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Is anyone reading Skybound's Energon Universe stuff? Transformers, GI Joe and a new series called Void Rivals all tied in together. It's really good stuff so far; they're starting TF and Joe all over, linking the rise of Cobra and the formation of GI Joe with the arrival of the extra-terrestrials.

Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu. Great film, this. Anyone who likes Kurosawa's pictures should check this and Sansho the Bailiff (not bailift, that's a totally different film) out.

I finally got one (well an A500 retro machine) and have thoroughly enjoyed getting stuck into the preloaded games. Putting roms onto a memory stick to expand the library is a proper gamechanger as well.

Finally saw The Fabelmans. Really enjoyed that picture.

Went to the Aesthetica Film Festival in York a couple of months ago. Saw some great short films at different venues around the city centre, but this was my favourite. Felt genuinely creepy, really claustrophobic despite being set in a wide open field, and was shot incredibly well: Strangers. https://youtu.be/HirrBaDlenc?si=C5LfQIo5YVHPwUOd

An Amiga.

Street of Shame - Japanese drama about a group of prostitutes after the US Occupation. Not bad. The Bullet Train - 70s Japanese thriller about a bomb threat on the bullet train. Brilliant stuff with boss action set pieces, an amazing train set for the sequences of trains hurtling towards peril, and Sonny Chiba. Ace. The Most Dangerous Game - 70s Japanese thriller about a hitman who gets conned after a job, goes for revenge, and keeps telling girls he likes bigger tits. Fantastic.

An Amiga.

And a shark that knows how an oven works.

That sounds fucking boss.

Best film is too difficult to pick, really. The Exorcist in 1997 when it was on a special showing in the ABC on Lime St, Alien in a popup drive-in cinema over on the Wirral last year, Jaws at Crosby Plaza, Jurassic Park on the first week of its release, the Magnificent 7 remake with my dad as he very rarely goes the cinema, Vertigo at the Phil with a live orchestra, Saving Private Ryan at the cinema in Bangor - the battle sequences were tremendous. Worst - can't remember the actual film, think it was Hereditary. The film was alright, but the woman behind me was burping and farting constantly, talking to herself and stunk. Wish I'd seen Raiders on its first release in the pictures but I was only two at the time so probably wouldn't have appreciated it. Favourite cinema is the Plaza in Crosby. I love having a picturehouse five minutes' walk away.

I also watched Heaven's Gate last week. Absolutely loved it and it really took me back to the mid-'90s, when I was first discovering and encountering all these amazing films like The Last Detail, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Harold and Maude, and The Exorcist. Didn't feel as long as the 3 hr + run time and I got thoroughly swept up in it.

Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut It's a long time since I've watched Redux and even longer since I watched the old theatrical version. Three hours long and I enjoyed it tremendously but still kind of zoned out when he finally got to Kurtz. I need to look up the differences between them as I honestly can't remember what's from which version now, kind of like the different versions of Blade Runner and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Was just as revolted when they sacrificed the ox but read into it last night - apparently the production had gifted a pair of oxen to the village where they were filming. When he saw the way that the first one was feted then sacrificed, Coppola set up cameras for the next one and just let them roll. I loved reading about that - I'm going to need to read up further on the film now.

Do you remember Star Wars Supremacy on the PC about 20 years ago? It’s that but analogue.

Star wars Rebellion is a beast of a game to play. An hour and a half to set up, followed by four hours to play and then you realise the rebels have managed to escape because you were so focussed on building Death Stars and blowing planets up. Fun, though.

This is a tremendous book. I keep buying copies to give to people. I'm just reading The Winter of Frankie Machine now - another amazing Winslow book.

As much as I love Jurassic Park, Alien and Aliens are perfect in terms of film-making. Absolutely tremendous.

Breathing should be - oh, hang on.

Love Indian food - we have curries probably 3 times a week. We also have quite a bit of Italian food, pasta dishes and risottos. Looking at the bookshelf, it seems to be largely Indian and Italian books. Japanese food is always really good as well - have been to a few restaurants now and am working my way through some of the recipes in a book my wife gave me last year.

Great list that @Sugar Ape, thank you. I've a couple on my shelf from there that I've not gotten round to - Hekla's Children and The Hunger, definitely, and I might have a copy of The Reddening. I've read My Best Friend's Exorcism and can wholeheartedly recommend it - it's a really fun book. My Kindle is absolutely killing me as I'll see a book recommended and pick it up "for later", or dip into the deals section and grab two or three reduced titles. My to read list just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I've even gotten to the point where I'll see a book mentioned, go to buy it and get the "You bought this book on [...]" notification. I'm fighting the urge here to grab some more based on your list, mate.

I used to really enjoy the Sharpe novels. I found them to be a nice counterpoint to the aritoctratic poltroon that is Flashman. I've just reread Mr Mercedes and have started the first short story in Scott Snyder's Voodoo Heart collection. Still also reading that history of cancer and have started reading William Strunk's Elements of Style to freshen up on grammar before getting back to teaching writing when the kids get back in.

There was no plan for the films. JJ Abrams threw out Lucas's plotline for three films and set up questions with no answers in TFA. Rian Johnson has said he was surprised to come to the second film and be told do what you want. Then after he made so many drastic changes to the direction of the trilogy and there was such a divide in opinion on it, they threw out Treverrow and the script he had developed in favour of what they saw a safe pair of hands, who then undid the best thing in Last Jedi (the idea that Rey was a nobody - that anyone could be a hero) by having Rey related to already established characters.

I read something recently comparing Luke's approach to the Emperor with Rey's, arguing (correctly) that Jedi's seeing Luke throw his lightsabre away to rely on love and compassion for his father to defeat the Emperor versus Rey's I'm Every Jedi moment followed by a Hadoken to the chops is far superior.

Make a killing in the current environment for his leash-holders?