“Perhaps the critics, themselves, are shaped by the narrative of those who control the film industry. Perhaps that’s why they just don’t get the impact of Digger. Capitalism in action. It’s what the film warns us against. How clever is that!”

Morning Star on Digger.

I’m still not entirely sure what I made of the film. My instant hit and miss blog post was certainly critical, but reading around the context of the film from other sources, I can now see that it’s a lot more of a deep rooted piece of storytelling. It’s certainly no masterpiece, but it may warrant a second viewing.

To Moving Image! …on Tuesday evening.

One day you’re sitting in a multiplex massive FUCK OFF screen in Sunny Colch, and then the very next you’re back in a village hall, sitting on a school chair and watching an art house film.

The Moving Image cinematic experience is slightly different to the Sunny Colch Odeon cheapo cheapo grubby fiver Monday afternoon deal.

No one was smoking weed, and a running commentary wasn’t provided by a couple of dickheads who really don’t give a shit about anybody else watching the film.

It’s a shame then that the film wasn’t all that.

Oh dear.

For our enjoyment - or not - on Tuesday evening was the Italian film Primavera. At first I thought this was a film about a Spanish music festival, but nope it was all about Vivaldi and classical music.

This was a real slow burner. It was so slow it didn’t really change gear and never got going. Thankfully it was short in length.

The plot centres around Vivaldi, or rather not Vivaldi, but a young musical prodigy.

It’s quite something when an esteemed name in classical music doesn’t even land the lead role in a film.

It’s a pretty brutal film as well. The story is set in some kind of orphanage where rather wicked proprietors are happy to take the cash off benefactors in order to pretty much keep young girls as musical slaves.

Step forward Mr Vivaldi to lead the whole experience.

One particular young violin player is singled out as the lead character. What’s portrayed is a rather nasty existence.

Scenes involve kittens being drowned and the lead character having her wrist deliberately broken to stop her playing by a particularly nasty male character.

One thing that comes out strongly throughout the film is that men with power can be absolute shits.

There was great chemistry between Vivaldi and the lead character. There was never any suggestion of this being more than a musical relationship, and nothing romantic or even sexual.

The ending was a bit odd. It was a kind of happy ending but not on a musical note. I felt pretty exhausted coming out of the Loveless Hall even though the film was around one and a half hours in length.

There was a faint whiff of ever so- lightly strong weed from the local yoof as I walked home.

To the Odeon! …on Monday afternoon as part of the latest instalment in the Grubby Fiver Odeon cinema ticket deal.

But wait! What’s this?

We upgraded our usual tight arse experience of dropping in at Lidl for a bakery bargain for a Too Good To Go surprise bag at a nearby coffee shop.

£3.99 later we walked out with a very weighty blue plastic bag containing all sorts of pastry surprises. It then soon dawned upon us that maybe having a bag full of surprises wasn’t best explored in the darkness of the cinema.

Can you taste what it is yet?

Trying to distract us from our culinary pastry fixation was the film The Digger. We saw a trailer and it looked half decent.

The film chap with Robert Elms on BBC London was a little cold about it and let it slip that there is a major plot twist midway through.

The basic premise of the film is a Texan oil billionaire who is pals with the U.S. president. Both are faced with an impending environmental disaster.

My main aim throughout was to tuck into the Too Good to Go cheapo cheapo bag and try not to fall asleep.

The dialogue was quite gripping. For such an environmental themed film there wasn’t a lot of action to witness apart from the conversation between the characters.

You had to stay awake to witness this. I didn’t stay awake. I think I fell asleep during the big reveal, as mentioned by the BBC London film chap.

He said it wasn’t all that and was surprised that the critics had been told to stay schtum on it. I won’t give away the spoiler here but basically what unfolded was a play within a play.

The environmental message is really powerful, even when delivered through such comic means. You realise that we’re just one madcap U.S. president away from being completely fucked.

Oh, wait.

You can’t really say much more about the film without giving away the entire premise and plot.

There was a rather lovely Easter egg at the end. As the credits started to roll it’s worth hanging around just to hear this and have the shit scared out of you.

