Books!

So lately I've been on this massive reading kick and it doesn't seem to be going away which is AWESOME!
I used to read a whole lot when I was younger - mainly a lot of Enid Blyton books, like the Famous Five and the Adventure Series and things like that. I used to love stories about normal, young kids going off and having amazing adventures where smugglers and robbers and all these bad guys would hatch their plans, only to have them foiled by kids my age. I felt like I could be any one of them, hatching plans to stop the bad guys getting away with it. But as I got older, and as I discovered the internet, my reading started to fade and there was a period of a few years where I didn't read at all. I think that it was partly to do with a drying up of reading material. I was getting too old for Blyton and I didn't like the look/ sound of anything else. Oh how things change...

I find myself eager to read more and more, and I love it! I guess I have John Green to thank partly for it. I was given Paper Towns (and some of his other books) and that was when I really came into my love for it all. I realised there are exciting, thrilling books about life as I would like to live it - whether that be as a different version of myself in this reality, or as an ultimate version of myself in multiple different realities.
I've read 24 books so far this year, which is ridiculous considering I barely read 5 last year, if that. I consume books, like I would a good meal. Especially books that feed my imagination; Assassin's Creed, Eragon, Inkheart, Doctor Who, Frankenstein, The Hobbit... all have been read in the last year.
It's funny really. A year ago I was all about the movies, the DVDs which I still love. But... pages. Words. The smell of a new book, or a good old one. My second-hand copy of Inkheart smells delicious. As does my brand-new copy of Eragon. It's like all the smells that are described in the book, all the smells that are smelled by the characters leak out and mix into this overriding smell that defines the story. And I half believe it... 

I don't know why Paper Towns triggered me so much and caused me to start reading again so furiously. But I'm very glad it did. I've been missing out on a lot of great books...

Kermode: How to Take Life Too Seriously

I have a great deal of love and respect for Dr Kermode. But he needs to give the Pirates franchise a rest.

Having just watched an enormous argument he had with Jason Isaacs about why the Johnny Depp is terrible in Pirates of the Caribbean (which I totally disagree with) I feel like I want to comment on this. Regardless of my feelings, I love a good Kermodian rant and the video was pretty hilarious (see here).

I'm not possessed of this "stupid gene" of which he speaks; I "got" Inception on my first viewing. (Because we all know how hard that movie is to get.) But I like Pirates 1,2 and 3 (4 not so much). I know it's big, it's stupid, it's ridiculous and you know what? I love it. I love it for the simple reason that sometimes, when I go to the cinema, I want to be entertained. Shock horror, yeah!? The Devil's Double was shocking and hard to watch, but I can appreciate it as a shocking move. It's a movie that you wouldn't expect to be made. But when I go to the cinema I don't go for a lecture or for an artistic piece or for some piece of cinema that is avante garde. I go to watch something that entertains me. Pirates of the Caribbean may be a bit rubbish, but I love it because it is entertaining. It does what is says on the tin; they are pirates and they are in the Caribbean. You shouldn't expect much more from a movie with that title. 

Don't get me wrong though; On Stranger Tides was rubbish and they should have left it at a trilogy.