Goodbye to all that

Goodbye the old year. And what a year. Who’d have thunk a year ago we’d have lost old Queen Lizzie, had three Prime Ministers, inflation over 10% and a war in Europe. Gagh. On the plus side, we got to the Caribbean, had some terrific sailing on the west coast, managed to get to Glastonbury again, saw Dylan - and the daughter brought forth a second grandchild, a wee boy. So, lots of good stuff too. 

So, to today, there were morning papers, a walk around the neighbourhood to take a stunning last blip of the year, a drop in at the Dreadnought for the last pint of the year, and the last film - Corsage up at the Omni. I found it utterly absorbing as well as being quite the most beautiful thing. But would it make MrP’s top ten or twelve or whatever of the year? Blows trumpet…. toot tooot toot-toot…..

And the winners are -

12. Men. With Jessie Buckley. A cracking film. Fabulous imagery and genuinely disturbingly scary at parts. The (wonderfully) grotesque ending didn’t quite sit with the rest, but hey ho. Not half bad. 
11. Northman. Wild! Aguirre Wrath of God meets Gladiator with a bit of Midsommer thrown in. Well, I enjoyed it anyway. An evil murderous epic for our times. 
10. Lamb. Yep the Icelandic film directed by Valdimar Jóhannsson. I just put that in to beef out the blip and suggest, y’know, ah yes, Valdimar Jóhannsson, what did he do again? Anyway, 8/10 for me. Terrific and very ordinarily strange if that’s not a contradiction.
9. The Lost Daughter. I enjoyed it immensely much. A sad little tale, and so well acted.
8. Banshees of Inisherrin. A most engaging film (I even managed to overlook the obvious Oirishness in parts) which was hugely entertaining and amusing before becoming a whole lot darker.
7. Elvis. And I tell you, it is very good indeed. And the most Baz Luhrmanny parts are even better than that. A visual delight. And Tom Hanks is a terrific pantomime villain. Maybe some snooty reviewers think it’s a biopic or something.
6. Nitram. Nitram had very good reviews - deservedly so, may I add, having watched it! Really terrific acting and a tension which slowly builds and builds. Ye Gods. Keep guns out of people’s hands, people! 
5. The Worst Person in the World. What a wonderful film. Yes, we laughed, we cried. Who’d have thought that a film about a woman in her late twenties could strike such a chord.
4. The Hand of God. Paolo Sorrentino’s latest. What a terrific film - an autobiographical coming of age film - with Maradona very much in the background. Fellini! Wes Anderson!
3. The Menu. With Ralph Fiennes on top form. And with Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult. Tremendous entertainment. At first it seemed just like a superb satire and then, well, it developed. 
2. Top Gun: Maverick. What a great romp of a film. They don’t make ‘em like that any more. It made me proud to be American again. And when Tom Cruise appeared in his white uniform on the eve of the mission… be still my beating heart!!
1. Aftersun. The debut full length feature from one Charlotte Wells. From Edinburgh, and born in 1987, same as my own daughter. A fictional reminiscence of a holiday with her dad at the age of eleven, it was absolutely superb. Can't praise it highly enough. And terrific acting by the young girl. Spell binding etc etc:

Right, that’s the lot. Happy New Year folks. See you all on the other side.