Games: Gaming is still struggling to maintain the allure that it should. At least, outside of iOS gaming. I’ve been utterly hooked on Can Knockdown 3 this week, to the detriment of all other games, even Resident Evil Revelations which arrived.

A brief play of NCIS and Medal of Honor: Warfighter happened too, but the 360 and PS3 have been pretty deprived. Neither title was amazing but as I have a soft spot for FPSes and CSI-style games, they passed the time well enough. I’ve got a feeling that some of it is end of generation malaise. Nothing coming up for the main two consoles has really enticed me, so I’m currently considering calling it quits and trading in a pile of games that I know I’ll never get round to wrapping up (or in some cases, starting).

The 3DS has kept me keen though, luckily. I finished Fire Emblem: Awakening and felt briefly lost, but a silly cheap copy of Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars has bridged that gap, plus finally starting on Tales of the Abyss. There’s a copy of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate waiting for me too, although I do wish I had a Circle Pad Pro and a bigger screen to truly enjoy it. I might just stick with trying to find the time for the Wii U equivalent!

Either way, with the release of Donkey Kong Country Returns next week, the 3DS should prove to be my main console for a while longer. I’ve got pre-orders placed for Animal Crossing, Project X Zone and Etrian Odyssey IV too, so it’s a bright time for the little handheld. This doesn’t help my ever steady urge to upgrade to a 3DS XL though!

While ill, rather suitably, I plumped for a nostalgic play through of Theme Hospital, courtesy of GoG.com offering a Mac compatible version. It really has aged well and I’ve enjoyed every second of it again, even if playing with the sound muted means I miss out on the joys of the announcer declaring all manners of nonsense.

Work:
There’s a new MyM out in the shops at the moment. Do go buy it. My reviews of Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen and Code of Princess are in there (assuming I’ve got the right issue in mind. I’m picking it up tomorrow!). Also, I’ve written a couple of things for 148apps that I want to highlight.

First up, it was Mother’s Day in the USA last weekend, so I wrote a piece about my relationship with my mother and how iOS games and apps have made it stronger. I’m quite happy with how it worked out.

Also, having played Demon Chic, a fantastically interesting and surreal adventure game for the iPad, I interviewed one of its creators and learnt more about how it came to be. The answers were brilliant and really helped me appreciate the game all the more. It’s great to see a game look at important issues such as schizophrenia, mental health on the whole, drug use and gender identity, and something I’d love to see more of.

It’s a brave step to give one of The Avengers PTSD. Obviously, it shouldn’t be but any admission of a mental issue in this society is a brave move. Similarly, for any regular person to say they’ve had trouble is just as brave and often just as difficult to express.

When I broke my foot a few years ago, people were all too keen to sympathise and hear my woes. And, of course, my workplace didn’t expect me to go anywhere near the place until I could walk again. How do you explain to someone that you can’t face going into work because your brain feels broken and you haven’t slept properly in a long time, though? You don’t. In my case, you try to plan ahead for the tough times by taking holiday time (in my case, avoiding anniversaries and Father’s Day) and you struggle through the unexpected times. Which is ludicrous.

PTSD is slowly gaining more traction. People are ready to accept it happens to soldiers and understandably so. To a lesser extent, people get that it happens to victims of terrorist attacks and other heinous crimes. The media is still all too happy to say less than a week after such an event that the family of a victim are “still” struggling to come to terms with it. As if the people involved should have figured it all out near instantly, rather than struggle to comprehend the huge and unwanted change to their life. But individuals are getting better at figuring it out, when pushed to.

Ultimately though, it can happen to anyone who has had something unwanted change their entire life forever. Not that anyone will ever talk about it. At a push, it might be discussed over a few drinks, once inhibitions have been lowered, all the less likely, someone might finally open up to a friend and then it all comes out and it turns out both parties have suffered in some way. It’s not like a physical injury though. The sympathy is entirely different and that sense and worry of being fake or overplaying one’s problems is all too apparent. It’s as if we need X-Rays of our brain to prove the problem.

