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Merry Christmas you filthy animals 😁

Not sure if I have ever done it before, but I have now watched the original trilogy of Star Wars in the cinema. Not the theatrical cut unfortunately, but I imagine Lucas has burned all versions except for his CGI'd monstrosities. I don't much see the point in doing a review given how old they are now. Mostly it was adults enjoying the nostalgia watching them, but there was at least 1 parent educating her kid. I've no idea why the cinema was showing them now though...it is 40 years since RoJ came out, but they celebrated that back on Star Wars day.

I've also recently watched the final film in the (first) doomed attempt by DC to copy what Marvel are doing - Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom.

The first Aquaman movie was OK. A good solid foundation for an extended universe. Except DC had their building plans upside down, and it came after what should have been the culmination of several other foundational movies. This movie is OK too, but not overly amazing. Kind of like how we felt about Iron Man 2, or Thor 2, this sequel doesn't live up to its predecessor.

This time they've decided to take a new plot and have Black Mantis try and kill Aquaman. He teams up with an Atlantian king who gifts him powerful tech. And the king wants to wipe out everyone. Hmmmm, ok, maybe it ain't so different after all. Which is pretty much the problem with this movie. It also reuses classic tropes like "losing" a place cos it was evil because the best way to deal with such things is to have them stricken from all records, so when they are "found" no-one has any idea about them. Or having a place use necro in their name - always a clear sign that the place is evil.

But it is still vastly better than The Flash and fine as just a popcorn "switch your brain off" kind of movie.

Next year Godzilla turns 70 and to celebrate that, they've made a new movie called Godzilla Minus 1. I watched it and enjoyed it a lot. It is set just after WW2 and already having been devastated by the war, Japan is further pounded into rubble by the attack of the titular monster, Godzilla. I was fascinated by the special effects. At first glance, I really couldn't tell if they'd gone for the old school method of having a man in a rubber suit. Godzilla shows very little expressiveness, aside from when he's roaring or firing his breath weapon, he just waddles about grinning. Most of the expressiveness is in his eyes - they move around and you can feel the menace from them. But it turns out they've recreated the look of the MiaRS using CGI, which is a weird take, but I think it really suits the film. They also recorded the roar from the original movies and used that rather than creating a new roar for him.

The story isn't overly complicated. It centers upon a kamikaze pilot who abandons his mission, and ends up being in the wrong place at the wrong time and narrowly avoids being killed by Godzilla. The monster is merely a plot device in pilot's redemption arc as he goes from coward to hero. I would not be at all surprised if this sees more movies in a similar vein being made as by all accounts it has done very well so far and has really high reviews from critics and cinema goers alike.

Sometimes the stars align; a movie rec from @scalzi for "The Holiday", an unlimited pass to my local cinema and a one off showing tonight that fitted into my schedule. I enjoyed it - it is a fairly traditional rom-com, so it is surprising I'd never seen it before. My only disappointment, is that we didn't get to see the cow! Jude Law is such a cow-tease.