Comic Cuts - 10 November 2017

Once again I'm aiming to keep this short as I've spent the week working on something that doesn't relate to work. I haven't completely abandoned the book (I did some work on it last Friday and I should be back to work work today) but I haven't made any great progress. The research alone can take quite a lot of time, so there will always be weeks where I'm not producing my aimed-for 1,000 words a day.

Hopefully I'll be getting back up to speed next week.

The only other thing I did this week worth mentioning was a visit to the cinema to see Thor: Ragnarok which hurtled into my top three films of the year – I really liked it. It had spectacle, humour, action, a storyline (sadly lacking in one or two of Marvel's recent movies) and even a bit of character development. We don't go to the local Odeon very often as the cost has become ridiculous – over £12 for even 2D showings of movies. I notice that the price has actually dropped (I think this one was £10.75), so I have to assume that the high ticket price was putting people off over the summer. Either that or the poor quality of the films themselves put people off.

I like action/SF movies in the main and there are usually a handful of movies that stand out... this year it has been Blade Runner 2049, Thor: Ragnarok, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2, War for the Planet of the Apes, Wonder Woman. There are also movies that I'll be happy to revisit more than once: Baby Driver, Logan, Atomic Blonde, John Wick Chapter 2, Kong: Skull Island, Spiderman: Homecoming, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Free Fire and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. Netflix had a couple of great movies: Okja and What Happened to Monday, which I'm happy to  recommend.

Then we have a bunch of movies that were a bit meh... Alien: Covenant (the "Alien on a Space Station" rip-off Life was actually quite fun), Fast and the Furious 8, The LEGO Batman movie, The Mummy, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, Transformers 5... I think these probably fall into the category of "I really wanted them to be good" but they ended up disappointing me.

There are loads of films I haven't seen, from The Age of Shadows, a Korean action movie, to Goodbye Christopher Robin, which tells the rather sad story of A. A. Milne's son (my tastes aren't wholly limited to action/SF!). There are a few films I'm expecting to like (Despicable Me 3, Dunkirk, Hidden Figures, In This Corner of the World (Japanese anime), Colossal, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Their Finest) and a bunch that I'll wait until I pick up a second-hand DVD very cheap (The Dark Tower, Geostorm, Kingsman: The Golden Circle); and, although I'm not a horror fan, I will probably watch It and Get Out as they were well reviewed.

There's a good chance that, even if I see them for under a quid, I won't be bothering with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales or King Arthur.

Next trip to the cinema will probably be for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, although if Justice League is well reviewed by people whose opinions I like, I might be tempted.

Random cover scans this week are a handful of books that I've picked up recently... well, not the two Michael Caine books. I've had them for ages, but recently unearthed them in a box I hadn't sorted through since we moved.

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