Another Easter egg surfaced when I remarked to my film companion, as we walked out, that I thought Tom Hanks was the strongest actor in the film.

“Do you mean Tom Cruise?”

Oh I’m not really cut out for this film review shit.

Bad Apple was one weird fucked up film. I knew from watching the trailer and seeing the billboard ads that it has been described as being darkly comic. It kind of lived up to both descriptions but it was also, in some places, bloody funny.

It makes more sense if you’ve ever worked in a school. The setting and some of the small intricacies played out in staff rooms and interpersonal relationships between teachers were spot on.

The basic premise is that there’s a ahem bad apple pupil at a primary school. In fact he’s a little shit. A right Little shit. It was very difficult to have any sympathy towards the character of Danny.

You did find plenty of empathy and understanding with his poor overstretched young female teacher. It was clear from the setup that she had good intentions and wanted to do her best for all of her pupils, but Danny was something of a lost cause.

tl;dr: After something of a physical assault between the pair, she basically kidnaps him and locks him in her cellar. After a few teething troubles they kind of bond and she does her own version of home schooling, albeit with him pretty much chained to the floor.

It’s a plot that even Grange Hill might have struggled with back in the day.

What was clever about Bad Apples was the way in which the character sympathies shifted throughout the film. Danny becomes something of a lost boy who you want to find his way in life. The lovely lovely teacher is clearly an absolute psycho but somehow just about manages to get away with it.

It gets a little stretched towards the end. The secret is out of the bag and so is Danny, out of the cellar but no one really does anything in order for justice to be carried out.

The ending was disappointing. I hate films that come to a sudden jolt and leave you to make your own mind up about how the narrative should end. That sounds like wimping out to me.

It was a decent way to spend a couple of hours in the Sunny Colch, cheapo cheapo grubby fiver cinema deal. I think if you were a young primary school teacher then you would be having nightmares after watching this film.

To the Sunny Colch Odeon! …on Monday afternoon for the latest instalment in the cheap as chips grubby fiver bum dosser’s deal. I’ll have you know it’s a growing club.

Booked in for our bargain £5 ticket this afternoon was The Death of Robin Hood. Blimey. Talk about spoiler alert.

For once we arrived on time. I try and plan these visits to perfection so that I avoid all the shitty adverts and also some of the SHOUTY SHOUTY trailers that just do me nut in.

But wait! What’s this?

The film was advertised as a 2 pm start, which usually means you’ll see trailers until 2:15, followed by the film. We were in our seats by 2 pm. Fifteen minutes later there was still the crappy music being played with nothing on the big screen.

I felt for the poor Odeon flunky who had to go to the front of the auditorium and make an announcement that the film had been delayed for technical reasons and would start soon.

“Skip those crappy trailers. Get on with the bloody film.”

…came the shout from the cheapo seats. This wasn’t from me, by the way, but the sentiment remained the same. Sod the adverts. Cut to the film.

The audience flunky was in agreement. A few minutes later we had the recommendation flashing on screen that this is a film for 15 or over.

Which actually seemed a little benign. The death of Robin Hood is an absolute bloody glory fest. More than once I had to look away and just listen to the excruciating sound of humans inflicting pain on others to imagine what was happening.

But first how about a little seat confusion? I would say the Odeon was about a tenth full. We had an entire row to ourselves and so did the fella sitting in the adjacent row. This didn’t stop him, ten minutes into the film, snuggling up beside us to make it a threesome.

Study the buffers, fellow grubby fiver bum dosser.

This lasted for around ten seconds or so and then he said his apologies and moved back to his original seat. I don’t think it was that kind of film, mate.

As mentioned it was an incredibly violent film, especially in the opening twenty minutes or so, which sets up the plot.

tl;dr. Robin Hood is ageing. He’s gone around killing pretty much all of his enemies and he then becomes a bit of a cropper himself. He needs some rest. During this time he reflects upon what he’s done with his life.

That’s how I felt last week to be honest.

I always gauged the success of a Robin Hood film using the barometer of a Nottingham accent, m’duck. This was tricky to try and work out.

