Sulkyblue's Blog

On the plus side I guessed 18 out of 24 right, and two of the ones I didn't get right went to my preferred choice anyway. On the other hand two of the ones I got wrong were two of the biggest - best film and best actor. Best film I was rather disappointed with that it went to Birdman because I really didn't think it was that outstanding and personally I found it quite frustrating. But I couldn't be happier that I was wrong about the Best Actor and that it went to Eddie Redmayne.

Category	My Pick	What will win	What did win
Best Picture	Whiplash	Boyhood	Wrong on both count, Birdman won. Rather disappointing.
Best Director	Richard Linklater	Alejandro González Iñárritu	Right!
Best Actor	Eddie Redmayne	Michael Keaton	Wrong - but at least my own pick of Eddie Redmayne won won
Best Actress	-	Julianne Moore	Right!
Best Supporting Actor	J.K. Simmons		Right!
Best Supporting Actress	Patricia Arquette		Right!
Best Original Screenplay	The Grand Budapest Hotel		Wrong - Birdman got it
Best Adapted Screenplay	The Imitation Game		Right!
Best Animated Feature Film	Big Hero 6	How to Train Your Dragon 2	Wrong, but my pick of Big Hero 6 got it instead.
Best Foreign Language Film	-	Ida	Right!
Best Documentary	-	Citizenfour	Right!
Short Film (Animated)	-	The Dam Keeper	Wrong, Feast, the only one that I'd actually seen won instead which was admittedly lovely.
Short Film (Live Action)	-	The Phone Call	Right!
Documentary Short	-	Crisis Hotline	Right!
Best Original Score	-	The Grand Budapest Hotel	Right!
best Song	Glory from Selma		Right!
Best Sound Editing	-	American Sniper	Right!
Best Sound Mixing	-	Whiplash	Right!
Best Production Design	The Grand Budapest Hotel		Right!
Best Cinematography	Birdman		Right!
Best Makeup and Hairstyling	Guardians of the Galaxy	Grand Budapest Hotel	Right!
Best Costume Design	-	Grand Budapest Hotel	Right!
Best Film Editing	Whiplash	Boyhood	Wrong, but my pick Whiplash got it instead
Best Visual Effects	Guardians of the Galaxy	Interstellar	Right!

The ceremony I thought was underwhelming. The highlight show available on Sky Living was an awful hack job, cutting out most of the songs and editing down speeches and introductions. And yet it was still 2 hours long and took the time to promote Lady Gaga "later in the show" over and over

The opening musical piece was lovely and fun, but seemed a rather cheap alternative to Neil Patrick Harris's Tony song. JK Simmons got the whole thing off to a great start with a lovely speech (all your parents) but after that I have to confess I fast-forwarded most of the speeches, although thanks to some forewarning I did listen to Graham Moore (Best Adapted Screenplay) - deliver a completely charming and powerful message. Oh and Eddie Redmayne and Julianne Moore were both very lovely. Sky Living edited out most of the songs (seriously?!) but did at least leave in the performance of Glory which was beautifully staged and did justice to an incredible song.

144 films this year, which is a total I'm pretty chuffed with given that I've had to suffer the horror of actually being employed most of the year. The 187 of 2013 was only thanks to a few months of unemployment which is great for the film lists and mental health if not the bank balance.
There were 23 cinema trips, which is about average, I got to do a couple of multi-film days which I absolutely love doing. But I still think modern cinemas can help themselves out. My 'local' cinema (still about 40mins travel) at Westfield is now 12 quid a ticket which is a huge amount of money, then they try to upsell you to VIP seating (when normal seating is plenty comfortable enough), 3D (I didn't see a single 3D film this year!) extra-large screens (actually that is pretty impressive) and the £19.50 'Scene' which comes with an overpriced bar and reclining seats which are not worth the money at all. What do I actually want? A bigger range of films, longer runs and timings that actually match the working day!

Miscellaneous numbers:

• 78% of those films were new to me.


• 100 Lovefilm dvds by post


• Half a dozen or so digital downloads mostly through on demand services like Amazon Instant, google play or Sky. Veronica Mars was the first film that I sought out digitally on release as I couldn't get to the very limited cinema release and the experience wasn't bad at all.


• 9 Oscar Winners and 23 nominees (in either best film, best animation, best foreign film or best documentary), 3 nominees from the 2015 nominations, 9 nominees and 4 winners from last year's awards.


• 23 films that currently appear on the imdb top 250


• 52% of films were rated good (7/10 or better)


• 45% of films were 'mediocre' (5 or 6 out of 10)


• 3% of films were bad (4/10 or lower)


• Average rank - 6.6/10 (up on 6.36 from last year)

Genres and Ages
Looking at the types and ages of stuff I watched this year, I've not done too badly. I watched film from every decade, starting with the 1925 Gold Rush all the way through to The Hobbit released at Christmas. 32 of the films were from this year and 40 from last (as dated by imdb), making a nice round total of 50%. I managed 5 documentaries and 6 non-English language films (and one of those was even a documentary with subtitles!). My genre watching was rather skewed by an ongoing challenge to watch/re-watch all the Disney films, so I had 36 animations, and I also re-watched most of the Marvel films so clocked up 13 superhero/comic book films.

2014 films
Unlike last year when I was so completely blown away by Gravity, this year doesn't feel as outstanding. There are a few films that I think do really good jobs with what they aim to do, and it's easy to dismiss something that's 'just' a really good thriller, or a really entertaining action film, but given how many fail in that regard that achievement shouldn't be overlooked.

I coincidentally saw two excellent thrillers on the same day - Gone Girl and Before I Go To Sleep which had fascinating performances, particularly from Rosamund Pike and Colin Firth both playing against type.
Guardians of the Galaxy was the first of the new wave of Marvel films that I wasn't initially excited by, until I saw the trailer and realised that rather than trying to rationalise the set-up (armoured racoons? Talking trees?) the film was just going to throw itself headlong into the insanity. It was the most fun I had at the cinema in a long time whole year. The second most fun I had was How to Train Your Dragon 2 which is just plain charming and hilarious from start to finish. X-Men: Days of Future Past was also a great cinema watch with a good blend of character, sci-fi, action and humour. The Veronica Mars film was absolutely everything any fan of the TV series could possibly want.

There are a few films this year that I feel stand out as 'transcending' into something more. Calvary and Grand Budapest Hotel both blended comedy and drama, completely and really startled me with the unexpected directions they went in. The Imitation Game was a completely engrossing character study and period piece with Benedict Cumberbatch once again excelling.

In the 'disappointment' category we've got things like Muppets Most Wanted (completely lacking any of the charm and nostalgia of the previous film), Hobbit 3 (one long endless fight because there wasn't enough plot for 3 films), Captain America 2 (SO boring) or Godzilla (Gareth Edwards did Monsters, then went to Hollywood and forgot everything he knew). I know there'll be plenty of people who have Interstellar in their top picks for the year, but I thought the plot was idiotic and a huge miss-step from Nolan.

Calvary - 9/10 Guardians of the Galaxy - 9/10 How to Train Your Dragon 2 - 9/10 August: Osage County - 8/10 Before I Go to Sleep - 8/10 Gone Girl - 8/10 Marvellous - 8/10 Pride - 8/10 The Grand Budapest Hotel - 8/10 The Imitation Game - 8/10Veronica Mars - 8/10 X-Men: Days of Future Past - 8/10

Belle - 7/10 Boyhood - 7/10 Lucy - 7/10 Paddington - 7/10 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 - 7/10 The Lego Movie - 7/10 Interstellar - 6/10 Kaze tachinu (The Wind Rises) - 6/10 Muppets Most Wanted - 6/10Robocop - 6/10 The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 6/10

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - 6/10 The Monuments Men - 6/10 What We Did on Our Holiday - 6/10 Captain America: The Winter Solider - 5/10 Cuban Fury - 5/10 Godzilla - 5/10 Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - 5/10 Lilting - 5/10 Noah - 5/10

Looking back at 2013
I caught up on a few more of the big awards titles in the early months of the year and nothing changed my mind that Gravity was the best film of the year. Personally I found 12 Years a Slave to be a better (and more important) story than it was a film and The Wolf of Wall Street had a great performance from Leonardo DiCaprio but the film as a whole was spoiled by some very poor choices in direction and editing. Her was a great science fiction film at the opposite end of the scale to Gravity, and far better than the more critically acclaimed Under the Skin which was just excruciatingly dull. The Selfish Giant was a remarkable British film mostly overlooked by award voters (although I could have used subtitles). The Broken Circle Breakdown was a far far better choice for the Foreign Language Oscar than the cataclysmically awful La Grande Bellezz (The Great Beauty) which I switched off after 20 minutes.

