I often have misgivings about movies that are based on real life events, and similar misgivings about movies that win ‘Best Picture’ at the Academy awards. While they can be relied upon to be thought-provoking and powerful, they can also be a little bit hard going. I had no doubt that 2018’s Green Book would…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 17
2013’s I Give It A Year is a sort of anti-rom-com, about a ‘happily ever after’ that doesn’t pan out the way it is supposed to. It’s an interesting concept but in many respects it plays like an actual rom-com, and it relies so much on being fed by the hand it is ostensibly trying…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 16
A slow-moving film centred around nineteen-fifties haute-couture would normally be a pretty hard sell for me. But when it is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and features the final big-screen appearance of Daniel Day-Lewis prior to his most recent retirement, then even I can be convinced that it might be worth a watch.…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 15
The plot of 2017 drama ‘The Wife’ does rather hinge on a twist, and it is quite a predictable twist. But just because you can spot the revelation long before it’s revealed, does not make the journey any less enjoyable. Glenn Close gives an understated but brilliant performance as the titular character, while Jonathan Pryce…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 14
Unlike Lady and the Tramp, I don’t recall ever watching 101 Dalmatians as a child. I’ve seen it a few times as an adult, most recently in an attempt to entertain Little Proclaims (an attempt that was only partially successful, but still more successful than most of my efforts to get my daughter to sit…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 13
A movie which centres around one man trapped on an island for five years definitely runs the risk of being a bit..well…dull. While such an ordeal might make a compelling narrative for a novel, it seems hard to imagine how a film with only one character for a significant portion of its running time could…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 12
Having included Bridget Jones Diary in last year’s Christmas(ish) movie countdown, I felt it only right that I revisit the 2004 sequel to explore its Christmas(ish) credentials. As is often the case with sequels, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason is not as good as the original movie. It might even be reasonable to suggest…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 11
When I included 1995’s Jumanji in last year’s iteration of my advent calendar I received a couple of comments that suggested that the 2017 relaunch of the franchise might actually be one of those rare instances of a reboot being better than the original. And those comments were absolutely spot on – Jumanji: Welcome to…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 10
2018 action-thriller Peppermint is rarely thrilling and I’m not entirely sure why it’s called Peppermint. It often feels like a straight-to-DVD affair but I think it had a moderately successful cinematic release. Jennifer Garner stars as the vigilante out to avenge the murder of her family and, to be fair to her, she is definitely…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 9
I’m not sure if I can genuinely describe Disney’s 1955 classic, Lady and the Tramp as a childhood favourite. I suspect, in fact it was a childhood favourite of my younger sister, but I did watch a lot of Disney movies in my teens, often under the guise of being slightly irritated because we only…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 8
I don’t know if it’s fair to describe 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook as a rom-com; it is a movie that is hard to pigeon-hole but rom-com, albeit unconventional rom-com, might be the best description. Nonetheless, as someone who has a pathological aversion to rom-coms, I have always enjoyed this movie so it might be best…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 7
2016’s La La Land has enough critical acclaim and a whole raft of awards (though it famously only held the Academy Award for Best Picture for about two minutes), so it doesn’t really matter if I liked it or not. I didn’t actually see it for the first time until August 2017, by which time…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 6
2005’s Four Brothers is exactly the kind of movie I enjoy watching when I don’t really want to have to think too much about what it is that I am watching. It’s full of mindless violence and clichés but it never pretends to be anything it isn’t and if you can suspend your disbelief and…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 5
It’s a somewhat quirky fact that the person who brought the world ‘Mad Max’ is also, at least partially, responsible for 1995’s saccharine-sweet family-friendly flic, ‘Babe’. But George Millar is definitely credited for having written both. On paper, ‘Babe’ is not the kind of movie I should like. I was slightly too old to be…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 4
2020’s ‘The 2nd’ is the kind of low budget action movie that, once upon a time, might have been described as ‘straight-to-video’ and is the sort of thing I might have mistakenly picked up at Blockbusters in my early twenties to watch with my flat-mates and some cheap lager when we were unable to sufficiently…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 3
