A decade of death and damnation has passed, and now we move onto another. But hey, I’ve given up all hope in enough of these diaries’ forewords. Isn’t it best that I keep my spirits up rather than dwell on the negatives? I’m going to start gender therapy and, if I decide this is right for me, hormones soon! I may finally get a job! Bob’s Burgers has a movie! Trump is going to court! Republicans may stay in office! *smack* Boris is going to emerge victorious! *smack* Great Britain will go down in flames! *smack* I’m going to hit my 30’s! *smack smack smack*
But this can’t actually be the end of cinema, right? Sure, all hope may be eradicated from this planet forever, but at least I have my own future and a new age of cinema to keep me company through these doomed times! I just hope I won’t be *as* addicted, what with all the repertoires. Let’s just see what surely wondrous 2020 vision (and sound) is in store for me, okay?
The European internet and the British economy are about to be destroyed by old white windbags, Disney is going to rule the planet like they’ve never ruled it before, and for the first time in eons I didn't kick a year off until the second weekend. And how - last year I saw 345 films in total, 200 first-time screenings and two repeats, and have seen some of the few January releases truly worth watching either as previews or in my room. I’ve barely made progress on my personal projects or even job-seeking because of my obsession, and have faced the consequences of such with an anxiety attack that has changed the way my head’s bloodstream works until god knows when, all thanks to a print of something I could have watched any time, just on a smaller screen and not on celluloid. Let’s hope I don’t make the same mistake this year - after all, the BFI’s not running an Animation 2019 season.
It’s my 25th year of existence. I survived the chaos. I can travel by myself on the overground, the underground and the bus. I know how to get myself to the ICA, I thirst for celluloid more than ever before, I have a lifetime membership at the Prince Charles Cinema and the BFI Southbank is screening animation all year round. Also, the cinema at my favourite shopping centre now has reclining seats.
Right.
Let’s do this.
Choose 2017.
Choose Brexit. Choose Trump. Choose not a single day without Steven Universe in your face. Choose mass hysteria. Choose apocalypse. Choose to escape from it all.
Choose CINEMA.
After discovering probably the best-looking cinema in the UK, travelling to the west of America to see a 4D film about M&M's, seeing Carol one way or another, finding the greatest animated film of the decade without being told so, finally finishing the Hunger Games trilogy one year later than it should have been and entering a new phase of Star Wars sans Jar Jar, who knows what could be better than all this forthcoming.
Well, here's all the films I've seen in 2016, a.k.a. doomsday for democracy, showbusiness and the world itself. At least the movies were good enough. Well, except for the second one on this list.
Hollywood is running out of ideas for new worlds.
Everything you know is becoming a cinematic universe.
Adam Sandler and Michael Bay are still making movies to this day.
Foreign hackers have (almost) made it dangerous to poke fun at other nations.
It's the end of cinema as we know it.
Or is it?
So, what's in store for me this year as we lack originality and even lose a few popular studios?
Over a hundred films, it seems. Look at what cinema has done to me.
Mistakes were made this year.
-Paul Blart
-Transformers 2
-Paying £34 to suffer through 2012
-Not seeing more at the Barbican’s film festival when it was my only chance to see The Princess and the Frog before 2010
-Deciding to end the year with Planet 51 rather than, well, Sherlock