Older Films
Exactly 50% of my was films from before 2013, so I'll just quickly pull out a few of the films that I missed the first time round but would heartily recommend to anyone else.
I'm guessing that not many people would get the answer to "What was Jennifer Lawrence's first Oscar nomination for?", and while I did know the answer ('cos I'm geeky like that) I've only just got round to watching the 2010 Winter's Bone because it sounded a bit boring. It really, really wasn't and she really, really deserved that nomination. Side by Side was a fascinating documentary that anyone with a passion for films and film making should check out. I also re-watched a couple of Oscar winners that I hadn't rewatched in years and found levels in Forrest Gump and Shakespeare in Love that I'd been completely unaware of when watching it in the cinema as a teenager.

I'll do a post later in the year on the Disney films, but from this year's batch, there are a few that belong in this section too. Cinderella, Sword in the Stone, The Lion King, Aladdin, Tarzan, Lilo and Stitch, Tangled and the 2011 Winnie the Pooh were all rated 8 or 9 out of 10 and each manages to bring something new and entertaining to animation, whether they were from 1950 or 2011. On the other hand there are a few turkeys spread equally along the timeline. I found Snow White unbearably saccharine, Fantasia 2000 adding nothing to the original except cheesy presenters and the less said about the car crash of Pocohontas the better.

A less successful re-watch was Silence of The Lambs is now horribly dated and excrutiatingly over-egged. Other poor showings came from Cloud Atlas was so awful I gave up after half an hour or so, I hated the book too, but at least I finished that! Frances Ha was basically the TV series Girls in black and white and with even more annoying characters, I don't know why I inflicted it on myself. Double Indemnity never seemed to settle on the characters and I actually fell asleep towards the end.

There were a few "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed"s here too. The World's End was a disappointing end to Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's series and just wasn't funny enough. I also failed to get the humour in Blazing Saddles and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 fell a long way short of the first film. Ender's Game was a waste of a great story, some great effects and a brilliant performance from Asa Butterfield as the title character, Harrison Ford should be ashamed of himself for the phoned in performance that killed this film stone dead.

Full list of non-2014 films

Winnie the Pooh (2011) - 9/10 How to Train Your Dragon - 9/10 Winter's Bone - 9/10 Lilo and Stitch - 9/10 The Lion King - 9/10 12 Years a Slave - 8/10 Frozen - 8/10 Her - 8/10 One Chance - 8/10 The Broken Circle Breakdown - 8/10 The Croods - 8/10 The Selfish Giant - 8/10 The Way Way Back - 8/10 What Maisie Knew - 8/10 Side by Side - 8/10 Struck by Lightning - 8/10 Tangled - 8/10 Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - 8/10 X-Men 2 - 8/10 Tarzan - 8/10 Forrest Gump - 8/10 Aladdin - 8/10 The Sword in the Stone - 8/10 Cinderella - 8/10 20 Feet from Stardom - 7/10 Blackfish - 7/10 Captain Phillips - 7/10 Cutie and the Boxer - 7/10 Dallas Buyers Club - 7/10 Hawking - 7/10 Inside Llewyn Davis - 7/10 Lovelace - 7/10 The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - 7/10 The Railway Man - 7/10 The Wolf of Wall Street - 7/10 Trance - 7/10 Jagten (The Hunt) - 7/10 Kapringen (A Hijacking) - 7/10

The Amazing Spider-Man - 7/10 The Iceman - 7/10 X-Men: The Last Stand - 7/10 Ray - 7/10 Gladiator - 7/10 X-Men - 7/10 Shakespeare in Love - 7/10 Hercules - 7/10 Leon - 7/10 Die Hard - 7/10 The Colour Purple - 7/10 The AristoCats - 7/10 Doctor Zhivago - 7/10 101 Dalmations - 7/10 A Star is Born (1954) - 7/10 Peter Pan - 7/10 Arsenic and Old Lace - 7/10 Dumbo - 7/10 Fantasia (1940) - 7/10 American Hustle - 6/10 Elysium - 6/10 L'image manquante (The Missing Picture) - 6/10 Monsters University - 6/10 Prisoners - 6/10 R.I.P.D - 6/10 The Butler - 6/10 The Double - 6/10 The Host - 6/10 The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones - 6/10 The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - 6/10 Thor: The Dark World - 6/10 Hitchcock - 6/10 Promised Land - 6/10 10 Years - 6/10 X-Men: First Class - 6/10 X-Men Origins: Wolverine - 6/10 The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants - 6/10

Hellboy - 6/10 Brother Bear - 6/10 The Emperor's New Groove - 6/10 The Hunchback of Notre Dame - 6/10 Before Sunrise - 6/10 Beaches - 6/10 Broadcast News - 6/10 Blow Out - 6/10 The Fox and the Hound - 6/10 The Rescuers - 6/10 For a Fistful of Dollars - 6/10 Lady and the Tramp - 6/10 Bambi - 6/10 Pinocchio - 6/10 Modern Times - 6/10 Wings - 6/10 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 - 5/10 Ender's Game - 5/10 Nebraska - 5/10 The Wolverine - 5/10 The World's End - 5/10 Under the Skin - 5/10 Pocahontas - 5/10 The Silence of the Lambs - 5/10 The Rescuers Down Under - 5/10 Oliver and Company - 5/10 The Black Cauldron - 5/10 Firefox - 5/10 Blazing Saddles - 5/10 A Hard Day's Night - 5/10 Double Indemnity - 5/10 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - 5/10 Gold Rush - 5/10 Cloud Atlas - 4/10 Frances Ha - 4/10 Fantasia 2000 - 4/10 La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty) - 2/10

This article originally posted on my website. All films are reviewed there and summaries of previous years are available.

August, a month I largely remember as being depressingly grey and miserable. I once again find myself between jobs (or 'practising for retirement' as someone described it. My contract came to an end at Espresso Education after almost a year, which given I was only supposed to be there 2 months, isn't bad going! So I'm having a bit of a break and then back to job hunting.

Most of the month was focussed on that, so I haven't really been up to that much. I did make it to Cambridge for a couple of visits, and got a trip to London Zoo to visit the baby tigers in at the end of the month (I'm still sorting photos, so watch this space), but that was about it.



Baking
One of the things I miss most about work (other than the lovely colleagues and the pay cheque of course) is the willing guinea pigs for my baking. Without an office full of hungry mouths to feed, I'm forced to consume more calories than I should and force feed my housemates until they think I'm trying to kill them with cholesterol.

My going away gift to the office was a lemon curd swiss roll (loosely based on this GBBO recipe, but with extra lemon zest in the sponge and a buttercream to bulk out the filling) and a chocolate orange loaf (this recipe - I didn't need the orange juice as the mix was already runny enough, so I added some orange essence and it gave a really nice, strong orange flavour, I left off the icing). We've had a big crop of apples from the garden so I made an apple, sultana and ginger pie (I pre-cooked the apple, blind baked the pastry and put a layer of sultanas to absorb the moisture and actually managed a non-soggy bottom!) and an apple, ginger and syrup upside down cake which was almost more of a pudding due to sogginess, but was spectacularly tasty. I also made my first banoffee pie which was more 'asembling' than baking and was pretty catastrophic, in a very very good way!



Reading
Not a great month for reading, I was down 147 pages on my target of 40 pages per day, but I'm still up on my target for the year, so no harm done. Now that I'm not working, I'm getting a bit more into a pattern of going out for a coffee and reading, which is helping me hit and exceed my daily targets a bit more.

I finished off Hugh Howey's Wool trilogy with Shift and Dust. I felt the middle book suffered a bit being built of multiple threads of flashbacks which left me a bit bored because I knew where they would all end up. The final book though picked things back up and barrelled along. Overall I think the trilogy didn't quite live up to the polish and readability of the first book, but I'll certainly look out for this author in the future. I also read The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes which was a really fun idea poorly delivered due to amateur mistakes by the author such as overloading introductions and very poor editing.

I will say that all those books I felt actually suffered from being read on ebook. I really missed the easy ability to flick back and forth and double check things, particularly in the Wool series where each chapter is set in a different place and time and not being able to jump back and double check the time differences was very frustrating. Mind you, I'm staring at a two foot high pile of books that I have no space for on my shelves, so having spent the last 6 months reading mostly ebooks has at least meant the pile hasn't been added to!

I briefly tried reading History of Histories by John Burrow, but after two chapters I was bored to tears. It's a lot drier and more academic than I really wanted to read and also I felt spent more time talking about the actual history than how the historian was reporting it. Also I was extremely frustrated that the author didn't question whether someone writing about a war that was still ongoing was in fact a journalist rather than an historian.


