A Bug's Life

Books read (17)
Saga, volume 4

Films watched (205-215) (4 at the cinema, 5 DVD, 0 LoveFilm, 2 tv)
Into the Wild
Bridge of Spies
Sisters
The Inbetweeners 2
The Fisher King
The Red Shoes
A Most Wanted Man
The Good Dinosaur
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Date Night
Parents (rewatch)

Total of 74 at the cinema: 24 Arts Picturehouse, 35 Cineworld/The Light, 9 Prince Charles, 6 Other. 15 LoveFilm so I'm not getting the best from my subscription but it's not a definite cancel yet.

A rubbish year for reading. Still have several hundred on the unread shelves and keep buying more :-)

Gigs, comedy, clubs etc (21-22)
Django Django with Stealing Sheep (gig, London)
James Acaster (comedy, London)

Books read (16)
Ready Player One, Ernest Cline (2011)

Films watched (192-204) (7 at the cinema, 1 DVD, 1 LoveFilm, 5 tv)
Rope
The Prince of Tides
Flirting with Disaster
Shooter
Side by Side
Hanna
The Lady in the Van
Steve Jobs
Strawberry Shorts Commendations (shorts)
The Dressmaker
Carol
A Fistful of Fingers
Gremlins (rewatch)

Gigs, comedy, clubs etc (20)
Suuns/Jerusalem In My Heart (gig, London)

Loved The Dressmaker, and Carol was very good.

Books read (12-13)
Moon Over Soho, Ben Aaronovitch (2011)
Foundation, Isaac Asimov (1951) (reread for SF Book Club)

Films watched (145-179) (10 at the cinema, 25 DVD, 1 LoveFilm) (yes that's 35 films in a month - Film Festival and week on hol with dodgy back meant serious getting through the To Watch shelf) (let's cut-tag them)
( Thirty five films )

Gigs, comedy, clubs etc (17)
Bill Bailey (comedy, Junction)

Cinema good: The Spiderwebhouse (based on true story of children who secretly look after themselves for year while Mum in hospital, neat dark fairytale threads), The Hallow (creepy horror), Bill (if you like Horrible Histories check out this Shakespeare)

DVD good: Melancholia passed the test of "can you discuss this film for longer than its run time" and it's a long film! On the surface it's a planet approaching Earth - amazing spectacle or will it hit? But is full of depression allegories. Very arty.
Also good: Of Horses and Men, A Tale of Two Sisters, Ong-Bak. Good to catch up on a load of classics I've not seen before like The Hills Have Eyes, Manchurian Candidate, Night of the Living Dead. I feel proper film-educated now.

Books read (9-10)
The Martian, Andy Weir (2013)
Partial Eclipse and Other Stories, Graham Joyce (2003)

Films watched (101-120) (12 at the cinema, 5 DVD, 2 tv, 1 stream Mubi)
Big Hero 6
Slow West
Magic Mike XXL
The Hunt
Love and Mercy
Jurassic World
Step Up
Spy
Penguins
Song of the Sea
The Salt of the Earth
Step Up 2 The Streets
Two Days, One Night
Cube 2: Hypercube (rewatch)
Ant-Man
Inside Out
Minions
LSFF Documentaries by women directors
Reel Women short film programme
La Jetée

Gigs, comedy, clubs etc (15-16)
Exilicon (geek convention, Cambridge)
The Merry Wives of Windsor (theatre, Cambridge, open air Shakespeare Festival)

So many good films this month!
At the cinema: Slow West (coming of age Western by chap out of The Beta Band, great young boy/old hand performances), Love and Mercy (Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, Paul Dano immerses self in role (and pool), lots of scenes showing how studio recordings work), Spy (funny), Song of the Sea (selkie animated story from Tomm Moore of The Secret of Kells, so beautiful, buy on DVD for your kids at Christmas even if they're grown up), Reel Women monthly Cambridge shorts (animation this time, loads of amazing/funny/sad/punk/beautiful things).

Unfortunately I have now watched La Jetée and will feel compelled to make some trite film-schooly knockoff.

I did not mean to rewatch Cube 2; I didn't like it, and must have erased the traces of it from my memory quite efficiently.

Books read (8)
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (2014)

Films watched (90-100) (4 at the cinema, 5 DVD, 2 tv, 2 LoveFilm)
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Strawberry Shorts Film Festival
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Leaving Las Vegas
'71
Machete
The Look of Silence
Mr Holmes
Night Watch
Plenty
Sleuth

Gigs, comedy, clubs etc (11-14)
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy (art, London)
Stewart Francis: Pun Gent (comedy, London Bloomsbury Theatre)
Alex Horne: Monsieur Butterfly (comedy, London Soho Theatre)
AK/DK (gig, London)

Books read (6-7)
Mort, Terry Pratchett (1987) (reread)
Tiny Pieces of Skull, Roz Kaveney (2015)

Films watched (69-89) (11 at the cinema, 7 DVD, 1 tv, 3 LoveFilm, 2 other)
I Heart Huckabees
August: Osage County
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
Intacto
Fargo (rewatch)
Mad Max
Mad Max 2
Force Majeure
Mad Max: Fury Road
About Time
Mad Max: Fury Road (rewatch, IMAX)
Clouds of Sils Maria
Girlhood
Pan's Labyrinth (rewatch)
Pitch Perfect 2
Um, Mad Max: Fury Road (rewatch)
Far From the Madding Crowd
The Wolf of Wall Street (rewatch)
Shutter Island (rewatch)

