The Search for Another Frances Ha

I all but sacrificed my late teenage years in favour of sitting alone in a plush chair accompanied only by a projector and a few dozen other people, whom I largely chose to ignore. I made a point of seeing near-enough every film that saw UK cinema release. On a regular basis, I would wonder why. Upon opening Facebook, a means of viewing the loudmouthed and the insecure's personal highlights reels, I would see people performing the kind of actions those on the screen I was slavishly watching were doing (Namely: Having friends). The majority of films released are, almost by definition, average, and a further 60-odd percent of the remaining films are rubbish. Last year, I sat through four movies where Bruce Willis contemplates his retirement whilst holding a machine gun. I sat through the Moshi Monsters Movie, for crying out loud. They say time is money, and if that's the case I feel it would only be just if I were reimbursed on a similar pay scheme to that Willis demands for movies nowadays.

However, once in a while a film comes along that makes all the glazed-eyed bald-headed snooze-a-thons in the world worthwhile. More precisely, once. Frances Ha was my favourite film of last year, and one that reinvigorated my love of both cinema and of the world. It's a film filled with such frame-to-frame effervescence that I feared the projector may combust and leave into an optimistic doughnut in the place of ashes. Greta Gerwig puts in the performance of a lifetime, and by which I don't just mean the best performance she'll ever put in, I mean the best performance I've seen in my lifetime. It's perfect, encapsulating cinema that swept me up over it's 87 minutes into a ball from which it has yet to release me. I've seen it seven times now, and after five of these viewings I've thought to myself "This is hands-down my favourite film". Very few films have ever garnished this level of affection from me. Certainly none of the standard-issue action flicks and hackneyed romcoms have hit me that hard.

What should win the BAFTAs

The nominees, ranked in order-

Best Picture
12 Years a Slave
Gravity
Philomena
Captain Phillips
American Hustle

A plug for a thing

   'This is my favourite radio show ever'
 - Jason Statham

 'This show literally changed my life for the better'
 - Mahatma Gandhi

'Sliced bread had better buck up it's ideas'
 - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

Listen in as TIME magazine Man of the Year 2026, James Bosson, and 2017, Robbie Owen, attempt to be passively entertaining on the radio.

*Not fit for human consumption.

D:One, 10 am 'till 12, every Friday
http://www.doneradio.com/

The Welsh regional dispute told via. the opening paragraph of classic books

"The Great Moffet"
by F. Scott Fitzgerald-Jones

In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me a piece of advice which I have been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever anybody else is being criticized," he told me, "Just remember that all the people in the world know less about rugby than you."

He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I always knew what was best for Welsh Rugby and acted on my instincts, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the worlds' leading expert on central contracting. The abnormal organisation is quick to fumble and attempt to mimic this quality when it appears in a normal person.

The Grand Owen Awards 2013 - The Results!

Hello and welcome to the 2013 Grand Owen Awards! It's been an eventful year- literally some things have happened, and during which time, a large number of films have come out. The registered Owen voters comprise of a panel of the utmost experts Britain has to offer, and by which I mean one bloke whose opinion very few people care about. Which is funny, because more people watched last years' ceremony, in which Danish drama A Royal Affair scooped the big prize, than the Oscars, BAFTAs and Golden Globes put together. So, for the hundreds and thousands around the world, it is worth noting that all results are done purely on UK release dates, meaning that films such as Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty, which were up for the last 'Awards season' are eligible, whilst the likes of 12 Years a Slave and Her are not. This is very much reflected in the nominations.

This year, Edgar Wright's surprisingly deeply thematic sci-fi comedy The World's End scooped the most nominations, a record seven. The sheer delight that is Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha follows behind with a stand-out five nominations. There are no 'technical awards' here, and gone are the Razzie clones (Bruce Willis and his performances in A Good Day To Die Hard, GI Joe 2 and RED 2 can be relieved), replaced instead by another acting award- The best performance in a bad film. It's the sign of a great actor when you can shine in a pile of rubbish, perhaps more impressive than the performances put in by most stars up for the 'bigger' awards. This, after all, is a celebration of cinema in all it's glory, and it's about time we got that celebration under way...