Films
Two cinema trips this month and they could not have been more different films! Guardians of the Galaxy was a pure joy of a film to watch, completely hilarious and just really good fun from start to finish. The soundtrack album (Awesome Mix 1) is enough to make me smile. Lilting meanwhile was a small indie film that did have moments of humour, but was mostly about grief and heartache. It was pretty well done, but one of the central elements about translation became extremely tiresome after a while. I saw it at the new Curzon in Victoria though and it is a truly wonderful cinema to see even a mediocre film in.

I'm somewhat disappointed that Lovefilm's dvd delivery service is deteriorating now that it's been integrated to Amazon. I'm finding the site harder to use, delivery times slower and more things not available. Guess I'm just old fashioned wanting things by post. Still, I managed to tick off four more Disney films. I coincidentally watched Aladdin just a couple of days before the heart-breaking news about Robin Williams and I'm glad I did, because I wouldn't have been able to fully appreciate the lightness and brightness of the film afterwards. The Lion King is another film of that period that's holding up stunning well and is still a vibrant and original work. Surprisingly the same can be said of Cinderella which I really enjoyed, particularly appreciating the spunky heroine. Pinocchio sadly broke the trend and although I liked the warmth of the opening scenes I thought the story was just too unfocussed.

Other films were:

• The Double - an ok film, but so deeply unsettling in tone that I came very close to switching it off.


• Captain America: Winter Soldier - boring. Just alternating fighting and exposition. Mind you I was completely spoiled on the plot.


• Calvary - Not exactly an easy or cheerful film to watch, but extremely good.


• Winters Bone - I was surprised at how easy and engaging I found this film, I was expecting something a lot more pretentious, but Jennifer Lawrence completely drew me in.


• Struck by Lightning - a good high school movie, capturing an interesting tone. But ultimately a quite depressing story.

Television
I went through the Emmy nominees just before the awards explaining who should and shouldn't have been nominated, who should and would win. My predictions were pretty far off, but then so were most people's it would seem. Maybe the critics have moved on from Breaking Bad, but clearly the voters haven't. I was very happy to see Julianna Margulies win and all the awards for Sherlock, but most of the other awards left me a bit uninspired. The ceremony itself (or the edited down version that Sky Living showed) was fine, the opening monologue made me laugh, and at least these actors can read an auto-cue which is more than the people at the BAFTAs ever manage.

• The Honourable Woman - fantastic performance from Maggie Gyllenhaal, and fascinating stories and characters, but the plot got away from me and there were a few clumsy moments.


• Fargo: Season 1 - on my first pass of the pilot I wasn't inspired, but I watched it a second time so I could write a review and I actually got hooked and compulsively watched the series through in a couple of days. Amazing performances, quirky tone and a twisty story drew me in and kept me gripped.


• True Detective: Pilot review - A second viewing of this pilot however only reinforced my lack of interest. A nice idea and a leading pair made in heaven, but the tone and direction left me bored and un-engaged.


• The Following: Season 2 - stupid entertainment, nothing more or less.


• Almost Human: Season 1 - a brilliant buddy cop series with a pretty good sci-fi skin on it. Sad that it didn't get more viewers.

I've also been trying to polish off some pilots in advance of my end of year round-ups (hopefully coming this week). So I plodded through various teen offerings: Reign (going to endlessly trip over historical problems, and too uneven in tone), The 100 (potentially interesting story and characters) and Star-Crossed (25 year olds pretending to be teenagers and bodging together old ideas in a not very interesting way).

I'm not great at posting regularly to my blog, and then when I look back at the big gaps I rather regret it. So I'm gonna go back to doing monthly catch-ups, if for no one's amusement but my own!

My brother took me to see Matilda last week as a belated birthday present and it was utterly utterly lovely. A beautiful story (which I was actually quite happy I didn't know going in), wonderful acting from young and old alike, fun music and stunning set design. My only complaints would be I occasionally couldn't make out the lyrics and it did get a little screechy a times, but the children in the audience loved those bits. I always say I should go to the theatre more and then completely fail to do so, although the price is rather terrifying!



I've been back and forth to Cambridge a few times to visit the Whitfield clan who get more wonderful every time I see them (well the twins do, their parents are a consistent level of wonderful with an increasing veneer of exhaustion). We've had a few adventures to a nearby zoo, the rather lovely Orchard Tea Gardens and have thus far avoided a trip to the hospital! I also went to The Wetlands Centre.

Baking
I've been asked to help out at a wedding in a couple of months, so I've been practising macarons, much to the delight of friends and colleagues who seem to have no problem being experimented upon. I'm still uncertain about attempting to do at least 200, but I think with some ebaying for equipment and something of a production line it should be doable, particularly if I try to restrain myself with flavours. I also tried my hand at decorating for my brother's birthday cake, it meant a lot of food colouring, but I think the minion came out ok.


Couple of other recent new recipes:
A very tasty fruitcake and an interesting idea for a crumbled marzipan topping, but it didn't stick very well so was a bit messy to eat.
A spectacularly simple ginger traybake, not the most gingery of cakes, but the treacle adds and interesting flavour and I liked the candied ginger on the top.
This apricot couronne is still my go to for any sweet bread, either in a crown, as a long plait or sliced into individual rolls, I've done it with apples and cinnamon and recently with orange zest and chocolate chips.
Chcolate, hazelnut and raspberry torte. SO good, so pretty and gluten free!
This apple and cinnamon pull-apart bread was fantastic, this pesto bread was ok but not spectacular.

Films
I'm up to 56 films already this year so I won't mention them all, just some of the new releases in the cinema and some of the older ones that I'd recommend. The rest are all on my website.

I had a day of cinema last Monday and went to see Godzilla (a very poor story, script and casting in the main roles that left me bored and unengaged), X-Men: Days of Future Past (excellent cast, sparky script, solid story and entertaining action, thank heavens Bryan Singer is back!) and Kaze Tachinu/The Wind Rises (beautiful story, gorgeous animation, interesting look at engineering, tiresome love story, but too long). Other recent cinema trips covered The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (an entertaining mess), Muppets Most Wanted (very disappointing, completely lacking the soul of the most recent Muppets) and The Lego Movie (bonkersly entertaining if you let yourself just go with it). Also I didn't manage to catch one of the limited showings of Veronica Mars but I did rent it and absolutely adored it.

I had a bit of an X-Men blitz, partly in preparation for seeing the new film, but I actually only saw half of them before the new one. It did remind me of how good X-Men 1 and 2 are, how less good Last Stand and Origins: Wolverine were and how frustrating the poor supporting cast on First Class was compared to Fassbender and McAvoy (and indeed the original series). I'm also having a bit of a Disney year, re-watching many of the classics. Thus far I've love The AristoCats, been ambivalent about Bambi and very disappointed by Fantasia 2000.

Other films of note, I really enjoyed The Broken Circle Breakdown, The Croods, The Selfish Giant, August; Osage County and The Way Way Back. On the flip side La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) was pretensious gibberish and I don't care what the critics say.

Reading
After reading a truly pathetic 10 books last year, I decided to commit to another reading challenge, targeting 50 pages per day. Unfortunately, April was a terrible month and pretty much blew that goal out the window, so I reduced it to 40 pages per day at which point, following a 'good' month in May, I'm back on track. May was helped out by the 1100 page, immensely readable Blackout and All Clear two volume epic by Connie Willis, unfortunately though despite how easy and entertaining it was to read I still found it hugely disappointing and extremely frustrating. There's a longer review at my website, but basically it was far far too long and relied upon stupid characters and cheap tricks to keep the pages turning.

Other recent reads include Redshirts by John Scalzi and Nine Goblins by T. Kingfisher, both very clever, elegant and entertaining. I also greatly enjoyed Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and David Attenborough's utterly charming autobiography Life on Air, he'd definitely be at my dream dinner party!
Other disappointments include Cory Doctorow's Pirate Cinema (a one sided political rant undermined by the absence of an opposing argument), Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson (inferior in every way to Ready Player One) and Hawkeye by Matt Fraction, great characters and story, but reminded me of exactly why I don't read more graphic novels. Oh, and Seventeen Equations that Changed the World by Ian Stewart should be avoided unless you have a maths degree or deep seated insomnia.

Television
I continue to try and post twice a week at Narrative Devices, although it often ends up being slightly less, but I did recently pass the 500 posts mark. I selflessly watched through all the pilots and read all the press releases as the US channels announced their schedules for next year, very little got me excited to be honest, Ascension on Syfy has got actual spaceships, Gotham on Fox has got great material to work with, The Leftovers on HBO looks impressive but depressing, The Strain on FX is by Guillermo del Torro which is enough for me, iZombie on The CW could be fun, Madam Secretary on CBS could be a heavenly blend of The Good Wife and The West Wing and How to Get Away with Murder on ABC may be Shonda Rhimes addictiveness.