Five years ago, around now, I hardly slept. I couldn’t sleep. The last time I’d gone to sleep thinking the world was an OK place, I woke up to the cries of my mother as my father had just collapsed out of bed. Then, I watched as my mother tried to resuscitate him while I was shouting at the woman at 999 why the ambulance wasn’t here yet as it was obvious my father was dying (I still feel bad for shouting at her. I wasn’t rude. Just desperate for help). I watched as he started fitting, making guttural groaning sounds that were utterly horrendous and like nothing else I’ve ever heard before. Throughout, my mother shouting to him to not leave us, to not die. I left the room when the paramedics got there. I couldn’t face seeing more. I knew it was over, anyway. I retreated to the cat. Hugged him tightly, told him things had just changed hugely but that I’d look after him. Everything did change. Nothing has been the same since that night.

Besides not sleeping because of the worry that something like that would happen again. I suffered from nightmares. Nightmares of exactly what had gone on before. I preferred not to sleep. I’d just watch mindless late night TV instead. I’d quit my job of the time, so it wasn’t like I had anything to get up for.

At some point, my Uncle (a well respected PTSD focused psychologist of all things) suggested to me and my Mum, when we briefly discussed how we were feeling, that we were probably suffering from PTSD. That was it really. It was never discussed further. I don’t blame him. It’s tough to pull out the mental threads of someone close. So I researched it. A lot. I matched mostly everything. Yet, I still felt awkward to ever state it to anyone.

The problem is, it’s just not something that’s discussed openly. It’s tough to talk about for anyone, admittedly. At times, in the past, I’ve found people near desperate to not take in what I’d sometimes like to say. Instead, keen to fob me off and just tell me I should go see a GP or find a counsellor rather than listen. Something that I suspect would never happen if it was just a niggling physical complaint. We might live in an increasingly open and sharing focused society, thanks to the wonders of Facebook and Twitter keeping us informed on every single minor detail in life, but we still don’t like to talk about the big things.

I don’t have as much trouble sleeping now as I did. This past April, I’ve slept very badly, with it having been the anniversary recently. Anxiety dreams have been the main issue, rather than nightmares of what happened. I sleep badly too, when there’s something major bothering me, such as last year when my Mum was ill. But, for the most part, it’s gradually improving. Similarly, I don’t deal with stressful times anywhere near as well as I used to, I’m waiting for the world to come crashing down again, but I’m working on it. I still struggle to ever say I’ve had depressive episodes or suffer from PTSD. There’s always that niggling worry that someone will think I’m being overly dramatic, or that I’m a fraud.

“Nothing’s been the same since New York”, resonates massively with me. I know I’m nothing like the person I was just over 5 years ago. My priorities have changed amongst many other things, much like Tony Stark’s has. And in turn, I notice stuff like the depiction of mental ailments more than I ever did before. While others might feel concern at seeing the weakness of heroes, I’m just pleased to see some humanity to them.

More so than any ‘National Mental Health Awareness Day’ across Facebook where people change their profile picture and pretend to care, it’s things like these depictions in mainstream films that will make people take note. It’s making it normal and OK to struggle to come to terms with things that happen, not something that should be hidden away and not discussed. That can only be a good thing.

Leisure time has been spent with a mixture of Fire Emblem and the Wii U. Fire Emblem is fantastic. Admittedly, I’m not concentrating on the plot as much as I should but I adore the strategic combat and even the grinding. I’ve hit a bit of a wall on Chapter 18 so I’ve spent the evening grinding exp in the hope I can get past it this weekend.

The Wii U has proven itself quite the hit too, mostly through more Super Mario and delving into NintendoLand. Yoshi’s Fruit Cart is the hit here, with a stylus focused mini-game. You have to draw a line across the screen, collecting all the fruit in the right order. The tricky part is that the TV shows the route but not the GamePad. It’s a fun yet simple idea. Lining things up isn’t as easy as you think. Once you do get the hang of the basics, new challenges come along like holes that need avoiding or fruit that rotates around the level. My Mum and I spent a couple of hours competing for the best high score. Definitely my highlight of NintendoLand. In hardier fare, I’ve got a copy of Injustice and Batman: Arkham City on the way for the Wii U so it’ll be interesting to see how the console deals with multi-platform titles.