My five best bits of 2013

2013 has been one hell of a year. It's rollicked forward at such a pace we as a race have struggled to even notice good things have happened at literally every twist and turn, contrary to everything the laws of both of chance and sod have taught us. Unless you're Rolf Harris, you're probably leaning back right now, sighing and whimpering "What a great year" whilst you mop your brow with a hand-stitched handkerchief. If you are Rolf Harris, I'm sorry mate. I was on your side.

As I'm sure you worked out, I am about to list my five favourite things that happened to me in the year that historians will remember as being 2013. It's a deeply personal list, and that's not even a joke. There are things on there that will mean nothing to most people, but if I said "Chelsea won the Champions League!" was a personal highlight in order to appeal to the populist opinion, then I would be lying. Besides, Chelsea didn't win the Champions League this year, so I'd be lying twice. That would be very wrong. It may just be the thing that shifts the balance in favour of an eternity yet to come being spent in the damnation that is hell. At least I'd get to spend it with Rolf Harris. Here's a list.

The Film Scoring List Thing II: The Revenge

It's 2013! That means I need a new list of every film I see this year! Last time out, it started of as being quite a slow thing that wouldn't get updated much. Then I bought a Cineworld Unlimited Card. I went on to sit through 113 screenings, including 93 different films, over the course of 65 visits to the picture house in 12 months. This year, I'd like to break 100 different films. That's my target. So expect this to be updated alarmingly reguarly once I reach the end of January and suddenly have a free-time explosion.

Anyway, five words next to the film, with a score out of 10. Simple. Scoring explanation's at the bottom. If I see a film I also saw in 2012 again, it goes straight in as a repeat viewing. I'm also going to record if I saw the film in 3D or IMAX if it's available for that film. If, for example, I see something three, once in IMAX 3D, once in just 3D and once in 2D, I'd record the first one, then the next two as repeat viewings seperately.

These rules are mostly here for myself. Anyway, just watch as this fills up over the next 12 months...