A few other reviews:
The Blacklist: Season 1 – James Spader is absolutely fantastic, everything else is a bit meh.
The Smoke Season 1 – doesn't know whether it's gritty firefighting or love triangle soap opera. Either would be fine, both is a mess.
The Muskateers: Season 1 – very uncertain tone, felt like a 6pm on a Saturday show awkwardly transplanted to 9pm on a Sunday
The Walking Dead: Season 4 – not the strongest season, some less than outstanding characters/storylines but also some phenomenal moments. Still one of the best shows on television.

Other things I'm watching and enjoying at the moment – Almost Human, Happy Valley, The Good Wife (omg SO good!), SHIELD (greatly improved, I'm still a few behind) and Mr Sloane.

Gaming
I lost a month to compulsively playing Lego Marvel Superheroes until I'd got absolutely all the achievements (the first game I've done that for!) and was thoroughly entertained the whole time. I was trudging through Thief on the Xbox 360 until I finally decided I just wasn't enjoying it. I was playing a non-murderous non-detected method and was finding it epically slow and frustrating. I seemed to spend far more time sneaking back and forth the same alleyways between missions then actually doing any thieving. Also I was endlessly irritated by his haphazard ability to jump 20 foot gaps and then be flummoxed by knee high crates. I may start a new game with a more bloodthirsty approach, but for now I've given up. I switched briefly to Formula 1 2010 because I picked it up for a quid pre-owned but gave up quickly when it gave me no tutorial and then just told me off for driving into people.

I've just started Batman Arkham Origins, which thus far is entertaining, but I've only been playing for an hour. I'm also hopelessly addicted to Hay Day and Jelly Splash on my phone, but I have at least given up Candy Crush on level 350odd.

Every year I make an attempt to both watch and predict the Oscars. Last year I'm rather smug about the fact that I predicted 20 out of 24 winners. This year I'm not quite so confident and despite my best efforts there are a fair number of the films that I haven't seen, (the numbers in brackets for each category are the number I've seen).

Best Picture

• American Hustle – I was not blown away by this. I thought the story was clumsy and the tone all over the place. The acting was solid, but more about the hair than anything else.


• Captain Phillips – this is the film I'm most frustrated about not seeing.


• Dallas Buyers Club – amazing performances and a fascinating story, but mediocre writing actually left me rather bored at times.


• Gravity – a phenomenal film. It's the only film I've ever rated at 10/10 because I couldn't find a fault with it. That said I can see that while the technical ambition and achievement is astonishing, the story itself is not as challenging.


• Her – I haven't made it to see this yet, but based on comments from a trusted source it's an interesting idea somewhat pushed beyond its limits


• Nebraska – I think this film went out of cinemas before the nominations came out and in isolation there wasn't anything about it that made me want to cough up the cash to go see it.


• Philomena – a beautiful film, very well told. It balances the humour and drama of the events far better than American Hustle, I laughed out loud and had a bit of a sniffle.


• 12 Years a Slave – I'm going out on a limb here, but I felt this film was over-rated. It's an incredible story, but I don't think the film did enough with the raw material to make the film itself outstanding. The performances were incredible, but I thought the writing was episodic, many of the characters were simplistic caricatures, the direction aimed for discomfort rather than engagement and I found the whole thing too long and somewhat boring.


• The Wolf of Wall Street – It may be petty to be put off a film based on its runtime, but I just couldn't quite bring myself to commit so much time to a film that I didn't really want to see.

What I'd like to win – Gravity. This is a film that knew exactly what it wanted to be and delivered exactly that. It's a disaster movie, one woman against all odds. Yes, it is a bit silly at times, the Clooney character is a bit on the nose, but those are all part of the genre.
What will win – 12 Years a Slave. Personally I thought the film had problems, but I seem to be in a minority there. Even the people that acknowledge the flaws still say it's an important film, but I would say it's an important story and a good, but not outstanding film.


Best Actor in a Leading Role

• Christian Bale (American Hustle) – He was fine, but I don't think you should win an Oscar for putting on weight and a terrible haircut.


• Bruce Dern (Nebraska) – Didn't see, sure he was great.


• Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street) – I didn't see it, but from the trailers, past performances and what I've heard he did a good job playing a scumbag and giving him depth and interest without necessarily making him sympathetic.


• Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) – the plodding direction of the film gave Ejiofor plenty of screen and time to act in and he never disappointed. Easily the best thing in the film.


• Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club) – A wonderful performance, he's been on stunning form recently and is finally getting the praise he deserves.

Who I would like to win – Chiwetel Ejiofor. A great performance and seemingly a thoroughly nice chap.
Who will win – Matthew McConaughey, and they may not be wrong about that choice.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

• Amy Adams (American Hustle) – Good performance, nothing outstanding beyond the incredible amount of cleavage her costumes revealed


• Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) – I didn't much like the film and the character herself is horrible, but Blanchett's performance was impressive.


• Sandra Bullock (Gravity) – on the surface this seems a quite simple performance, playing to Sandra Bullock's strengths of likeability, dry humour and emotions bubbling just below the surface. But once you factor in that the majority of the film she carries by herself and the incredible physicality of the role and I think this was a phenomenal achievement.


• Judi Dench (Philomena) – always reliable and she absolutely breaks your heart here. Personally I could've done without the accent, but she's so funny, so sweet and so strong that I'll forgive it.


• Meryl Streep (August: Osage County) – In many ways a role and performance much like Blanchett's, horrible but impressive. The theatricality of the film made this a more flamboyant performance though which is slightly less appealing somehow.

Who I would like to win – Sandra Bullock, it feels like her achievement is greater. Her performance came while surrounded by technology and restrictions and literally and figuratively in a vacuum. The others all felt like they were ‘just' wonderfully good actresses.
Who will win – Cate Blanchett, this one seems to have been a lock for a long time.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

• Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) – Didn't see the film, but he was amazing in the trailer and has been receiving praise left right and centre for holding his own against Tom Hanks


• Bradley Cooper (American Hustle) – solid performance, nothing special


• Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) – I was frustrated by his character which I felt was caricatured, over the top and simplistic. It was however a good performance


• Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street) – no idea. Is this nomination more about the fact that people think he's purely a comedy actor and are surprised when he does drama. Mind you that should have got out of their system with his nomination for Moneyball


• Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) – while McConaughey is the powerhouse of the film, Leto is the heart. He brings both the humour and the heartbreak to the film and is just wonderful.

Who I would like to win and who will win – Jared Leto. This doesn't feel like a particularly strong line-up to me, the only two of note being Leto and Abdi, part of me would like Abdi to win because of the narrative of it, but without seeing his performance I suspect Leto's is the stronger.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

• Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) – she's great. I thought at first she was going to have the easy role in the film, the only likeable person there, but actually thanks to her rather weak will she's not particularly likeable either. But she was considerably more sympathetic than anyone else, and that's entirely down to Hawkins


• Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle) – the best thing about the film imho. She delivered the tone I wanted more than anything else, funny on the outside, dramatic on the inside.


• Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave) – hell of a start to a career. Phenomenal


• Julia Roberts (August: Osage County) – She and Streep form a fascinating and powerful duo on the screen, playing up the similarities and the conflict that brings in a family. A great performance.


• June Squibb (Nebraska) – no idea I'm afraid.

Who I'd like to win – Lupita Nyong'o, like Barkad Abdi she has a great story and she's more than deserving.
Who will win – I think it will likely go to Jennifer Lawrence, she's pretty popular at the moment and I think it's likely one of the few awards American Hustle will get.

Best Animated Feature

• The Croods – I wasn't bothered about this film at all and only rented it because of its appearance here, but I was really charmed by it. A quirky mix of modern and caveman, plenty of laughs, colourful design and some nice messages.


• Despicable Me 2 – The funniest film I've seen in ages, even the mere sight of a minion can leave me laughing out loud. The supporting story isn't anything special, but the little yellow guys are the stars of the year.


• Ernest & Celestine – haven't seen it


• Frozen – Disney at its finest. Everything about it is beautiful, the story and characters are fresh and empowering, the humour is lovely, and the graphic design breath-taking. I saw it with a cinema full of kids and their parents and I'd be hard pushed to guess who loved it more.


• The Wind Rises– haven't seen it

What I'd like to win and what will win – although I adore the minions, the rest of the film around them was just good, while Frozen was absolutely outstanding so gets my vote, and I suspect the vote of the academy.

