Choose 2017!

Oh god. What an exhilarating week at the cinema.

War for the Planet of the Apes (don’t make me type it in full again, please). Then Dunkirk. Even the Hollywood boo-boys can’t decry that, surely?

You’re talking two bonafide classics. Instantly iconic. Urgent, desperate cinema. Toe curlingly tense in their own way.

Choose picture perfect CGI. Choose picture perfect practical.

This is a call to arms… Renton style. Get to the cinema. There’s no Football for four weeks, so there’s really no excuse. Out of nowhere 2017 is tearing up the rule book.

And we’ve still not seen BatFleck’s huge bat-crotch. It’s the year that keeps on giving.

Stop watching your box sets. Stop your addiction to First Dates (I understand). To Love Island (I don’t understand). Get to the cinema. Get to your nearest IMAX. Get Hans Zimmer’s latest masterpiece (an ‘Inception‘ beater?!) Get your One Direction Playlist on loud – and feel vindicated. Sorry Ed and Game of Thrones, but this is one nil to Harry and Nolan.

Get your Top Ten of 2017 at the half way point. Tear it up. Keep your side orders of catching up with non-Hollywood on USiTunes (I loved you all, ‘Belko Experiment’, ‘Raw’ and ‘Elle‘). But don’t shun Hollywood. There’s hope for it yet. Even cynical Cillian agrees.

Keep believing that Hardy will save us all – and one day we’ll be his Goose. Roaring through sepia toned skies in a Spitfire (engine or not).

Choose believing that Nolan has shaken free of the burden of The Bat. Choose ‘Interstellar’ and it’s bombastic ending. Forgive him for making Bane cry, and for forgetting how to edit. And how to make cohesive edits. And how Batman would have time to paint a bat sign mural out of gasoline and shave whilst recovering from a hell hole (with a broken back). He’s redeemed himself. Finally.

Choose 109 minutes over 180 minutes. Choose reinventing time lapses – that even Tarantino would punch the air at.

Choose a triple bill of ‘Thin Red Line’ and ‘Dunkirk’. And one of them a second time.

Choose Sir Mark Rylance and Sir Kenny B. British Royalty.

Choose crying when Branagh says “Home”.

Choose cinema. Choose the Summer of 2017, when ‘Baby Driver‘ will struggle for the top ten list. Harsh as it is. Choose something rather than nothing.

Choose Nolan. He might be the Chosen One after all. And Kubrick would be proud.