Les Miserables: 6/10- Full-on sing-song spectacle.
The Impossible: 6/10- Who needs five words? Devastating.
Zero Dark Thirty: 8/10- And Best Picture goes to...
Quartet: 5/10- Conneley makes an endearing pervert.
The Last Stand: 5/10- As bad as you'd hope.
Movie 43: 1/10- An embarrassment to cinemas everywhere.
A Good Day To Die Hard: 2/10- Stupid, soulless soporific consumerist tripe.
Wreck-It Ralph: 8/10- 100 minutes of 8-bit grinning.
Warm Bodies: 7/10- Zombio and Juliet. Great fun.
Beautiful Creatures: 7/10- Think Twilight with sharper dialogue.
Hitchcock: 5/10- Better than The Girl, anyway.
Lincoln: 8/10- I'd watch three more hours.
Searching for Sugarman: 8/10- An amazing story deservidly told.
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters: 3/10- Clumsily shot and messily written.
Broken City: 5/10- Good until the plot explodes.
I Give It a Year: 5/10- Interesting idea, doesn't work. Shrug.
Mama: 5/10- An ironically solid ghost movie.
Django Unchained: 6/10- Good thing, waaaaaaay too much.
Robot & Frank: 7/10- Robot heist on charm offensive
Monsters, Inc.: 9/10- God, I love that film.
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone: 6/10- Passes the six-laugh test.
Oz: The Great and the Powerful: 6/10- A reboot that actually cares.
The Croods: 5/10- Technically sound and soundly hollow.
Side Effects: 7/10- It's bonkers. I loved it.
Identity Thief: 4/10- Hahaha. Look, a fat lady.
Compliance: 1/10- Dubiously-motivated misogynist exploitation drivel.
Jack the Giant Slayer: 5/10- Meh. Bill Nighy criminally underused.
The Paperboy: 7/10- Odd yet compelling. Effron's great.
Trance: 7/10- Bargain Hunt meets Christopher Nolan
GI Joe: Retaliation: 4/10- Stupid, but so, so bizarre.
In The House: 8/10- Incredible. Thoughtful, pacey and inspiring.
The Odd Life of Timothy Green: 6/10- Shut up. I liked it.
The Host: 4/10- No Twilight or Truman Show.
Spring Breakers: 8/10- Words cannot describe Spring Breakers.
Scary Movie 5: 4/10- Decent jokes, talentless writers. Wasted.
The Place Beyond The Pines: 6/10- Brilliant first act, then meh.
Iron Man 3: 7/10- Very well-written. I'm impressed.
Bernie: 5/10- Black comedy without the comedy.
Love Is All You Need: 6/10- My favourite Danish Brosnan romcom.
All Stars: 6/10- Surprisingly good fun. Great cameos.
Chimpanzee: 5/10- Pleasant viewing. Not exactly gripping.
Olympus Has Fallen: 3/10- Olympus Has Fallen Asleep, probably
Star Trek Into Darkness: 6/10- I want more Benedict Cumberbatch.
Epic: 5/10- I want more Chris O'Dowd.
The Great Gatsby: 7/10- One man's (admittedly entertaining) take.
Populaire: 6/10- Must type these words quicker...
Summer in February: 5/10- Go back to BBC Two.
Man of Steel: 5/10- Great first hour. Snoozeworthy second.
Stuck in Love: 6/10- Lots to like. Mildly depressing.
The Purge: 4/10- Strong concept, clumsy execution. Shame.
Now You See Me: 6/10- Entertaining. Can't ask for more.
This Is The End: 6/10- Satan possessing Jonah Hill = Funny
Behind The Candelabra: 7/10- Too gay for America. Recommended.
The East: 5/10- Passable but ultimately forgettable thriller
Hummingbird: 5/10- Irreverent yet hard-hitting fun.
The Internship: 5/10- Mildly amusing product placement bombardment
Despicable Me 2: 7/10- Bottom. *Giggles for 90 minutes*
The Bling Ring: 7/10- A very smartly directed film.
World War Z: 5/10- Dead behind the eyes. Forgettable.
Monsters University: 6/10- Wasn't Monsters Inc. so great?
Pacific Rim: 7/10- Bigger robots, bigger fun. Terrific.
The Worlds' End: 8/10- Wright is my favourite director.
The Frozen Ground: 5/10- Nic Cage continues to exist.
Citadel: 7/10- Terrific little British horror movie.
Frances Ha: 9/10- An amazing, infectiously joyous film.
The Smurfs 2: 3/10- Smurf off, all of you.
The Wolverine: 6/10- Well-executed Japanese slasher nonsense.
Alan Partridge: Alpha Pappa: 7/10- Textbook Partridge humour. Jurassic Park!
The Heat: 5/10- I did laugh. Not enough.
The Conjuring: 5/10- I've seen it all before.
RED 2: 4/10- Bruce Willis back on autopilot.
Only God Forgives: 4/10- Ryan Gosling giving moody looks.
Kick-Ass 2: 7/10- So. Much. Fun. Love it.
2 Guns: 6/10- Misleading title. Contains 97 guns.
Planes: 3/10- Witless, pointless and dull. Bleh.
Percy Jackson: Sea of the Monsters: 5/10- Average yet refreshing kids entertainment.
Grown Ups 2: 3/10- Let's never do this again.
About Time: 8/10- Richard Curtis: King of Romcoms
Pain & Gain: 6/10- Micahel Bay's first enjoyable film.
We're The Millers: 5/10- Fails the six-laugh test.
Lovelace: 7/10- Amanda Seyfried is absolutely brilliant.
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: 4/10- A lot of wasted potential.
One Direction: This Is Us: 6/10- Guilty as charged. I enjoyed.
The Way, Way Back: 8/10- Oh I love Sam Rockwell.
Elysium: 5/10- Enjoyable but forgettable. Matt Damon.
You're Next: 7/10- Best horror film in years.
Jadoo: 7/10- And now I'm really hungry.
Rush: 6/10- Zroooom vroooooom vvvrrrooooom zrooom vroooommm!!
The Call: 6/10- Third act syndrome strikes again.
Blue Jasmine: 8/10- Like a drunken Frances Ha.
Austenland: 4/10- How did this even happen?
Runner Runner: 4/10- Insufficient Gemma to reach forgiveness.
Sunshine on Leith: 6/10- From misery to (Extreme) happiness.
Prisoners: 7/10- Gritty grit from Grittown, Grittania
Filth: 6/10- Morally abhorrent corrupt Scottish fun
Machete Kills: 3/10- That joke isn't funny anymore.
How I Live Now: 8/10- Heart, love, grit and war
Captain Phillips: 6/10- Some good acting going on.
Thor: The Dark World: 7/10- Fun with Kat and Tom.
Escape Plan: 4/10- The Stalloneshank Redemption. With Arnie.
One Chance: 5/10- Undeniably gratuitous but strangely endearing.
Ender's Game: 6/10- The Hunger Games... IN SPACE!
Philomena: 7/10- Moving drama powered by Partridgisms.
Short Term 12: 7/10- Careful, meticulous and notably powerful.
Gravity: 8/10- Greatest visuals I've ever seen.
The Butler: 3/10- Alan Rickman plays Ronald Reagan.
Dom Hemingway: 6/10- Fun, dirty romp. No more.
Battle of the Year: 3/10- Clichéd clichés drinking cliché juice
Don Jon: 5/10- Tonally bizarre. Obvious first attempt.
Saving Mr. Banks: 6/10- I cried. Three times. Yeah.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: 8/10- Striking cinema. Lawrence reigns supreme.
Free Birds: 3/10- A first draft with potential.
Nebraska: 8/10- Worth walking two states for.
Powder Room: 5/10- Belongs on the stage, really.
Kill Your Darlings: 7/10- Turns out Radcliff can act.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: 4/10- Now with added Orlando Bloom!
Frozen: 8/10- Loved every second of it.
It's a Wonderful Life: 9/10- Every time a bell rings...
The Harry Hill Movie: 6/10- Well I laughed, so there.
Moshi Monsters: The Movie: 2/10- Like sugar-coated vomit juice.
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues: 7/10- Steve Carrell is very funny.
All is Lost: 7/10- Robert Redford must be 80...