Spoiler Alert – If you haven’t seen this 2004 movie and you still intend to watch it some 17 years after it was released then I should warn you that there are some plot details below which might ruin it for you. But it’s all fairly predictable stuff so you’d probably have been able to…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 2
2015’s Daddy’s Home is a run of the mill comedy vehicle for Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. It’s fairly predictable, eminently forgettable and even at a slender 96 minutes, probably slightly longer than it needs to be. It’s the kind of movie that, if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve probably already seen all of the…
The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 1
Unless I’m much mistaken it is now December and therefore it must be time for The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films. We kick off this year’s festive countdown with a movie from the Rocky franchise. This is the third time a Rocky movie has featured in my annual advent calendar with…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 30
It’s the early hours of the morning as I write this, but having been unceremoniously woken up by Little Proclaims, and realising that I didn’t have quite enough time to go back to sleep before my normal, quite early ‘getting up time’ was due to arrive, I thought I might see if I couldn’t ease…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 29
It’s the penultimate day of NaNoWriMo, which I am quite glad about because, as much as I have enjoyed attempting (and largely failing) to write a full length novel this month, I could do with a bit of rest from it all. I’m set to finish on around 25000 words, which is only half that…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 28
Although I have two more days left of this challenge, today was really the last opportunity to have a big push towards the final word count. I’ll be in work after today and novel-writing while at work would probably be frowned upon. I had a couple of productive evenings after work last week but the…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 27
Day 27 and we’re 90% of the way to NaNoWriMo completion. Not that I’ll have a completed novel at the end of this, but I’ve had another productive day and I’m certainly finishing the month strongly. I’m fairly certain that my revised goal of 25,000 words by day 30 will be achieved and I’m beginning…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 26
Happy Black Friday everyone! Or should I say ‘Happy Last Day Of Black Friday’? One of the many retailers who have been emailing me all week has indeed dubbed today ‘The Last Day of Black Friday’, suggesting that Black Friday, in spite of the name, is a multi-day event. I have waxed lyrical on this…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 25
If I’m not mistaken, today is Thanksgiving. Not here in the UK obviously. I was at work as normal today, but I am aware that my readership, while undoubtedly only a small group in its entirety, is, nonetheless, global. So some people reading this will probably be celebrating Thanksgiving and it would be churlish of…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 24
After a fairly underwhelming few days of NaNoWriMo-ing, I appear to have roared back into life this evening. While the prospect of being a NaNoWriMo ‘winner’ has clearly escaped me, I still hold on to the very real dream of being, what I’m now dubbing, a NaNoWriMo ‘runner up’ by getting half-way to the original…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 23
23 days in to a 30-day challenge and it can be hard to see the point of it all. When I finally hit day 30, I’m fairly certain that all I’ll have to show for my efforts is a badly-written first draft of half a novel, and a series of prosaic blog-posts that I’ll probably…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 22
There have been a few times this month when I have almost fallen asleep while writing these posts, but tonight I’m even more tired than usual. So my usual preamble prior to revealing today’s word count, is going to have to be brief for fear that I will doze off any moment. I haven’t managed…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 21
Day 21 NaNoWriMo, and thus we’re 70% of the way there. My word count continues to flounder and not for the first time I find myself struggling to keep my eyes open as I write my end-of-day NaBloPoMo post. Last Sunday was, at the time, my most productive day so far, and one week on,…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 20
I may or may not be slightly inebriated as I wite this. I have been drinking beer, so it would be reasonable to question my sobriety, but equally I’m not currently sitting under a table in a Cardiff hostelry singing loudly and tunelessly, so I’ve definitley been more drunk in my life than I am…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 19
It’s Friday, which is never a bad thing. I have the weekend ahead of me and I’m very much looking forward to not being at work. Whether I will use the time available to work on my NaNoWriMo project is anyone’s guess, but, almost three weeks in, I’m no longer so naive as to expect…
The James Proclaims NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo Adventure – Day 18
One of the more recent November phenomenons is the UK’s adoption of Black Friday. It’s quite a strange concept that a country that does not celebrate Thanksgiving should so emphatically embrace Black Friday, when there is no obvious rationale for doing so. Well there is one ratrionale and that is to sell stuff to people…
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