Catch up on the Movies

With a quiet day, business wise yesterday, Steve and I set off to catch up on some of the most successful movies this year. We went for a double bill film outing to Chichester. The first call was to The Chichester Cinema at New Park. This is a serious art house cinema and we were able to use a gift vouchers given to us by a friend to see ‘Fences’ that we had been trying to fit in to our busy lives for ages. Denzel Washington is the Director and star of this film where the screenplay is by August Wilson who wrote the award winning Broadway play that it is based on.

It seemed to Steve and I to be quite loyally following the play because it is truly play like in its presentation and presumably that was deliberate; the old saying ‘If it ain’t broke don’t mend it’, seems to have won out here. Both Viola Davis and Denzel Washington certainly earned all the nominations and awards that have been showered upon them for their astonishing performances. As I got a hankie out of my bag for myself, Steve held out his hand for his own mopping up of face.

There was a fairly healthy ration of movie goers in this quaint shrine to the movie world cinema that is The New Park Cinema where volunteers hand out information sheets to each person on the way into the cinema and thank you for your visit with a smile when you leave, at the bottom of the page bearing the synopsis is a small box that says: We respectfully remind patrons that talking, rustling and blocking the end credits can spoil the cinema visit for others. So, I am not the only person who gets cross as I sit quietly and attentively through the credits and thoughtless people stand up right in front of me.

We drove to the total opposite end of the cinematic experience ready for our next choice that was to be in the Cineworld complex that is oversized, ugly and staffed by only just adult young people, who seem to be totally useless as staff and then there are monstrously overpriced snacks and drinks. We had stopped for coffee and a bite to eat nearby before getting out tickets.

There were six people in Screen 3 where the film of our choice was showing. This was another film that had been avoiding suitable days and times that we could make.

‘Hidden Figures’, from the book by Margot Lee Shetterly, which was also very good indeed and is the phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. It was another enthralling story and this one true and well presented. Great cast of Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Taraji P. Henson, Kevin Costner and Kirsten Dunst, in pretty much that order for praise.

This morning Steve and I went out for a bike ride since the weather was at last, not too bad, although there was a thick sea fret all along the coast and up the river. This was my maiden ride out this year and showed clearly that the work I have been putting in on the turbo trainer has set me up nicely for the season ahead. It was a very pleasant twenty five mile ride and was all at a fair pace apart from a couple of miles when we had picked up two cyclists from Brighton who had lost their bearings trying to find their way through the estates from Ferring to Littlehampton and we had them follow us until they knew where they were again.