Hugh Jackman wasn’t exactly coming live and direct from NG1. It was some kind of Northern accent, but most definitely not a Nottingham one. These things matter.

The physical appearance of Jackman, however, was incredibly ropey. It was fitting that for a bum dosser audience, we were watching a bum dosser on screen. We might as well have been staring at a mirror. Think Ian Beale around his breakdown time when he turned into a tramp.

The more serious side of the film makes you forget all the myths of Robin Hood. This most certainly isn’t Men in Tights. It’s a man who recognises that he’s a brutal killer and is only in it for himself.

It all got a little trippy towards the end with some dream sequences and prolonged death scenes. Can you guess who was lying on his deathbed at the end?

Oh yeah, SHOUT OUT to the other grubby fibre bum dosser who was sitting a couple of rows in front of us. She spent the entire film with her face pinned to her phone, scrolling away and munching on a giant bag of Monster Munch.

What’s the fucking point?

To the Sunny Colch Odeon! …on Monday afternoon for the cheap as chips grubby fiver deal. Sitting in my Odeon app and selected less than an hour earlier, was an online ticket for The End of Oak Street.

The trailer has half captured my interest in recent weeks. I confess to not recognising Ewan McGregor in the leading father role during the promo clips.

The trouble with the Odeon cheap as chips grubby fiver deal is that during the school holidays there’s not a lot of choice to choose from. We’re talking crappy kid’s cartoon flicks here. At the end of Oak Street was my only realistic option.

I viewed the trailer once again before making the decision to buy the grubby fiver ticket. Hmmm, that looks alright. Not great, but alright. I read the Guardian review. It got slated. Hey hoe.

No worries I quite enjoy the idea of watching films on the big screen for a fiver that I would otherwise in no way get to see, or at least if I did view them at home they would hold at best 20% of my attention.

The basic plot for At the End of Oak Street is a slightly dysfunctional American family in the Michigan area in the early 1980s. Something wicked this way comes and all of a sudden their neighbourhood is transported into a not very friendly dinosaur park.

I think you’ve seen this one before. The appeal of the early Jurassic Park films was that there was nothing like this previously. You were genuinely in awe seeing the big beasts interacting with humans.

At the end of Oak Street could have quite easily slotted into the Jurassic franchise. The dinos look pretty much the same. There’s also the same US-style goofy humour taking place.

It’s not a bad film, it just tails out rather rapidly. In fact the first 20 minutes or so are really rather enjoyable. There’s a definite innocence in being transported back to the early 80s and seeing the very dullness and routine of family life in a pre-digital age.

As soon as the first dinosaurs appear, it descends downhill very fast and becomes absolutely ridiculous.

The basic play is that classic Jaws moment where everything is quiet then all of a sudden BOOM! GOTCHA! The only trouble is that you can take so many gotcha moments before you are desensitised to them.

It all got very silly when some classic hardcore dinos sex was displayed. A selfie on a polaroid was then taken by the two main characters, natch. That’s something you most defo wouldn’t have seen in any of the Jurassic films. The shark had been jumped, not to mention the two mating dinosaurs who were jumping each other.

The final 10 minutes also just about manages to draw together the threads from the opening scenes. It starts as it ends with an OK-ish film but nothing outstanding. What follows in between is one great big steaming dinosaur shit sandwich.

To the Sunny Colch Odeon! …on Monday lunchtime. On my agenda for the Cheap as Chips Monday Grubby Fiver Club was the new Spider-Man movie Brand New Day.

I don’t think I’m really the target audience for any Marvel film. I remember the kids at school being completely engrossed in the Marvel universe in a way that perhaps I thought they might be with Star Wars. Marvel is where all the action is for the cool kids, Natch.

I did try and educate myself ahead of the screening. I noticed that the iPlayer has all nine previous Marvel Spider-Man films available to watch. That’s an awful lot of screen time. I managed to get through the first one before realising that I’ve actually seen it before.

I’m sure I must have missed plenty in films two to eight but I didn’t let this put me off getting in the way of my Monday afternoon booking. My rate of viewing, especially when the football and the cricket seasons are colliding, means that it is unlikely I would get through all the past efforts sometime before Christmas.