Best Cinematography

• The Grandmaster, Gravity, Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, Prisoners

Gravity is the only one of these films that I've seen and from what I've seen of the trailers for the others, I don't think they are really in the same league.

Best Costume Design

• American Hustle, The Grandmaster, The Great Gatsby, The Invisible Woman, 12 Years a Slave

Gatsby? Don't really know. None of these really seem that outstanding to be honest.

Best Directing

• American Hustle (David O. Russell), Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón), Nebraska (Alexander Payne), 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen), The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

What I think should win and who will win – I think Cuaron's achievement on Gravity was astonishing. As I said for Sandra Bullock about acting, he not only did all the usual exemplary directing things, but he did it while surrounded by technology and indeed taking direction and special effects to an entirely new level. Personally I felt that McQueen's direction was nothing particularly special, but even if I'm completely wrong, I think the Academy will still recognise Cuaron's achievement.

Best Documentary Feature

• The Act of Killing, Cutie and the Boxer, Dirty Wars, The Square, 20 Feet from Stardom

Of all these Cutie and the Boxer was the only one I managed to catch in time, it was a fascinating and very carefully created documentary, but it didn't scream Oscar winner at me. However given the subject matter and innovation I think The Act of Killing will win this one.

Best Documentary Short

• CaveDigger, Facing Fear, Karama Has No Walls, The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life, Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall

I couldn't find any of these online, and am guessing The Lady in Number 6 just based on a bit of reading.

Best Film Editing

• American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, 12 Years a Slave

If American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave or Dallas Buyers Club get an award for editing I'm going to cry, each of them was too long and too chuggy, utterly failing to keep me engrossed in the film. That certainly was not the case for the lean 90 minutes of Gravity, and I can't imagine the same is true for Captain Phillips so I don't mind either of these winning. On a coin flip I'll put Captain Phillips.

Best Foreign Language Film

• The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium) – A lovely and heart-breaking film. Relatively accessible thanks to the heavy use of English language music and pretty universal themes.


• The Great Beauty (Italy) – I lasted less than half an hour before giving up in horror. It's the kind of film that certain people rave about and I just don't get, all shouting and loudness with no discernable plot.


• The Hunt (Denmark) – powerful and depressing to watch, but I found it was slightly undermined by relying too heavily on clumsy misunderstandings, although it just may be naïve of me to believe that people wouldn't be that quick to turn on their friends. Mads Mikkelson's performance is stunning.


• The Missing Picture (Cambodia) – I haven't seen


• Omar (Palestine) – I haven't seen

What I would like to win – based on just 3 out of 5, I think The Broken Circle Breakdown is the stand out.
What I think will win – I think The Hunt may have the edge due to it being heavier subject matter and Mads Mikkelson being a familiar face.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

• Dallas Buyers Club, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, The Lone Ranger

It's weird that American Hustle isn't on this list given that frankly it's a film entirely about hair. It's also depressing that Lone Ranger and Bad Grandpa get to describe themselves as "Oscar nominated". Surely it's got to go to Dallas Buyers Club?

Best Original Score

• The Book Thief (John Williams), Gravity (Steven Price), Her (William Butler, Owen Pallett), Philomena (Alexandre Desplat), Saving Mr. Banks (Thomas Newman)

At 89 John Williams' collects his 49th nomination and despite having no idea what the music was like for The Book Thief, I'd rather like him to win just because he's a legend. I have to say none of the films I saw had particularly standout scores, but then that's part of the point I guess. Saving Mr. Banks made good use of the themes from Mary Poppins, but that seems like cheating. I'll guess the winner will be Gravity.

Best Original Song

• Happy (Despicable Me 2) – a nice enough pop/easy listening tune, I have to admit I didn't even realise it was original. Nothing special.


• Let It Go (Frozen) – I loved this song when I heard it and have had it repeatedly come back into my head ever since. It's powerful and a perfect moment for the film.


• The Moon Song (Her) – all plinky plunky and whispery. Somewhat insufferable.


• Ordinary Love (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom) – A U2 song. Nothing more or less.

Let it Go should and will win. I hope. Please not U2.

Best Production Design

• American Hustle, Gravity, The Great Gatsby, Her, 12 Years a Slave

My logic with production design is always that creating something new is harder than re-creating a current or period setting, so by that logic American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave and Gravity are all benched. Although Great Gatsby is a period piece it's taking that to a new level, “luhrmannising" everything for 3D, HD and bling, so I think I'll opt for Gatsby (although Her also looked fantastic from the trailer).

Best Animated Short Film

• Feral, Get a Horse!, Mr. Hublot, Possessions, Room on the Broom

I was really pleased to see Room on the Broom on the list, I thought it was utterly charming. The only other one that I've seen is Get a Horse which was on the front of Frozen, I must confess to be being initially dismissive because of the old style of animation, but it was cleverly integrated to 3d in the end. So I'd like to see Room on the Broom win, but I think that Get a Horse will.

Best Live Action Short Film

• Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn't Me), Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just Before Losing Everything) , Helium, Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?), The Voorman Problem

No idea, Helium seems the popular choice though

Best Sound Editing

• All Is Lost, Captain Phillips, Gravity, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Lone Survivor

Gravity. The Hobbit didn't seem anything special, and I haven't seen the others, but Gravity's sound was phenomenal from the opening moments where the distant voices appear.

Best Sound Mixing

• Captain Phillips, Gravity, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Inside Llewyn, Lone Survivor

I neither know nor particularly care what the difference is between sound editing and mixing, so I think this will also go to Gravity.

Best Visual Effects

• Gravity, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Iron Man 3, The Lone Ranger, Star Trek Into Darkness

All were impressive, but Gravity will and should walk this one. I'd have nominated Elysium over Lone Ranger, I think Neil Blomkamp's use of completely integrated and gritty effects is innovative, just a shame the rest of the film around them wasn't up to the same level.

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Before Midnight, Captain Phillips, Philomena, 12 Years a Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street

When it comes to assessing adapted screenplays I always want to have read the original AND seen the adaption, because to me this should be as much about the difficulty of conversion, as about the quality of the eventual output. I suspect 12 Years a Slave was the biggest challenge and the likely winner, although I thought the final film had some sizeable flaws (several extremely simplistic characters), personally I'd rather see Philomena win.

Best Original Screenplay

• American Hustle, Blue Jasmine, Dallas Buyers Club, Her, Nebraska

I'm pretty ambivalent about these nominations. American Hustle and Dallas Buyers Club had significant flaws in the writing, and Her I hear pushed suspension of disbelief too far. Nebraska I don't know, so by default my vote goes to Blue Jasmine, despite the fact that I didn't really like it. I suspect however the winner will be American Hustle.

Unemployment may be bad for the bank account, but it's certainly good for the film watching, with nearly 7 months off work, 2013 was my most unemployed year ever and correspondingly a record breaker for number of films watched, with an unlikely total of 187, more than a film every other day. (See bottom of page for full list and links to individual reviews.) 90% of them were films that were new to me which is quite satisfying. It really wouldn't be possible to watch that number of films without a subscription service and I continue to endorse Lovefilm, with 144 of my films coming from there which comes out at roughly 80p per film (and I watched a fair amount of TV via either dvd or streaming as well). I still get the vast majority of my films via post (mostly blu ray), as the online availability tends to be fairly limited. There's usually *something* I don't mind watching, but it's rarely something from high on my list.

Cinema
I'm a bit surprised to see I've clocked up 27 cinema visits this year. Given the 80p per film from Lovefilm, the cinema is a phenomenally expensive experience in London (my 'local' is now over 11 quid for a non-3D film) and given the general public and questionable service the stuff around the actual film can be far from pleasant. But for pure experience of film, you still can't really beat it. I specifically avoided 3D most of the time, unwilling to pay the extra for and often poorer viewing experience. The exceptions were Gravity which while not necessarily better in 3D, certainly wasn't worse, and Frozen which I saw in 2d but think that the animation style would have been quite impressive in 3D.

Ages
Nearly a quarter of my films were from 2013, exactly a quarter were from 2012 and 56% of the films overall were from the 2010s. 15% were from the 2000s, 11% from the 90s and then a gradually decreasing scattering all the way back to one film from the 1930s. I'm actually quite pleased with that distribution. Over the years I've really tried to watch older films and so have really made quite a significant dent on the list of classics and find it harder and harder to find films from the past that I want to watch.

Genres
Trying to label the genre of films is increasingly hard as everything seems to be a mixture. Do you need wizards and magic to be fantasy, or do you just need some weird dream sequences (Beasts of the Southern Wild?) Should a comedy be defined as something that's supposed to be funny, or something that's actually funny? On basic assessment 20% of the films I saw this year were 'comedies' but I laughed in very few of them and the funniest films by far were the animations I saw. It was a pretty low year for science fiction (just 7% compared to 30% last year) and although the number of documentaries and world films were high (4 and 12 respectively) the percentages were less impressive (2% and 6%).