It’s not the greatest of games but I have to mention Soccer Girl Adventure. It’s a simple auto-runner game for iOS but with a very important anti-discrimination message, thanks to the tale of a girl keen to show boys that she can play football too. Nice to see a game of this ilk, rather than the usual tried and tested formulas.

Movies: I won’t say too much about it as I don’t want to spoil anything but I saw Iron Man 3 this morning and loved it. It wasn’t what I expected and it wasn’t problem-free, but I really enjoyed it. I’ll certainly be seeing it again. I might yet write about one pivotal theme in a separate entry too, albeit with plenty of warnings for those wanting to avoid spoilers!

On a side note, it finally prompted me to pick up Civil War and Iron Man: Extremis. Two graphic novels I’ve been meaning to pick up for ages. I’d love to get more into reading comic books and graphic novels. Unfortunately, time and money always seem to get in the way!

Life: Talking of time, I’m still trying to find the time for two main aims for this year. I really want to learn to code iOS apps. I have very basic coding experience but it fascinates me. Even if I only ever know the basics of iOS coding, it’d be nice to have that feather to add to my cap. The other aim is to finally start work on a book idea I have. I won’t go into the idea further than that just yet, but it’s been rattling around my head for the past 5-6 years. There’s a script idea in there too, but hey, I need to prioritise! If someone could invent a way of not needing to sleep, I’d much appreciate it.

Games: I’m at a bit of a crossover period with my gaming at the moment. I’m all too happy to say that I’m normally a very mainstream gamer. The last month or so, I’ve sunk 40 hours into Gears of War Judgment and loved every second. I’ve just hit the second Prestige in it and I’m keen to get round to finishing off the other achievements. Having said that, I’ve been pretty underwhelmed by other Xbox 360 titles (my ‘main’ system) of late. I’ve played and completed both Tomb Raider and BioShock Infinite. Enjoyed them at the time, had no urge for more or to think them over in any great depth. They just haven’t done it for me in that way. I can confidently say my Top 3 games this year, so far, are: 1) Ni No Kuni (despite its many flaws), 2) Gears of War Judgment and 3) DmC: Devil May Cry.

Anyhow, I’ve gone on a bit of a Nintendo kick now. Always a good direction to take, although I’m considering pursuing some of the JRPGs that Pete Davison has recommended too.

Thanks to the allure of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, I traded in a bunch of stuff towards a Wii U last week. Besides NintendoLand that came with it, I’ve also bought the aforementioned MH3U and New Super Mario Bros Wii U. NintendoLand is a fun distraction. Nothing amazing and not a patch on Wii Sports, but fun. I’ve mostly played multiplayer which has been a good laugh, albeit a little restrictive as I don’t have any Wii Motion Plus Remotes. Mario is great. More of the same really, but as I didn’t play New Super Mario Bros on the Wii, I think I’ve come to it at the right time. The real stand-out feature is being able to play it solely on the Gamepad. As I tend to get plenty of time in the evenings for handheld gaming but not so much 360 or PS3 time, it’s ideal.

The off-TV support for MH3U isn’t quite as well implemented, but that’s ok. It’s something I’d rather absorb myself in on a big TV. Despite playing Tri, I appear to have forgotten everything, so it’s a very absorbing experience. Early days but just what I need at the moment, I think. Similarly, I’ve got Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen to sink my teeth into, although I can’t say anything about it just yet!

Back to Ninty, and Fire Emblem: Awakening arrived today. Again, early days but I have a very strong feeling I’m going to adore it.

Work
Work is going well. Plenty of work to do for 148apps, plus the added flexibility of being able to pursue pretty much anything iOS related that interests me. It’s nice to be so flexible with what I do and when. It’s something I need very much at the moment, while life isn’t as smooth sailing as I would like. Regular work for MyM too, which is nice. Still something exciting about seeing my name in print each month! I haven’t pitched elsewhere in a while which I really need to rectify. I’ve needed stability most of all of late, though, and the 148apps stuff keeps me bobbing along nicely. Anxiety issues suck when you’re self employed and should probably keep pushing. It’s not a fun mix!