I could just about follow the plot. The trick with all of these franchise films is to be accessible at the basic entry level for the likes of me, as well as having plenty of in depth Easter eggs for all the nerds to follow.

It’s a film about a bloke who can spin webs and fly from buildings. That’s about it yeah?

I confess to being rather drawn in and spending another half hour or so back at base, googling all the various characters and how they all fit into the current film. It’s no spoiler alert to say that the Hulk stole the show.

There’s also a fairly deep romantic plot, which I wasn’t expecting.

Brand New Day is supposed to be something of a reboot of the franchise. In the end it felt like it was trying to get all the characters in a place where they feel comfortable ahead of what may come next in the series.

As ever with the Cheap as Chips Monday Grubby Fiver Club, there was some constant chatter from the back row. Four pesky school kids took it upon themselves not only to hold some chat shit conversation, but also to shout out abuse at all the characters.

Thankfully the sound in the Sunny Colch Odeon was pretty deafening and it drowned the dickheads out.

They did join in with a round of applause at the end however. Such communal nonsense is not for me.

To the Odeon! …on Monday lunchtime. You know the score by now. Monday is cheapest chips day at this Sunny Cold Odeon. Book online and you can snaffle up a ticket for a grubby fiver.

I have made the point of looking at the cinema listings to see which is the longest film. Never mind the length, feel the thickness etc. If I’m going to buy a dirt cheap ticket then I want to stretch it out so I can spend as much time in the cinema, getting real value for money.

Which brings us to Odyssey of course. I admit that I hold no great knowledge when it comes to the classics. I was first introduced to the Odyssey back in SE17 whilst working on the school website. The Year 5 kids knew more about The epic tale than I did.

We’ve wanted to see this film for some time now but time and tide haven’t behaved very well for us. If you’re going to watch a three-hour film then you need to set aside three hours in a day to take it all in - which pretty much rules out doing anything else either side of it.

It didn’t get off to a good start in Screen 2 at the Sunny Colch Odeon on Monday lunchtime. Just as the opening scene was starting to build up, someone let rip at the back of the cinema with the most almighty fart. You dirty dog.

I tried to put this to the back of my mind and focus on the film. It proved rather tricky. Even throughout a film three hours in duration, I wanted to turn around and see who the phantom farter was. This is school holiday time. This explains a lot.

But anyway, the Odyssey. I knew I might struggle with some of the intricacies of the plot. I was just about able to keep up with Jackass 5 last time round at the Odeon. The Odyssey was a little bit higher on the intellectual level.

Having said that it is a truly fantastic film. It’s a complete epic which had me gripped for more or less the entire duration. I think I just about managed to keep up with what was going on.

What helped was the rowing WivGigs action taking place. A lot of the film is sea-bound. You have plenty of sweeping shots of the Greek army doing their best WivGigs impression and rowing round and round and round. I was familiar with terms such as holding water.

The plot line is pretty predictable but I guess that’s not down to Christopher Nolan as he’s only following the classic piece of literature that he was presented with.

The villains really are pretty bad boys, whilst you find yourself cheering on the heroes, which are highly likely to have a happy ending.

There was a slight twist towards the final scene, which I wasn’t expecting. I also wasn’t expecting the Phantom Farter to then spark up and fill Screen 2 at the Sunny Colch Odeon with a haze of incredibly strong weed.

Never a dull moment in these Monday Cheapest Chips Sunny Colch Odeon experiences.

You could say it was an Odyssey all in itself.

And so Jackass 5 was a hell of a lot of fun. I’m not sure it’s quite what we had in mind when we decided that Monday afternoons would be cultural afternoons at Colchester Odeon - and yes I do realise that an afternoon of culture in the Colchester Odeon is something of a misnomer.

I’ve always liked Jackass. It’s dumb as fuck. I’m still not convinced that it’s all genuine. Is wrestling fixed, etc. Certainly parts of Jackass 5 felt like the returning old faces were playing to the camera with maybe a little bit of a safety net already in place.

