Movies by year: 2000

(Keep out of the dark - there are spoilers there!)

Happy long weekend! I went to the beach, it was glorious. And while I was there, I gave some thought to my favourite movies of 2000.

Guy Ritchie gave us another complicated one with Snatch; Hugh Jackman *snicked* his way into my heart in X-Men; George Clooney (our generation's Cary Grant/Clark Gable) brought us on an odyssey in O Brother, Where Art Thou?; Tom Hanks demonstrated once again his awesomeness in Cast Away; M. Night Shyamalan gave us Unbreakable (and yes, I liked it, shut up).

And a thug appeared on our screens and showed us how it's done.

Everyone take a deep breath...

On Saturday Peter Capaldi burst from the TARDIS in a flurry of confusion to start the new season of Doctor Who, and he was glorious.

Let’s talk about it. Be warned, SPOILERS ahead!

Movies by year: 1999

(Never give up, never surrender... to the spoilers below!)

1999 was a mixed bag with some really stand-out films. The 'found footage' style of filmmaking had a smash with The Blair Witch Project, The Matrix changed the way we thought about sci fi and effects, Guy Pierce and Robert Carlyle were at each other's throats in Ravenous, M. Night Shyamalan became a massive love-him-or-hate-him director with The Sixth Sense, Rene Russo showed off her curves in that transparent dress in The Thomas Crown Affair, Mystery Men proved not all heroes are the expected ones, and The Boondock Saints gave us the antiheroes we didn't know we were missing. But this is the one I can watch over and over again:

Movies by year: 1998

(Oi, spoilers ahead!)

What to tell you about? Such a big pool this year - heartstring-plucking with Meet Joe Black, What Dreams May Come or Practical Magic? Weird and bizarre with Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas or The Big Lebowski? Critical darlings The Truman Show or Saving Private Ryan? Gritty and inventive with Run Lola Run, Snake Eyes or Dark City?

How about overwhelming and a bit confusing?

Too soon: Robin Williams

via 9gag.com

Tonight I went to see Guardians Of The Galaxy with a couple of friends, and I thought I might write something about it. But once the film was done and we started checking our devices, I realized it would have to wait - we learned of Robin Williams' passing.

Movies by year: 1997

(Definite spoilers ahead, be warned!)

Another year with too many amazing movies to count. Some were big productions - The Saint, Men In Black, Contact, Event Horizon, Gattaca, Starship Troopers. Others were more intimate, squeaking under the mainstream - Jackie Brown, Grosse Pointe Blank, In & Out, The Edge, Wag The Dog. All worth seeing, for different reasons. My favourite was big but weird:

Cottage trip half over :(

Well, after three or four nights of gorgeous stars, we're now overcast. Not bad though, I mean it's still beautiful, but rain in the night is becoming a thing. Not surprised, just sad we probably won't get a good night watching shooting stars before we go back.

Movies by year: 1996

(Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to avoid the spoilers to come!)

There were some great films in 1996, a few too many to get into actually. I saw a preview screening of From Dusk Till Dawn, which is two movies mashed together; Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas were terrorized by lions in The Ghost And The Darkness; Fargo took us all by surprise (and made us all avoid Minnesota in the winter); Richard Gere thought he was the star of Primal Fear but we all know it was really Edward Norton's breakout role; and if we didn't already know about the evils of drug addiction, Trainspotting hit us over the head with it with an amazing cast.

But there was one movie that was just more fun than the others:

Cottage report: Friday night

So it cottage season, and I'm just going to bed - we've been up here since Thursday around 7ish - and there were SO many mosquitos that I got basically sucked dry by the time we got from the dock up to the house. We got settled in and basically decompressed for a few hours before pulling out the media player and watching a few shows and movies, and had a relatively early night (went to bed at 1:30am).