Exercise
After a very sluggish Winter, I need to get back into shape. The main issue being how hideously unfit I am. I’ve cancelled my gym membership as it wasn’t fitting into my life well, but I’ve got a rowing machine now plus kettlebells. Combined with regular walks, hopefully I’ll get back to it. I’ve got a few apps to help me do sit-ups and push-ups too. The latter of which being something I really struggle with. Also, I’ll have yet another attempt at jogging soon too. Quite determined to manage that one day, despite the dodgy ankle and lung capacity of a gnat.

Anyhow, guinea pigs. The handy thing with guinea pigs is they’re wonderfully happy creatures and in no way judgemental. Sit and watch them go about their business and they won’t question anything you say to them or get bored. More importantly, you don’t feel like they’re silently questioning your logic. They just accept it and chatter happily to you. So, as a kid, I talked about my problems to them. Not just them. I had wonderfully supportive parents while growing up (I still do, albeit just my Mum now), all too happy to listen, but sometimes it’s nice to have a one sided chat.

It was great and almost certainly helped me open up to people too.

Pan forward many years to when my Dad died. My Mum and I would look in pet shops at guinea pigs. It was fun and oddly calming at a time when we were just finding ways of getting away from the house and the memories. When my birthday came around, the first household birthday without my Dad, my Mum gave me a homemade voucher. A voucher for two guinea pigs. Thanks to an inexplicable shortage of guinea pigs in the area on that day, it took us all day to find two. But we did.

They became Scruffy and Toffee. A small beacon of light during a terrible time. And, again, I found it helpful to just watch them or chat to them to relax. The room they lived in became an escape place of sorts, a haven away from the difficulties of my life. Over these recent years, I’ve only really managed to accrue three true escape places, places where I can be truly myself and feel comfortable.

Then, this weekend, Scruffy turned very ill, very suddenly. And we had to put her to sleep on Saturday. A truly heartbreaking decision to make. Luckily, Toffee, although clearly confused and lost wandering around her home, is still eating and drinking, so I’m hopeful she’ll be ok alone. My escape place is gone, though. I know I’ll always go into their room and know that something, adorable Scruffy, is missing. It already feels like I have enough missing in my life and around the house. More is just horrible.

Elsewhere, and in the same time frame, I’ve lost ready access to another of my escape places, somewhere where I can be truly myself. I’m down to just the one, and it’s a pretty weak solution.

I’m approaching the time of year where I need escape places all the more than usual. It’s all pretty rough, really.

Nothing hugely dramatic happened this year, but sometimes a steady stream of lesser bad things can grind you down much more than one big thing. It reminds you of how vulnerable you really are and, in my case, how your support network has changed.

My Mum was ill throughout the Spring, Over 2 months of illness in all, encompassing a variety of problems, and with only the odd respite. Was it life threatening? No. Did that make me feel any better at the time? No. It was still a hugely difficult time.

You come to realise that when there’s only two of you in the house, if one of you is badly ill, things get a lot more difficult. It reminds you of how much you miss that third person that died younger than he should have and of an illness that was also just described as a virus at the time (there were underlying issues, masked by a virus). So when your Mum is ill with a nasty virus and it coincides with the anniversary of your Father’s death, you get twitchy.

The scariest bit I found was the night time. Given my Dad died in the night, I don’t much like that time of day any more. I don’t feel safe like I once did, no matter how long ago others may start to feel it has been. There were numerous nights where I was woken by the sounds of her being sick (the bathroom is near my bedroom and I’m quite a light sleeper when stressed). She looked like death and I don’t say that lightly. It proved to be particularly scary when she couldn’t even keep down water.

She got better, of course, but it took her a fair while to rebuild her energy levels. In my case, I was mentally drained. No one likes to be reminded in such a harsh way just how vulnerable they feel, something that hit us both hard. I’m immensely grateful for friends like Sinan, Karl and Dan who looked out for me during such tough times.

