Three months into the year and I’m already a solid month behind on my progress through the 1001 Movies list. At least in March I was able to catch up to where I should have been at the end of February, but I didn’t exceed that target. And even more annoyingly, March featured the glory of Easter’s 4-day weekend, only for it to be squandered on spending time with family and recording podcasts. Over that whole weekend I watched one feature-length film (Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice) and one animated short on TV one evening (Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers). One of those things is infinitely better than the other, but regardless of how much I love Aardman’s stop motion hilarity, it didn’t make up for a frittered away expanse that should have been spent watching movies. Anyway, here’s the tally for the month:

Aim: Review 8 or 9 1001 List movies each month
Reviewed: 5
The Adventures of Prince Achmed
Naked Lunch
Rocco and His Brothers
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Pulp Fiction
Successful?:No!

Aim: Review 1 “Bad” movie each month
Reviewed: 1
Naked Lunch
Successful?:Yes!

Aim: Review 1 “Blind Spot” movie each month
Reviewed: 1
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Successful?:Yes!

Aim: Review 2 “Film-Makers” movies each month
Reviewed: 2
The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)
Successful?:Yes!

Aim: Read A New-To-Me Book
Read: 1
The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins)
Successful?:Yes!

Aim: Visit Somewhere New
Visited: 1
Lulworth Cove
Successful?:Yes, sort-of. New to Murphy, anyway. So no, not really.

Once again all the targets were hit except for the 1001 List, no surprise there. I’m also marginally ahead on the Film-Makers front because I’ve already watched The Dressmaker, starring Kate Winslet. No idea what April’s Blind Spot or “Bad” movie will be, but I’m looking forward to finding out, and I’ve got five 1001 Movies ready to review as well, plus at least a couple more have arrived in the post, so all being well I’ll make some headway on the reviews deficit this month.

Book-wise I finished off Paula Hawkins’ The Girl On The Train, in preparation for the film’s release later this year. Given its recent surge in popularity I’d expected it to be this year’s Gone Girl – a book I adored and a film I rather liked too – but this fell far short of that. It didn’t help that, from the off, I hated pretty much all the characters, and didn’t care a jot what happened to any of them. However, the main character, who is something of an alcoholic, was written well enough that whenever she made mistakes I was genuinely frustrated with her, so at least the characters are written realistically enough to believe in. Still, I’m not looking forward to the film now, and am considerably less likely to go and see it than before I’d read the book. I’m currently halfway through Stephen King’s 11.23.63, so expect a mini-review of that next month, if I finish the thing in time (it’s over 700 pages long).

And finally, visiting new places. The end of March arrived and I hadn’t been anywhere new, apart from a couple of restaurants and I don’t think they really count. So today (yes it’s in April, no I don’t care) we took Murphy to Lulworth Cove along the Dorset coast (roughly an hour from where I live). Technically I’ve been before, but only once and the point of this exercise is not just to visit new places but also find different areas we can walk Murph, and Lulworth Cove was perfect on this beautifully sunny day that wasn’t too hot. We were not the only people with these plans in mind, as the path was often filled with people walking their own dogs, but fortunately many of the other visitors were there to make the most of some of the beaches, so the path soon cleared up. The walk was absolutely knackering, but then again I’m an extremely unfit misshapen blob who gets winded walking upstairs, so this doesn’t say much. Murphy had a grand old time, and he was often incredibly useful when it came to pulling me up some of the hills, although I could have done with a little less pulling when it came to descending them, as we both nearly died several times (I vowed that if he pulled me over, I was determined to take him down with me). He explored a little too close to some of the perilous cliffs at times, so I was half anticipating him dangling over the edge like Eddie Griffin’s dog in Armageddon, but fortunately this was not the case and we made it back safely. Here are some photos, all taken by my beautiful girlfriend Aisha, whose site can be found here.

The Durdle Door

Me and Murphy. I’m on the left.

Murphy trying to eat the wind. He is not a terribly bright dog.

One of the many, many rest stops.

Sometimes, Murphy likes to just sit, contemplating on the world and his place within it, ruminating on the point of existence, and dreaming of the next leg he will hump.

Immaturity!

He’s not a fan of the sea. It keeps toying with him, approaching then retreating, ever teasing with its promise of splishy-splashy fun-times.

Because dinosaurs.

So the aim for April is not not only go out and find somewhere new to everyone, but to review more than one month’s quota of films off the 1001 List. Can I achieve these missions? Come back next month to find out!