WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABU FRICK?

Well Christmas is now a discarded wrapper and the New Year lumbers into its jittery stride. Despite vows of rude health Moonbase has already succumbed to its first pathogen as the Missus is down with a tummy bug. My own medical travails before Christmas have resulted in a formal meeting at work next week too! Add to that the dog secretly eating a bar of chocolate at a friend's house and we have not had the rosiest of starts to twenty twenty!

I am hopeful though of brighter times round the bend and the prospect of a further Moonbase baby Junior around Eastertime is particularly welcome. Grandparenting is the top job on the base these days!

In the meantime, I've continued the festive habit of film-watching and some recent viewings include London has Fallen, with all-round hard-man Gerard 'I am Sparta' Butler [Angel has Fallen has come out too although I've no idea what Angel means] and the harrowing horror Get Out, a sort of modern version of a body parts shocker like Coma.

I also caught the first half hour of a film that haunted me as a kid, Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice. Part of the Psycho-biddy sub-genre of horror, its about a cackling conniving widow who likes to fleece and bury her housekeepers in her desert garden. The terrifying lead Geraldine Page's demented laugh unnerved me for years to come and always gives me a shiver whenever I hear it on the telly!

Dracula was a tasty morsel for many of us and we've blogged about it already. The buzz it created reminded me of another classic monster adaptation in the Seventies, when Frankenstein got the TV treatment. I remember watching it with my parents and bearing in mind the UK had just three channels it will have been well watched in 1973 or 4. The adaptation cast Dr. Polidori as the 'mad' scientist rather than the usual Baron and the monster was played by handsome Canadian Michael Sarrazin. The stand-out scene which I recall to this day was when the monster bursts into a ballroom and rips Jane Seymour's head off and throws it across the floor. Shocking for a TV programme back then, it has stayed with me ever since.

The icing on the week has to have been Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker at the pictures. Many fine tributes and critiques will pepper the net so I won't go on, suffice to say that I enjoyed it greatly. I enjoy all Star Wars films as they all in some way conjure up the magic I felt when I first saw the original trilogy. From the initial 'In a Galaxy ....' to the opening scene I always get choked up recalling how elated I was seeing the first run years and years ago. I could tell my friend was similarly excited as he always asks 'up or down?' referring to the direction of camera pan at the start of the film. I got it right this time too! The movie overall was a choice galactic romp and old chums like the Falcon, 3PO, Leia and Lando made it special. I also liked the affection shown for different lightsabres and my new fave character is the diminutive droid mechanic Babu Frick the grease pug. Despite my ongoing misgivings about Sith Lord Kylo Ren, the only real thing missing is the vanished 20th Century Fox double spotlights opening now Disney have sadly taken over. I miss that opening so much!

Have you seen any of these and maybe the new Star Wars?