The Bourne Substitution

Remember a few years back, when Paul Greengrass did ‘Green Zone’, and it had Matt Damon in it, but it wasn’t a Bourne movie? But that the studio wanted to remind us, all the same, that it was from the director of two Bourne movies and that it had Jason Bourne in it? But it wasn’t actually anything like a Bourne movie?

Or when ‘The Adjustment Bureau’ came along and they told us it was like ‘Inception meets (you’ll never guess, really) Bourne’? Well, why not keep everyone happy and take practically every film Matt Damon has been in and substitute the titles with Bourned-up versions?

I did.

The Martian

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We’ll sleep when we’re dead

We’re all so very, very tired. Seems like there are very few people you’ll chat to who tell you they’re wide awake, full of beans and rearing to go. Young, old, and everywhere in between, we yawn, or try to hide our yawns. We rub our eyes, throw eye drops into them like they will somehow be reset with a little salt water solution.

“I just need a good night’s sleep,” says someone. “It doesn’t matter how early I go to sleep or for how long, I’m still tired,” says someone else.

We exercise, we change how and what we eat, we suck up health and wellbeing vlogs like they’re a magical elixir. But none of it can turn the fatigue Titanic around. And somewhere up ahead, out there in the darkness, is the iceberg that will end it for us all.

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The Rian of Skywalker

I’ve had enough time to think about the conclusion to the Star Wars saga now. And I’m glad I waited until seeing Knives Out before voicing it. You know what? Rian Johnson knows how to write a great story and make a bloody good movie. Knives Out is brilliant. It does some daring things, and while the trailer makes it look like an Agatha Christie style whodunnit, it kind of ventures more down the Columbo path, where the killer, albeit unintentional, is revealed at the outset. I know there are a lot of “fans” who willed Knives Out to be dogshit on account of what he did with/to The Last Jedi, but as I said, I thought his latest was and is brilliant.

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