Quality
The average rating of the films I watched this year was 6.37, almost dead on the overall average of 6.35. Just under half of the films rated 7 or higher which I count as 'good', and 48% were middling (5-7) which leaves only 8% (15 films) as in the pretty miserable range. I'm a bit surprised it's that low, it felt like I regularly had to slog my way through awful offerings from people who should know better, but in fact the vast majority of films were actually at the very least, watchable.

2013 Films
43 films were from 2013, plus another half dozen or so that are technically 2012, but weren't released in the UK until 2013. The standout film of the year was Gravity, and in fact if my ratings are to be believed, it's the standout film of cinema in general. It's the only film that I've ever awarded a ten out of ten to, and I agonised for a long time over whether I should do so, but in the end, I couldn't think of a single thing that I didn't like about it, even after a second watch. I suspect it will drop eventually, but for now it's the most perfect film I've ever seen. That's not to say it's necessarily got the highest aims, it is at it's heart a disaster movie with spectacular cinematography, but I was utterly and completely engrossed and entertained for the entire 90 minutes of it's perfect runtime.

The only 9/10 films were actually all from 2012 in the US but I saw them in cinemas in 2013. Wreck-It Ralph was a seemingly effortless combination of originality, character and story, while Lincoln was an acting masterclass from Daniel Day Lewis, and in addition to being predictably fascinating, it was surprisingly humorous. Life of Pi was technically released in the UK just within 2012, but I saw it in the cinema early in the new year and was suitably impressed that the unfilmable book was so beautifully translated to the screen.

There were about a dozen 8s, interestingly they were almost all 'entertaining' films, rather than necessarily 'worthy' ones. Despicable Me 2 has unceasingly made me laugh over and over again at even the faintest hint of a references to the minions ("pfft, bottom", "eh... no.", "banana?!") and Frozen a beautiful and original story and songs that I haven't been able to get out of my head. Iron Man 3, Olympus Has Fallen and Pacific Rim were all massively entertaining romps, while Philomena, The Kings of Summer and About Time were all much more understated character pieces that drew me in and had me reaching for the tissue box. Side Effects was another film that, like Gravity, took its genre (psychological thriller) and elevated it to something beyond expectations while Warm Bodies and Robot and Frank both managed to completely avoid all traditional genres to form original and charming films that defy categorisation. Finally Behind the Candelabra and Pitch Perfect were both jaw droppingly engrossing and entertaining.

At the opposite end of the spectrum there were a few real turkeys, frequently scuppered by their over-indulgent run-times and lack of good editing. I had pretty low expectations for The Lone Ranger and it certainly met them, but the disappointment I felt at The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was crushing. It was just dull. The plot was stretched out paper thin and they failed to fill in the gaps with interesting characters, instead just using fairground ride action and melodramatic exposition. Mind you, Sharknado won the prize for the lowest rating, and that couldn't have been saved by reducing the runtime unless it was reduced to 20 seconds with someone just reading the title and premise out.

In the middle were a few "could have been better". World War Z was a perfectly fine "Brad Pitt saves the world from zombies" film, but wasted the amazing premise and structure of the book on an unrecognisable story. Star Trek Into Darkness was a rollicking action adventure spoilt by utter laziness when it came to pulling the plot together into something that made sense. The Great Gatsby on the other hand had a solid story (obviously) but I actually felt Luhrman was too subdued in his style!

Other viewing highlights
There were a number of recent films from the last couple of years that I picked up via Lovefilm. Hotel Rwanda (2004) was a devastatingly powerful film which taught me a lot about a story I knew embarrassingly little of, Don Cheadle's performance was just incredible. One Hour Photo (2002) demonstrates why Robin Williams is wasted in comedy as he's phenomenally creepy in this very well put together 'little' thriller. Margin Call is a relatively small film that people may have missed, but it has a great cast (Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Zachary Quinto) and is an informative look at the early days of the financial crisis. Perks of Being a Wallflower is another indie film that was easily missed in cinemas (I even tried to see if and couldn't find it) but is a charming and vibrant look at misfit teens.

Older films that I finally caught that actually live up to the label of classics - Dial M for Murder, Gregory's Girl and Local Hero. They're badly dated now of course, but each manages to raise above the imitators and descendants admirable. On the documentary front two standouts are Man on Wire and The The Imposter, both about French men performing amazing feats of nerve and balance - one a tightrope walker, the other a conman.

Other viewing lowlights
I waited until the full series was available before watching the Twilight film, but as it turned out I needn't have bothered waiting because I barely made it through the first film. I found the books thoroughly entertaining, but the film somehow manages to emphasise all the worst elements and the casting is cataclysmically awful.

Some 'classics' that turned out to be miserable - Blue Velvet (no idea what was happening and thoroughly unpleasant to watch), Hello, Dolly! (budgets over chemistry), La Dolce Vita (horrifically dull) and Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) (boring exposition followed by boring car chase). There were also a few of last year's critically acclaimed films that I was distinctly underwhelmed by - Zero Dark Thirty (utterly muddled messages and storytelling), Berberian Sound Studios (pretentious nonsensical mess) and Amour (stunning performances, utterly tedious)

( Full list of films, ratings and links to reviews )

I've had a more successful year than previous at watching Oscar nominated films, but that still doesn't mean I've managed the complete set. Of the twelve films covering the nominees for big awards (best picture, director, actor, actress) I've seen exactly half. I even made an attempt to seek out clips and trailers of the various shorts. I make separate considerations of what I would like to win, and what I think will actually win, although this year there are relatively few categories which give different answers, partly because I often haven't seen the films in question, partly because I find it hard to really care that much about sound editing and maybe a little bit because the people voting align with my tastes? Nah. Links below go to reviews on my website unless otherwise indicated.

• Best Picture - Argo


• Actor in a leading role - Daniel Day-Lewis, for Lincoln


• Actress in a Leading Role - Jennifer Lawrence, for Silver Linings Playbook


• Actor in a Supporting Role - Christoph Waltz, for Django Unchained (My preference - Tommy Lee Jones, for Lincoln)


• Actress in a Supporting Role - Anne Hathaway, for Les Miserables


• Animated Feature Film - Wreck-It Ralph (My preference - Pirates! An Adventure with Scientists)


• Cinematography - Life of Pi


• Costume Design - Anna Karenina (My preference Mirror Mirror)


• Directing - Ang Lee, for Life of Pi


• Documentary Feature - Searching for Sugar Man


• Documentary Short - Inocente


• Film Editing - Argo


• Foreign Language Film - Amour


• Makeup and Hairstyling - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey


• Music: Original Score - Life of Pi


• Music: Original Song - Skyfall


• Production Design - Life of Pi


• Short Film: Animated - Paperman


• Short Film: Live Action - Curfew


• Sound Editing - Zero Dark Thirty


• Sound Mixing - Skyfall


• Visual Effects - Life of Pi


• Writing: Adapted Screenplay - Argo (My preference - Lincoln)


• Writing: Original Screenplay - Django Unchained

( Full discussion )

There will be three big parts to this review, because I want to make sure that I spend enough time on the actual review of the film, without bogging down in the questions around the 3d/high frame rate stuff or lingering too much on the major problem with the film. I would consider it spoiler free, but if you're paranoid about knowing which incidents from the book appear in this film as opposed to others, and want to be surprised about which characters appear, then you should probably avoid reading this (or anything else on the internet, or indeed on some of the posters). Also, I'm reviewing the film, it's decades since I read the book and I don't actually care about whether the film is 'true' to the source material or not, if an element of the book doesn't work in a film then it should be fixed.

The Review
So first off, the review. I enjoyed the film, it was good. It is of course “Lord of the Rings light”, it tells a similar story of a diverse group of people off on a somewhat vague quest which requires them to trudge across the landscape of New Zealand, helped and hindered by an equally diverse range of people along the way. For the most part though the Hobbit skims around the apocalyptic doom mongering of Lord of the Rings, only occasionally (but poignantly) reminding us that the reason for the quest is that generations of dwarves have been exiled from their city and have been wondering homeless. That driving force and sorrow is however for the most part limited to just Thorin, the Dwarven leader, the others all seem to be coping pretty well with it. There's also a couple of scenes talking about the 'rising evil' which felt rather as if they'd been put in so that in a decade or so when people watch the films in 'chronological' order the elements of foreshadowing are obviously on display.