It knocked my already floundering confidence. That’s without mentioning everything else.

I’d love to list the many things that have gone wrong in the house this year, but I’ve honestly lost track. For a long time, the electrician was round every week as something new kept blowing in the house. While watching the Wimbledon final, for instance, I suddenly noticed a nearby socket was smoking. Rather worryingly, the fuse hadn’t blown and if it hadn’t been for our next door neighbour’s fine efforts, it would have been all the worse.

Leaks and general water/electricity based problems have been quite common this year. It makes you a little paranoid, after a time. The most recent ‘final straw’ was going to bed one night and discovering half my bed was soaking wet because water had been coming in all day. That was nice. It’s patched up for now, but it’s going to involve some expensive scaffolding and a workman of some description that hasn’t yet been arranged. I’ll skip mentioning the list of appliances that have gone wrong, too.

Conversely, work has gone quite brilliantly. I finally achieved a long term ambition by having my work published in a magazine. Regularly, in fact, as I’ve spent much of the year writing for MyM. I also contributed a lot to the London Comic Con show guide which was an awesome achievement. 148apps work is going similarly well which is great to see. Given how extremely close I was to quitting anything like that earlier in the year, I’m glad to see things paying off so well.

So, yeah. Bit of a miserable look back at the year. Shame as I had high hopes for it and excluding an amazing summer of sport to watch, things didn’t quite go according to plan. There are no guarantees in life so I can’t guarantee that 2013 will be instantly better but I’ll certainly try to make it better! Resolution wise, I have the usual clichés to aim for but, ultimately, none are more important than pursuing happiness. Life’s too short to aim for anything less.

3rd: Jurassic Park III, Zodiac – Bit of a varied day of film viewing! Jurassic Park III was due to lack of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It’s ok but very weak compared to the other Jurassic Parks. Zodiac is one of my all time favourites. It’s very dark but tells a fascinating story about the hunt for the Zodiac Killer. I like that its focus is more on the investigation than the killer.

4th: Star Wars – The perfect afternoon film to watch. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan and it is a little dated, but it is great fun.

6th: Hysteria – Ugh, I hated this. It’s a comedy about the history of the vibrator. It’s basically a Carry On film with even fewer laughs and feels distinctly cheap. I went in expecting something more interesting, I guess.

10th: Empire Strikes Back – Well, if you’re going to watch one, you should watch them all! I like Empire Strikes Back. Not as much as Star Wars though. I prefer the humour in the first one.

11th: Dark Shadows – Oh dear, another one I wasn’t keen on. Rough month! There are a couple of laughs but that’s about it. Johnny Depp really doesn’t try here and it shows.

12th: Argo – Hurrah, an amazing film! Argo is probably my favourite film of the year. More on that soon. The script is tight and the last 20 minutes are probably some of the most tense minutes in cinema. At least that I’ve seen! Great film. Ben Affleck and co deserve many awards for it.

13th: The Woman in Black – I saw this at the cinema and was pretty underwhelmed. On DVD though, and after reading the book, I liked this more. The book is much, much better, but Daniel Radcliffe does a fine job here and it’s not bad at all. There are rumours of a sequel, however, and that would be an awful idea.

17th: Rock of Ages – I wasn’t expecting much. I was expecting something akin to Mamma Mia, so silly fun really. I hated Rock of Ages though. Turned it off after about 45mins as life was beginning to feel too short.

20th: Skyfall – A second viewing! I loved this the first time round. Funnily enough, I loved it the second time too. Need I say more?

21st: Return of the Jedi – The weakest of the original trilogy but still quite fun. It’s not great but it survives thanks to the nostalgia and love of the other two. It’s also a damn sight better than the new trilogy.

23rd: Silver Linings Playbook – Bradley Cooper made this a bit of a must see, regardless of quality. It’s a good film though. Jennifer Lawrence is great, as always, and David O Russell knows how to enthral. It’s less of a comedy and much more of a drama, given I hardly laughed, meaning it’s been quite badly mismarketed. For an interesting look at how bipolar disorder affects not just the person with it, but those around them, Silver Linings Playbook does a great job.

