As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I spent a couple of days in hospital being treated for a skin infection. I’m back at home now, and although I have not been doing a great deal of reading, what I have been doing is watching a whole lot of movies. Chariots of Fire. I’m not certain if I had seen this before, but I had a real hankering to watch the Oscar winning movie about two very different British Olympian hopefuls in the 1924 Paris Olympics. This film was sheer perfection, from the casting to the script to the cinematography to the music. I loved every moment of it, from the opening scene with the runners running along the beach to Vangelis’ stirring musical theme to the heart lifting final race. I definitely have visions like Mr Bean at the 2012 London Olympics of running down that beach with the athletes. Go watch this movie. Now. A Walk in the Woods. The second movie I watched was A Walk in the Woods, an adaptation of Bill Bryson’s travelogue about hiking the Appalachian trail, starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. This got pretty mixed reviews in the cinema, so…
Now, pretty much anyone who has an interest in popular culture is aware that the first Star Wars movie since 2005, The Force Awakens, was released on December 18th 2015. Full disclosure: while I consider myself a fan of Star Wars, I have only dabbled in the Extended Universe/Legends supplementary material. Like many, though, I was anxious to see what J.J. Abrams would make of Lucas’ legacy and booked my ticket to a showing on release day. In anticipation of the event, I did a fair amount of preparation. This blog post details my immersion in the world of Star Wars during the month of December. Out of respect for the three of you out there who have not yet seen The Force Awakens, I will place my thoughts on the movie/audiobook itself below the cut. The Rewatch Naturally, the main part of my pre Force Awakens preparation was a rewatch of the Star Wars movies released prior to Episode 7. I chose to do this following machete order. I urge you to check out the full link on why this order works, but in summary, you watch Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and then switch to the…