So with that limited amount of angst the film is much more an action adventure romp, and leans quite heavily towards the silly end of the spectrum a lot of the time. For the most part the villains are played for comedy value and aren't particularly threatening (one of them is voiced by Barry Humphries!) except for the fact that The Fellowship (Prototype Version) aren't actually very good; Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas would have dealt with most of the problems in a jiffy. Each sequence hurtles along at a wonderful pace, with plenty of fun dialogue and carefully timed comedy to make each piece feel like a perfectly crafted episode.

What brings these episodes together into a proper film, and elevates it beyond just being a fun adventure is Martin Freeman's Bilbo Baggins. Peter Jackson never considered anyone else for the role, and even held up filming to work around Freeman's commitments to Sherlock and never has there been a better decision. Freeman is utterly perfect as the reluctant teammate, who adores his life of comfort and having things just so, but also wants to be able to write about having had adventures. The film shows the gradual reveal (both to himself and to his dwarven companions) of what Gandalf knew all along – that in his heart he is a hero.

With Freeman's Bilbo being the shining star of The Hobbit and Andy Serkis's Gollum/Smeagol being the revelation of The Lord of the Rings, the scene where they meet was always going to be something special. The Riddles in the Dark chapter is the only thing I really remember from reading The Hobbit (indeed it's probably the only name of a chapter I actually know of any book) and I wasn't sure which of the films it would end up in. It was stunning. I watched it completely engrossed thinking to myself about how ironic it was that for all the money spent on the film, it was this 'little' scene with just two actors talking in a cave set that blew me away. Then of course I remembered that Gollum isn't really there. I genuinely forgot that he was a cgi creation. I can't think of higher praise.

Sadly, in comparison, most of the 'new' characters for the Hobbit are not so great, with the exception of Thorin (the broody leader) and Balin (who acts as sage exposition master), the other eleven dwarves are reduced to a sort of beardy rabble. Even after checking the Empire Magazine's very helpful Dwarf Guide most of them still only had a single line descriptor such as 'the fat one', 'the one with the bow', and 'the one with the silly hat played by James Nesbitt'. As a whole they're used as plot devices, so when arrows are helpful to move the plot along Kili appears, but when they would actually offer too easy an escape, Kili seems to be distracted by other things. The only other character really introduced (I'm not counting the bad guys as they weren't really characters, just plot machinations) was Radagast the Brown, played by Sylvester McCoy, and I can't quite decide whether his dementedness was fun, an interesting look at what can happen to wizards left to their own devices, or just plain awful.

It goes without saying really that the film looks fantastic. All the work that was put into the Lord of the Rings films is carried through and developed further. Rivendell, Hobbiton, the costumes, the creature makeup and the infinite amount of detail are gorgeous. The music is similarly a development of the exquisite score from the series, with familiar themes and motifs returning. To someone who has watched The Lord of the Rings films probably a dozen times, it felt like coming home.

The problem
Having said all that, and making sure that you understand that I love the film and think it's brilliant. I now have to point out the massive flaw that undermines not just this film, but the whole series.

It's too long.

Just doing some maths – this film is 169 minutes long. If the other two films in the series are the same length, that makes 507 minutes (8 and 3/4 hours). The book (according to Wikipedia) is 310 pages, so that's over a minute and a half per page. In comparison the three Lord of the Rings films total 558 minutes long (on original cinema release), the books total 1571 pages and there's therefore just over 30 seconds per page. So The Hobbit is spending 3 times as long on the source material as Lord of the Rings did. And I'm sorry, but that just doesn't work for me.

An Unexpected Journey drags. It's a painfully slow start with two prologues shoved on the front before you even get to the main film, and then there's a long introduction section (which doesn't actually introduce anybody but Bilbo, Gandalf and the concept that Dwarves are loud, hungry creatures) is interminable. Once they get on the move, things pick up pace a little bit, but it still feels rather stilted with a couple of entertaining episodes interspersed with the familiar tramping through the countryside as sponsored by the New Zealand tourist board. I spent the last third or so of the film continually thinking it was building up to an end, but then something else would happen to drag it on a bit more.

I realise that it would be heart breaking to a director to drop any of the material, it all has some value, is well put together and is fun, but it does result in an exceptionally baggy film. (First to hit my cutting room floor would be the Bilbo and Frodo intro and the whole mountain giants section). It would be excusable if this were it, one film and then done. I would even forgive it for padding things out a bit to make two films, as Unexpected Journey did pause at a natural and satisfying point. But I couldn't help but think that every minute I was watching now was effectively a deposit and a commitment to watch another minute next Christmas, and another one the year after that. Of course I'm not going to be able to fairly assess whether it was really necessary to stretch the material over three films until we've actually seen the third film (Jackson has already drawn material not directly in the Hobbit into the storyline, and there's the Silmarillion to plunder if he really wants to), but my feeling at the moment is that Jackson is being self-indulgent, wallowing in the world of Middle Earth, and while it is a beautiful and interesting place to wallow, the quality of the film overall suffers because of it.

3D and High Framerate (HFR)
The final thing to talk about in this review which will soon be as long as the original book, is the formats. I'm lucky enough that one of my nearest cinemas is the Vue Westfield, which is a superb cinema with all the latest bells and whistles, so could see it on a beautiful screen in 3D with high frame rate, although it did cost me nearly 15quid a ticket! I ummed and erred about what type of showing to see (standard 3D and 2D are also easily available) as I'm usually very critical of 3D. However Peter Jackson encouraged people to try the HFR, and I was intrigued. I'd also originally thought that I'd go and see the film again in 2D, but given my issues with the runtime, I may not bother.

I'm not really sure that 3D added anything to the experience to be honest. I don't think anyone ever really felt that Lord of the Rings was lacking in immersion because it was 'only' in 2D and I'm inclined to think the same of the Hobbit. A few of the 'flyover' scenes of the landscapes and Rivendell looked even prettier, but they also looked a bit less real. It's ironic that people talk about 3D mimicking the real world more, but for me at least it makes things feel more artificial – I'm used to watching flat screens and interpreting them as real, I'm not used to the pointy-pointiness of 3D.

However, while I found the 3D a little unnecessary, I didn't find it anywhere near as distracting or unpleasant as I usually do, and I think that was down to the HFR. Usually when watching 3D I find it very hard to track things as the camera moves, so for example much of the beautiful design work on Hugo passed me by because every time the camera panned over the station, or through the mechanisms of a clock, my eye and brain couldn't process it fast enough to see all the detail. That was not a problem at all in The Hobbit, and from the very little I've read that's down to the HFR smoothing out the movement. I know there have been some reports of motion sickness, but to me at least the HFR made everything better than normal 3D. I'm also not sure whether it was the HFR or just sensible lighting, but I didn't struggle to make out what was going on in darker scenes, as I often do with 3D due to the light loss, everything was clear, colourful and atmospheric.

However there was a strange sort of sheen to a lot of the film, I'm not sure whether this was down to the HFR, the 3D, the lighting or the shooting style (it was certainly most noticeable on the sections filmed on handheld cameras), but it really distracted me. It felt weirdly un-cinematic. Mark Kermode (in his wonderful show with Simon Mayo on 5 Live) described it as like watching HD television which is an excellent description. Peter Jackson (in an interview on the same programme) described it as being more intimate, as if you're there with them, which is also true, but doesn't quite work for me. It really felt at times like I was watching a very special episode of Eastenders or something, a television production blown up to the big screen.

While that would be a great effect for many films, I just don't think it's appropriate for The Hobbit. This is a fantasy film; I don't need to feel a part of it in a way that might be appropriate for a drama or comedy set in our own world. When I go to see a big blockbuster film like this at the cinema, I'm looking for something cinematic – big and deep and sweeping and gorgeous. Spending a lot of money to make something look like a middling budget television show seems pretty ridiculous to me. While I guess it may mean that it will eventually look 'appropriate' when you're watching it on blu-ray in the future, I didn't pay 15 quid to see television quality on a cinema screen.

So I guess HFR fixes some of the problems with 3D, but introduces new ones of its own. Given that I don't think the 3D really adds anything to the enjoyment or beauty of The Hobbit, I would be inclined therefore to say you may as well just watch the 2D version and avoid all the problems altogether. However, despite the fact that I spent several hundred words saying how good the film was, I'm afraid my issues with the runtime mean that I doubt I'll go and see it a second time to find out whether the 2D version is better, which is a great indication of the sense of disappointment I have for a film which I will still describe as excellent.

September was a full month of glorious freedom! I had absolutely no intention of looking for work so spent the whole month doing precisely what I wanted to do, which was pretty much nothing. (Well I would quite liked to have done some other more exciting things like travel the world and whatnot, but just 'cos I was footloose and fancy free didn't mean anyone else was.) The first half of the month was packed solid with trips to the paralympics, and I'm really happy that the timing worked out so I could really make the most of the opportunities to go.