24th: Lay the Favourite, In Time – I switched In Time off about halfway through as it was quite dire. Nice idea, really boringly done. Lay the Favourite was a mostly forgettable straight to DVD type film with Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta Jones and him off Dawson’s Creek, Joshua Jackson. It’s ok, but really nothing to seek out.

26th: Inception – I love Inception. Almost certainly one of my favourite films of all time. I need no excuse to see it other than the realisation I’ve got a couple of hours spare and I fancy seeing a great film. I love intelligent films and I love blockbusters, so it’s a great mix.

27th: Gambit – This was pretty dire. Written by the Coen Brothers, you’d expect a certain amount of quality to it. There’s hardly any here, though. It’s a waste of a good cast in Colin Firth and Alan Rickman, and the farce is just a little too overwrought and borderline irritating to be worth a viewing.

28th: Santa Claus The Movie – This was my favourite Christmas film as a child. Given it was only £3 in Lidl, I picked it up. Time and rose tinted memories have been harsh to it. It’s pretty bad. I felt genuinely sad at the realisation it’s pretty bad.

30th: Fantastic Fear of Everything – As a big Simon Pegg fan, I was looking forward to this. It was all too weird and surreal for my liking though and I found myself bored in the end. So erm, yeah.

2nd: Looper – So, Looper was interesting. I was really excited to see it and it didn’t quite live up to expectations. Film of the year? Not even close. An overly simplistic ending and a sense that it wanted to be smarter than it actually was, let it down. Still enjoyed it, though, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as always, was fantastic.

7th: Alvin and The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked – Yes, you read that correctly. I have a soft spot for the Alvin and The Chipmunks movies, more so the first one than the second. This one is quite terrible. The films don’t need much of a story to succeed but this one dispenses with any story and just throws some cheesy musical numbers at you, instead.

9th: Taken 2 – It was my birthday and, well, this was the best film out that day. I loved the first Taken. The sequel isn’t anywhere near as good but it’s enjoyable enough. Trying to add too much of a story is its main problem and, of course, reusing a story that can only really work once. Liam Neeson is suitably badass, though.

10th: American Evil – It hasn’t been a great run for films so far. American Evil is dire, as well as misadvertised. Basically, I watched it due to the presence of Bradley Cooper and having seen all his other films. He’s only actually in it for 10 minutes and I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of his character was anyway, as there was just no need. Following the tales of abuse to Native Americans by the Catholic Church, it also isn’t really a horror film, despite what the name and the DVD’s box suggests. Interesting and important story, told badly.

11th: The Campaign, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Another cinema visit! The Campaign was quite a surprise. I’d taken the week off, it was pouring with rain, the cinema seemed the only option. The Campaign looked quite dire and stupid, but I was desperate. Turns out it was much better than the trailer suggested. Quite a smart satire on the political process in the US too, if you look for it.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Daniel Craig one) was a birthday present. I’ve seen it before but it’s a great film. Always a fan of David Fincher’s work and this one is suitably dark. If it wasn’t for the terrible editing, I’d probably enjoy the book just as much.

12th: 2 Days in New York – A Woody Allen style film starring Chris Rock? Yup. This one’s a surprise delight that I suspect no one has heard of because it’s such an unusual mix. New Yorker, Chris Rock is married to a French woman whose insane family come to visit. It’s a little farcical but it also offers some very sharp dialogue, akin to Woody Allen’s work.

13th: The Sentinel – Luckily, I only paid 99p for it. Expecting a fun action romp with Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland, as they work on opposite sides to determine if there’s someone out to kill the President, this turned out to be pretty dull and forgettable. Switched it off halfway through.

18th: On The Road – I wasn’t initially keen to see this, thanks to the presence of the whiney emo girl from Twilight. Glad I did though as she wasn’t particularly prominent. I’ve not read Kerouac’s novel, but the film has encouraged me to do so. It shows the 1940s in a fascinating light and there are some great performances from the relatively unknown cast. I’m going to delegate further thoughts to Marco Fiori, as he says it so much better in his blog post that partly inspired me to go see it.

