{"id":2103,"date":"2008-02-05T00:00:46","date_gmt":"2008-02-05T00:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sunpig.com\/mt-entry-2103.html"},"modified":"2008-02-18T21:47:12","modified_gmt":"2008-02-18T21:47:12","slug":"2007-in-review-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2008\/02\/05\/2007-in-review-films\/","title":{"rendered":"2007 in review: Films"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, let’s get the easy ones out of the way first. Watching films, being part of “having fun” kind of fell by the wayside in 2007. I only saw 29 films<\/a> (a five-year low), most of those in the first four or five months of the year. I have only been to the cinema once<\/em> since we moved to the Netherlands, and that was to see The Bourne Ultimatum<\/i>…on a trip back to Scotland.<\/p>\n

I don’t see the situation changing any time soon, either. I know where the nearest cinema<\/a> is, but lack the motivation to get out there of an evening. (Also: National Treasure 2<\/i>? Puh-leeze<\/i>.) The TV set-up we have here in the house is distinctly sub-optimal, and I haven’t signed up for a DVD rental service here yet. (Compared to Lovefilm<\/a> in the UK, the offerings here are expensive and primitive.) Once we move house, I would really like to get a big<\/em> TV, and spend some time arranging it so that sitting down to watch a film is something to look forward to<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Of the films I saw in 2007, there are four that really stood out:<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n

Brick<\/i><\/a> seems to divide opinion; some people find it boring, and are put off by the poor sound quality – some of the dialogue is really<\/em> hard to make out. I just loved its lo-fi noir<\/i> vision. Primer<\/i><\/a> is a low-budget no-fx gem, a mind-bending time-travel film that actually works<\/em>. Following<\/i><\/a> is another low-budget effort–Christopher Nolan’s directorial debut, in fact. (You may remember Nolan from bigger films such as The Prestige<\/i> and Batman Begins<\/i>.) It’s a cunning little thriller with a sting in the tail. Finally, The Good Shepherd<\/i><\/a> is the kind of spy film I like: murky, understated, ambiguous, and backstabby.<\/p>\n

So what am I looking forward to in 2008? To be honest, seeing anything<\/em> at the cinema would be a high point of my year so far. Richard Brunton maintains a fabulous site for movie lovers over at Filmstalker.co.uk<\/a>, with loads of tasty bites about what’s coming soon, but I can’t actually see anything on the horizon that screams out “must see!” yet.<\/p>\n

(Actually, on second thoughts, a European release of My Name Is Bruce<\/a> would be pretty awesome.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, let’s get the easy ones out of the way first. Watching films, being part of “having fun” kind of fell by the wayside in 2007. I only saw 29 films (a five-year low), most of those in the first four or five months of the year. I have only been to the cinema once … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “2007 in review: Films”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}