"Elysium" and "End of Watch" and an Amphicar

Today, with no cricket to watch, my partner and I went to the pictures.

Our local cinema is "Cityscreen" in the centre of York. It is in walking distance from home. It opened about ten years ago and we have been members for most of that time. Today we saw the new sci-fi film "Elysium" with Matt Damon and Jodie Foster and we thoroughly enjoyed it. A good story, plenty of wizz-bang, a very scary baddie, not much to think about (all a little obvious). We agreed, if you like sci-fi, probably you will like this film.

The Riverside Cafe is part of the cinema and this is where we had lunch. As is implied in the name, it overlooks the river that runs through York, the River Ouse. The weather was warm so we ate on the outside terrace. An Amphicar, picture above, was plying up and down the river and attracting a lot of attention. Not a common sight on our river, 4000 of these little amphibious cars were made in Germany in the 60's so there cannot be many left. Good to see.

On Saturday, rain prevented any play at the Oval so I watched another film, "End of Watch". A policier directed by David Ayer and starred Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena. The cover sleeve says "a gritty and visceral cop thriller that puts the viewer at the centre of the action." For once, I agree with the sleeve note. It took me a couple of minutes to get used to the documentary style of story telling, but then I settled down and I enjoyed the film very much.

I think Jake Gyllenhaal is turning into a very fine actor, one I want to see. I really enjoyed "Source Code" and "Prince of Persia" and earlier, "Donnie Darko", "Brokeback Mountain" and "Jarhead". IMDB lists four new films, I look forward to those.