perfectly framed photography - although there is something motionless about them, as if by capturing the exact picture as it appears in the graphic novel they somehow remove it from the movement that is inherent to movies. This is a very strange film, I found, quite had to get your head around, and definitely only for fans of the genre.

Monday

I think it's important to warn that the second half of the title Marley & Me is almost as important as the first half. The movie is as much about 'Me', the reporter John Grogan, as it is about 'Marley', a slightly insane dog. Mentioning that I'd seen the film to people they would say: 'oh, the dog movie, why did you see that?'. I did wonder as I sat down in the cinema what I was about to watch: there were large groups of young girls sitting with us in the theatre. I turned to Gill and said 'what have you done to me?'. Nonetheless, I can safely say that this is quite an adult film. Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston are suitably heart-warming and sweet, with believable on-screen chemistry. It's a sunny, easy film, not too sentimentally written, although the 'low points' are cushioned and easy to swallow. I wonder if it's destined to be one of those movies that adults in twenty years talk about watching as a child. I think it lacks a dynamic edge to be truly memorable. If you aren't manipulated into tears by the ending, you're a better man than me. Although the site of all the bawling girls did make me start to laugh. I have to say this film succeeds in everything it set out to do, and of course you already know if you want to see it or not. As you might expect, I won't be seeing it again.

Wednesday

In one episode of the Simpsons Homer visits the cinema. He gets irritated that there are so many adverts before the movie. When one of trailers actually makes him laugh, he quickly declares: 'I'm laughing, but it's a laugh of impatience'. There's another joke by Peter Kay that I like. He's in the cinema with his girlfriend when something odd happens on screen and she says 'like that would happen in real life'. He turns to her and says 'We just paid £5 for a bag of popcorn, this isn't a place of reality'. I'm going to the cinema tonight, and again tomorrow. As you may have noticed, I go quite a lot. For me, the cinema never fails to be exciting. There are some people I know who never go, preferring to rent the film and watch it in the comfort of their home. I still do enjoy watching movies at home, but they are different joys. The communal act of watching, of the darkness focusing all of you on the screen, the sound surrounding you completely, cannot be replicated. It's inexplicable, and possibly incommunicable too.