The second half of the month settled into a rather more sedate pattern of watching films, baking and taking baked goods to various friends. I also kept up my regular Friday pub lunch with colleagues in Kew and took the opportunity to spend a lot of time in the beautiful and relaxing Kew Gardens, it's been suggested that I should start a new blog "benches of Kew" gradually evaluating every bench... I'm not sure I can stay out of work for that long!



Books
Without dedicated reading time on a regular commute I'm struggling to hit my 50 page a day target and ended up 53 pages down over the month. On the plus side though after 3 months I did finally finish Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman! There's a lot of fascinating stuff packed in, that really could have been better spread over several works, but it's reasonably readable relative to academic papers at least, but is still rather a slog.

On the fiction front, I was disappointed by Flow My Tears the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick which I thought lacked the elegance, coherence and readability that I found in the other books of his I read. The Midnight Palace by Carlos Ruiz Zafon was unremarkabley bland. The Invisible Ones by Stef Penney was a solid murder mystery which dragged on a bit too long and wasn't nearly as good as her first book The Tenderness of Wolves.

Films
A bumper month for films, Love Film is the gift that keeps giving to the unemployed! Man of the Year is an interesting and very funny political satire, with a perfectly cast Robin Williams. Africa United on the other hand is full of first time child actors and is a touching and entertaining look at life for kids in Africa. Chronicle takes a completely original look at what teenagers with superpowers would really be like. We Bought a Zoo is cheesy as anything, but rather lovely. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen was a bit on the cheesy side but also very funny.

Less good things - I didn't find 21 Jump Street funny, Safe exciting or The Fast and the Furious particularly good at all. Mind you, they were just mediocre, unlike The Iron Lady which I found borderline offensive for its approach to the material. After two more Woody Allen films (Midnight in Paris and Hannah and Her Sisters) I'm officially declaring that I don't like Woody Allen films.

The only film I saw in the cinema was Take This Waltz which was okay, but suffered from an annoying central character and too many arty/indy tropes. Martha Marcy May Marlene is another recent indy film which has the same problems of being wallowy and slow, but was tolerable up until the ending (or lack thereof).

Rounding out the month's viewing were The Muppets Take Manhattan (classic, joyous muppets), The Weather Man (depressing but good), Me and Orson Welles (charming but unremarkable), Wilde (Stephen Fry is great, the film drags a bit), This Means War (frivolous fun) and The Thing (utter classic).

Television
September is round-up time for television, looking back at the previous year's offerings before the new seasons kick off in October. I watched 39 television series this year (!) and it was no easy task to single out my favourites, the ones I thought were best (not necessarily the same thing) and some of the actors I thought did outstanding jobs. Broadly speaking, I thought it was a pretty good year. I also did a quick review of what I thought of this year's new shows. I watched 36 pilots and followed 13 through for the full year, which is a a hefty percentage and says a lot about the originality and quality.

I polished off a few more seasons from the 2011-2012 season:

• Veep: Season 1 - Armando Iannucci fails to recreate the magic of The Thick of It.


• Luther: Season 2 - Idris Elba is brilliant, but the supporting actors and storylines aren't in the same league, and the shortness of the season (just 4 episodes) crippled it.


• The Newsroom: Season 1 - I'm too conflicted over this show to summarise in a sentence, go read the review!


• Once Upon a Time: Season 1 - original and lovely. A real standout.


• Supernatural: Season 7 - still good, but so epically depressing that I lost the will to watch

My first pilot review of the year was for The Paradise, the BBC's new period drama. It was awful. Terrible dialogue, hammy acting and rubbish characters. I spent the first 10 minutes wondering if it was a very subtle spoof... it wasn't.

Baking
Most of the baking I've been reporting on day by day, big hits being the messy, traumatic but very tasty Black Forest Gateaux and a collection of tasty biscuits. My Great British Bake Off challenge continued with reasonably successful were Crème Caramels and Treacle Tart but ground to a halt when I wasn't interested in the next couple of challenges. I rounded off the month with a very tasty improvised nectarine and cherry pie, the pastry tasted wonderful, but the melt in mouth crumbliness made it impossible to get out of the dish! At some point if I'm going to keep this up, I need to learn how to take decent photos of food!

I sort of didn't do anything in April. Mostly because I got horribly sick with something and sat around the house for a fair amount of time feeling sorry for myself.

Films
I have watched a fair amount of rubbish this month. There were a sudden flurry of kids films for some reason, Rango and Cars 2 were just all over the place, The Tale of Despereaux and 9 were both a bit better, but could both do with some polishing up of the narrative. Also I don't care how many people tell me Muppet Treasure Island is the best thing since sliced bread, for some reason I just don't get on with it. The 2011 version of The Three Musketeers could also be labelled a kids film because it's utterly brain dead and suffering from a terrible cast where Orlando Bloom is the high point because at least he's TRYING to be over the top.

A friend of mine is doing a 1982 movie challenge, because a surprising number of great films are 30 years old this year. I can't resist a challenge so watched Poltergeist and Tron start to finish in one sitting for (rather embarrassingly) the first time. Both were very entertaining and surprisingly original feeling, even after 30 years, but both lost it towards the end.

I picked up Moneyball to rent as soon as it was out because I love all things Aaron Sorkin, and although I liked everything about the film, the fact I didn't have a clue what was going on with the baseball meant it lost some impact. I'd also been looking forward to Super 8 but was massively disappointed, I think it relied too much on nostalgia for things like ET and The Goonies and once I'd gotten over that, the film felt rather flat and dull. Other random rentals were The Lincoln Lawyer (intriguing and entertaining, but another drawn out ending), Green Zone (excellent action fun), True Grit (2010) (surprisingly witty and entertaining) and Limitless (perfectly fine). (Also - Kick-Ass, see the book section.)

April really belonged to Joss Whedon though, with both The Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers coming out with a lot of hype - 3 years of delays for Cabin and massive budgets and expectations for Avengers. I was blown away by both of them. (Although technically I saw Avengers in May... but I couldn't wait). Both have classic Whedon touches with witty dialogue, charismatic characters, interesting relationships, entertaining action and unexpected twists. These are both smart films, but they're also just hugely entertaining, with dozens of laugh out loud moments, jumps and edge of seat action and special effects. I really enjoyed both of them immensely and could cheerfully have gone straight back into the cinema to re-watch them.

Books
I didn't have a very good reading month, largely thanks to getting ill leading to days of work (no reading while commuting) and sleeping instead of reading. Consequently I only hit my 50 pages per day target on 19 days, and mustered an average page count of just 49.1. Boo.

The five books I read were largely unremarkable, not bad, but not amazing either. I got Simon Mayo's kids book Itch because I'm a fan of his radio show. It was ok, perfectly fine but nothing to make me really recommend you to seek it out. Neal Asher's The Skinner was extremely enjoyable, it's the first Asher I've read and he reminded me a lot of Iain Banks, just without the complicated pretensiousness that has made me give up on the Culture series. Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test was also perfectly fine if you want a very very surface analysis of some issues, but was far too focussed on the writer and not enough on a thorough investigation of the subject for my taste.

I also read the Kick-Ass graphic novel (Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.) after really enjoying the film. I loved the idea, the characters and the tone of both the pieces, but felt that the book made some big miss-steps. Chiefly the last third had some big problems, and the characters motivations were very frustrating (although it had been pointed out to me that that could be considered part of the 'message'). Also the level of violence in the comic was too much, not because of any squeamishness, but just because it didn't make sense in the context of trying to present real human beings in superhero costumes - they'd be on the floor by the first panel of any fight, utterly unable to move. The film however fixed a few of these issues, which probably annoyed fans, but to me at least gave a much more rounded and more satisfying story.

TV
It was also a relatively slow month writing at Narrative Devices, I usually aim for 2 posts a week, but missed a couple out what with coming down with the plague. The end of season stuff is starting to kick in with several of the shorter seasons coming to an end. The second seasons of The Big C and The Walking Dead both had substantial changes from their first season. For the Big C it meant a big change in tone making it almost a different show, still very very good, but less comedy and more bleak. The Walking Dead showed a massive improvement, the first season was practically just a trailer for this more focussed and deeper show. Luck meanwhile only got the one season and while the horse racing footage was breathtaking, my inability to understand either the words the characters were saying, or anything about the plot rather hampered my enjoyment.

There were also three pilot reviews. ITV's Titanic has already been and gone thankfully because it was bloody awful. The Danish/Swedish The Bridge started with an intriguing set up but maybe lacks a little in delivery and the really rather good Awake starts on Sky Atlantic tonight.