19th: Rango – So, Rango was weird. Very weird. Think a kid’s film mixed with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and you’re not far off. Yes, that kind of weird. I’m not sure how much I enjoyed it. I liked the first half but felt my attention to it waning as it went on.

20th: Casino Royale – I’ve written about Casino Royale before, a few blog posts down. Have a read of that. I love it.

23rd: Jurassic Park – Do I need to say any more? We all know Jurassic Park is a classic and I was lucky enough to get it on Blu-ray for my birthday. Brilliant Saturday afternoon film.

25th: Quantum of Solace – In preparation for Skyfall. Quantum of Solace isn’t terrible but it’s nowhere near as good as Casino Royale. Lacking a convincing bad guy and any interesting dialogue, and it’s all a bit lacklustre.

26th: Skyfall (cinema) – Skyfall is the exact opposite of Quantum of Solace. It’s brilliant. One of the most enjoyable films I’ve seen all year. Does everything just right. Stands up to repeated watches too as I saw it a second time a few weeks later.

27th: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Prometheus – The start of an Indiana Jones marathon(ish). I adore Raiders of the Lost Ark. Such a fantastic adventure film and one I have many fond memories of as a child. I remember my parents always used to make me look away at the face melting bit as I was a sensitive kid. It is pretty gruesome, admittedly! Harrison Ford is one of those few stars that I refuse to accept he’s ageing. In my head, he’s always going to be Indy and that age. Also, one of my first childhood crushes!

Prometheus is a flawed film but I do enjoy it. The last third is a bit rubbish and suffers some plotholes and way too much action, but the first two thirds is great. Love slow burning proper sci-fi rather than action films in space and this one very nearly achieves that.

28th: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Lost World – Another Indy film! And sadly the last, for now. It turns out the box for The Last Crusade contained a second copy of the Temple of Doom for some reason, despite having been bought sealed. Bah! The Temple of Doom is nearly as good as the first Indy but not quite. Love Shortround though!

The Lost World was to make up for lack of The Last Crusade. It’s not as good as Jurassic Park but it is rather fun. Fond memories abound too as, when I was a kid, I saw it at the cinema with family friends and it was a great day out. When I was a kid, it was quite unusual for me to go to the cinema very often so it was a distinctive trip.

30th: To Rome With Love (cinema) – I didn’t like this. I saw it as my Mum wanted to see it and she’s a huge Woody Allen fan. This is a weak Woody Allen film. Decent cast, quite poorly done and very shallow. Give it a miss.

4th: The Watch – The Watch isn’t great. It’s a typical mindless comedy with Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn really. It’s fun at the time, utterly forgettable five minutes after you leave. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed though.

11th: The Dark Knight Rises – A second viewing for this film! I wasn’t overly convinced the first time round but I enjoyed it a lot more this time. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t so busy thinking ‘OMG Batman! Hypehypehype!’. I still much prefer The Dark Knight but I did enjoy it. So much in fact that I’m hoping Father Christmas will bring me the blu-ray of it. Note: Joseph Gordon Levitt is still awesome in it. Michael Caine is still the polar opposite.

15th: Puss in Boots, Man On A Ledge – I get the feeling it was a rainy day back on the 15th. Puss in Boots was ok. Not a patch on the other Shrek films but still pleasant enough. Little weird that it starts with Puss basically leaving a one night stand in the middle of the night but er, yeah. Not bad.
Man on a Ledge was similarly not bad. It was nonsense really but fun, action packed nonsense. Still very odd seeing Jamie Bell all grown up and not dancing. Oh and Sam Worthington is an actor of one look, a mildly concerned look.

18th: The Avengers – Oh, look. It’s my film of the year. What more do you need to know? Love, love, love it. Did I mention I loved it?

19th: Seeking A Friend For The End of The World – What a surprising delight this was! I expected a black comedy with elements of silliness. What I got was something akin to Lost in Translation but with the end of the world thrown in. I’ve always felt that Steve Carrell is underrated. This has proven my suspicions that he can be pretty great and also, bizarrely, an appealing male lead. I did end up in floods of tears but it was worth it. Just a lovely, and sad, film. If there’s one film I could recommend from the past few months, this is it.