Gigs, comedy, clubs etc (10)
Fylm Club, Simon Munnery (comedy, London Soho Theatre)

What a month for films! I liked Mad Max (obv), also strongly recommend Force Majeure, Clouds of Sils Maria, Girlhood, Pigeon Sat on a Branch. It was interesting revisiting Far From the Madding Crowd since I read it at school, and understanding much more of the complexity of the characters. I have sprung for the Infinity card at my very local cinema, £16.95 for as many films as you like, but it doesn't seem to be stopping me from going to the Arts Picturehouse too.

Books read (5)
Not a one this month!

Films watched (49-68) (5 at the cinema, 8 DVD, 3 tv, 1 stream, 2 LoveFilm, 3 other)
Pretty Woman (rewatch)
The Kids Are All Right
The Brothers Bloom
The Wind Rises
The Darjeeling Limited
Blade Runner: The Final Cut (rewatch, kinda)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (rewatch)
John Wick
So I Married An Axe Murderer (rewatch)
American Hustle
The One I Love
A Little Chaos
Child 44
The Great Beauty (rewatch)
Irma Vep
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Capote

Gigs, comedy, clubs etc (8-9)
The Hard Problem (NTLive theatre at cinema)
Omid Djalili (talk at Cambridge Literary Festival)

Books read (5)
Hild, Nicola Griffith (2014)

Films watched (36-48) (3 at the cinema, 6 DVD, 3 tv, 1 LoveFilm)
CHAPPiE
Albert Nobbs
Robocop (rewatch)
The Conversation
Gone Girl
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Star Trek (Abrams) (rewatch)
Les Diaboliques
Still Alice
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
In Bruges (rewatch)
Kill Your Darlings
Stranger by the Lake

Gigs, comedy, clubs etc (4-7)
Simon Munnery Sings Soren Kierkegaard (comedy, London)
Richard Herring: Lord of the Dance Settee (comedy, Junction, Cambridge)
Linton Zoo
The Gilded Birdcage (burlesque club night, Cambridge)

Films at the cinema: I enjoyed Chappie, and it did have some interesting things to say (including about parenting), but I left thinking "I want to rewatch Robocop" and so I did.

The course I'm doing is taking a chunk of my reading time, but if I was only going to read one book, Hild was a good one. I tried cutting down on exercise but that wasn't good so I'm back up to trying for 5 miles per day.

Books read (3-4)
Solaris, Mark Bould (2014)
Spin, Nina Allan (2014)

Films watched (26-35) (3 at the cinema, 3 DVD, 4 tv, 0 LoveFilm)
Inherent Vice
From Dusk Till Dawn
Rush Hour 3
Die Hard (rewatch)
Kingsman
Dune (David Lynch)
We Are The Best!
Whiplash (rewatch with drummer)
Parents (rewatch)
Cuban Fury

Gigs, comedy, clubs etc (2-3)
Roundelay (theatre, Cambridge Arts Theatre) (Alan Acykbourn)
Footlights Spring Review (comedy, ADC, Cambridge)

Films at the cinema: Inherent Vice was good and quite an unusual film to see these days, so set in its shaggy hippy era. Kingsman was fun. I missed Duke of Burgundy due *ACHOO* to loud *COUGH COUGH* and quiet *sniffsniffsniff* insuppressible noises which was a shame.

Other films were largely low-hassle lurgied-watching fare. Recommend We Are The Best! 80s Swedish girl punk band/teenage friendship/coming of age story.
Parents was a big favourite of mine in the early 90s, kitschy 50s family with odd son, trying hard to fit in with neighbours, comedy slides into horror. I have not watched it in 10 years and was pleased that it still stood up - and I saw a lot more in it now, childhood imagination, just where the line falls between solicitous and threatening and how it might feel when a family member chooses to cross that line in a way that only the child can see. Great cuts and angles, I have never seen a sandwich look so ominous.

Books read (1-2)
Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor (2010)
Scotland's Stories of Home, various including uisgebeatha (2014)

Films watched (1-25) (9 at the cinema, 13 DVD, 3 tv, 2 LoveFilm)
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Resident Evil: Retribution
Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever
Belive: The Eddie Izzard Story
Rush Hour
Pitch Black
Only Lovers Left Alive (rewatch)
Scarface
Goon
What We Do In The Shadows
The Theory of Everything
Clueless
The Grand Budapest Hotel (rewatch)
Foxcatcher
Enemy
Whiplash
Ex Machina
Solaris (Tarkovsky)
Solaris (Soderbergh)
Paddington
Wild
American Sniper
Drillbit Taylor
Office Space
Closer

Gigs, comedy, clubs etc (1)
Milton Jones (comedy, Harrow Arts Centre)

Fave films at cinema: Foxcatcher, Whiplash, Paddington, What We Do In The Shadows. On DVD: Scarface, Solaris (after pondering it for a few weeks), Pitch Black, Office Space. Loads of others good too.