There’s not quite enough new content either to pad out an entire film. The incredibly good-looking Johnny Knoxville has declared that this is the last ever Jackass movie. The incredibly good-looking Johnny Knoxville always declares that each Jackass is the last movie.

And so Jackass 5 is used as an opportunity to reflect on what’s taken place before. I’m not sure what the exact ratio is but there is a fair amount of old pranks dropped in to the schedule.

This actually adds a little depth to the film. I would place it along a similar theme as Trainspotting 2 or even Spinal Tap 2. It’s a bit of a love letter, a film where the narrative is more than a passing thought about the passage of time.

The Jackass dudes are all hitting 50 plus. They are too old to have their bollocks being smashed full-on by a mallet. This would seem like a suitable time to bow out.

Poo jokes feature heavily. They are taken to an extreme and do cause you to actually wince and look away throughout some of the film.

Elsewhere and the new character, Larry the AI robot, comes close to stealing the show. I can’t help think that an AI robot rectal examination is the future.

Knoxville and the boys have seen a huge transformation in the way they go about putting across their message. What initially started off as their own private video pranks soon became an MTV phenomenon. MTV in itself was pretty much killed off with the modern interweb.

Now all you have to do is scroll through your stupid phone at some dumbass TikTok videos and you have your own Jackass curated experience. The modern interweb is full of dumb shits who want to make a fool of themselves in public.

Knoxville however is something of a camera star. I love the way that he sets his buddies up and yet is rarely at the butt of his own jokes. Spoiler alert: he does take one for the team in Jackass 5 with a very randy ball that involves an ambulance towards the end scenes.

We didn’t exactly find high culture in the Sunny Colch Odeon on Monday afternoon. Thankfully we also didn’t find an audience that was so impolite that they spoke shit all the way throughout. Jackass tends to attract a different kind of audience, natch.

We had something of our own Jackass experience as we headed upstairs briefly for a visit to the toilets. The Sunny Colch Odeon escalator has Jackass embedded within it. It moves incredibly slowly until you step on it and then it goes into fast forward.

Hi, my name is Jase and you’re watching Jackass on the Escalator.

I thoroughly enjoyed Spielberg’s Disclosure Day at the Sunny Colch Odeon on Monday afternoon. I confess to having scrolled down the listings to see what our film of choice would be for yet another Monday cheapo cheapo £5 screening. Disclosure Day was the only option that didn’t deliver a Meh shared outcome.

We watched the trailer at home just to be sure. Even this was weird. The official trailer actually features Spielberg cutting himself into the action to describe what’s taking place. This hinted to me at a film that needed some explanation. I don’t like films that make me think too hard.

Disclosure Day had a plot that I could follow. Often I find myself sitting in the cinema not being able to keep up with the action, as I have to backtrack and try and cross reference some of the dialogue I’ve just heard.

Christ, I’m a bloody old man.

This of course also manifested itself in the usual Monday afternoon SHHHHH! moment.

The cheapo cheapo Monday afternoon Sunny Colch experience wouldn’t be complete without another couple insisting on talking throughout the entire fucking film. I really hate doing this, but from past experience a very abrupt SHHHHH! shuts them up for the rest of the afternoon.

The film itself was fantastic right from the start. You can watch the trailer yourself, or read all the spoilers that are out there. Basically it weaves together three different scenes and characters all related to the overall strand of trying to cover up - and also expose - evidence of aliens on Earth.

It’s really quite comical in places. The level of detail and symbolism in terms of clothing, colour, etc is quite intense. I really can’t be arsed to look for the online Easter eggs but I’m sure there’s some great explainers out there that would add more depth and understanding to my already high enjoyment of the film.

It gets really quite poignant as well towards the close. In these troubled times there’s a strong message to humanity. It strays ever so close to being rather twee from Spielberg, but the final end scene is delivered with what appears to be well-intentioned meanings.

I almost had to have a SHHHHH! moment to myself (spoiler alert) when Mr. Alien is actually a grown-up ET. At least there wasn’t anybody sitting in the cinema who was dumb as fuck to actually phone home during the screening.