20th: Ted – Back to silliness! Saw Ted at a preview in August, fancied a laugh again in September. The end is a little lacklustre and laughter free but the first two thirds are very funny. It’s probably the comedy of the summer, although that’s not saying much as it’s been a weak summer/autumn for comedies! But it is good.

25th: Lawless – It was between this or Killing Them Softly. The latter looked pretty depressing and I wasn’t in the mood for depressing. It can wait for the DVD release. Lawless, despite Shia LeBeouf, is quite good. Predictable but quite violent and nasty in places. Also, it’s an interesting true-ish story that made me go home and look up lots about it. I like films that encourage me to find out more!

26th: The Sitter – A very, very short comedy with Jonah Hill playing a terrible babysitter. The kids get embroiled in crime and it’s all quite a hectic night of babysitting. Is it fun? Yeah, but it is even more forgettable than The Watch which is saying something!

When I first saw it, it was December 2006. A new cinema had just opened in Swansea. A big one. It was exciting. Having spent years being lumbered with an Odeon that had lovely staff but was far too tiny and quickly falling behind in terms of modern technology, a big shiny new Vue cinema was big news. It was huge. Perversely, these days I mutter about how we’re stuck with a Vue when what I want now is a Cineworld so I can get a monthly pass, but hey, that sums up life doesn’t it? Always after something better!

Anyway, in 2006 the Vue was exciting. It opened when I wasn’t living in Swansea at the time. I was in Stafford doing a Msc and had only heard about it from my parents who said it was great. Stafford didn’t really have much of a cinema to talk about (or much of anything else really other than nice people and a lot of snow in the winter!) so I was suitably envious.

When I got home from Stafford for the Christmas break, I went out to work part time. I returned to my old job at Carphone Warehouse for a few weeks and earned as much money as I could manage while also suffering the scourge of difficult customers (this was around the same time as a woman literally threw a boxed mobile phone at me before storming out of the shop). I made sure to spend time with my parents though as I’d missed their company.

One evening after work, we all met up to go to the cinema to see the new Bond film: Casino Royale. I’m not sure why I was so excited to see it. I liked a few of the Pierce Brosnan Bond films (especially Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies) and had seen The World is Not Enough at the cinema but I wouldn’t say I was a Bond fan. Maybe it was the hype of a new Bond or the excitement of a new cinema. Who knows?

The cinema seemed huge when I went in the screen. Much bigger than it now seems as I guess I’m used to it. The film started and I was entranced. Properly entranced.

The start was perfect for me. The black and white beginning showing that Bond is a bit of a nasty piece of work this time, followed by that intro? Great stuff. There’s a moment during the intro where Daniel Craig walks up to the camera as a silhouette. The shadow drops and you see him properly in colour for the first time. I was hooked, both in terms of this new awesome Bond and this new attractive Bond that had emerged.

Then there’s the bit with all the free running which seemed like nothing else I’d ever seen before. It was awesome. It continued to be fantastic, too.

The audience were similarly captivated. A screen full of 300 people completely silenced by what was going on. Except for one moment. There’s a moment in the film (which I’ll assume everyone who wanted to see it has seen it) where Bond nearly dies thanks to being poisoned. He tries to defibrillate himself (like you do) but a wire has fallen out and it doesn’t work. Oh no! So Eva Green comes along and does it for him. When he comes back to life, a woman in front of me gasped in utter shock as if she genuinely thought Bond would die. Great moment. The kind of moment that reminds me why I like going to the cinema. When the audience is as caught up in a film as I am.

So, yeah. It was a great film. I keep the memory of seeing the film very close in my heart. While my Dad didn’t die until 2008 and we did loads of other things together after that, there’s something about that special Christmas feeling that stuck with me forever more. It was just a lovely trip out.

There are (still) a fair number of things I can’t do or see without feeling extremely sad or upset to the point that I won’t do them, such as watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Casino Royale is one of the few that offers me more happy memories than sad. Which will explain why I’m watching it for the second time in three days at the moment.