REPEAT VIEWINGS
If I've seen a film for a second (Or third) times, it goes down under here. The rating is out of 5, from 'Well, I didn't really want to see it for a second time...' to 'Already booking my third trip'. It's entirely on how the film holds up, seeing it again within a month, rather than the quality of the piece. If there's another rating after the initial one, that means I've seen it three or four or how many ever times.


Pitch Perfect: 5/5
Wreck-It Ralph: 4/5
Jack The Giant Slayer: 2/5
This is the End: 3/5
The Worlds' End: 4/5, 5/5, 4/5, 5/5
Frances Ha: 4/5
Alan Partridge: Alpha Pappa: 5/5

HOW I SCORE
I count 5/10 as average, as opposed to the 7/10 that seems to increasingly be becoming commonplace. It's all my opinion and everything, and I reserve the right to change the score slightly if I change my mind about a film, although I do try not to play about too much. Instead of starting at the top and working down, as many seem to do, I like to start at 5 and see if a film can go up or down from there. 10/10 means flawless, and I've never seen such a film. 9/10makes it a high-point within the genre, a real stand-out. An 8/10 film is a must-see: something that excels my expectations for that film. 6/10 means it's a good, enjoyable, solid example of the genre, whereas 4/10 means the opposite. The difference between a 2/10 and a 1/10 film is that a 2 means I'd kill to avoid seeing it again. 1/10 means I'd kill to have never seen it again. I won't be giving any 0s, unless the film doesn't exist. Far as the colours go, the numbers get darker or 'hotter', if you will, as the film gets better, all the way from a 1/10 to a 10/10. I won't be giving 0s, unless the film actually doesn't exist. Make sense? Thought so. Excellent.

If you're interested in a list of all films I've seen this year, in the cinema or otherwise, here's a link to a list-
http://letterboxd.com/squidgygoat/films/diary/