WEEK 11, PART TWO - THE REVENANT

Like a more gruesome modern day Jeremiah Johnson, The Revenant was my second film in two nights back in mid August, because I didn't want to drink a bottle of red wine all in one go, plus I had loads of food leftover from night one.

I thought the red wine (Buzbag Reserv from Turkey, an 'old world' grape called Bogazkere) might have improved overnight, having had chance to 'breathe' or whatever wine is supposed to do, but if anything, I found it more undrinkable.

You can see I was optimistic and focussed before we kicked the night off though ........

The wine actually mirrored the film, which was a (good but) painful slog throughout. Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy (who turned out to be a baddie) and some other dudes evaded evil Frenchmen and territorial Red Indians, and just thrashed about in the wilderness for few hours, or months in their terms.

Di Caprio got attacked by a bear in one of the hardest to watch scenes in #WWWSI history, and spent the rest of the film in the snow trying his best to survive, which never seemed very likely, crawling into dead horses to get a good night's kip, catching fish with his hands, all with infected wounds galore.

We didn't even get a pub scene. Though something perhaps approaching Platform 3, Claygate levels i.e. largely outdoors.

I'm not sure I'm selling this film. When he died at the end, I actually felt a bit cheated. What was the point in that painful last two hours? I did enjoy it in a weird kind of way, perhaps it appeals to my rural pub treks to places like Cumbria and Cornwall.

'Survival' films as a genre are a bit like the Modern Western, I always think of my sister's boyfriend when watching films like this, he fancies himself as a Bear Grylls type, lighting fires with two twigs, carrying multi tooled penknives around, he bosses the Everitt Family Bonfire Night each year. I wasn't surprised when my sister told me he'd subjected her to this film a few weeks back!

On a happier note, the food tasted better tonight.

Prize if you can name the various components .......

On an even happier note, I'm loving the Western mixtape that a man called 'Matthew' sent me through the post.

Some truly incredible songs on it, oh and I'm ordering a Western themed tee shirt to wear as a kind of uniform for future #WWWSI nights.

Well, that was pointless, but I want to get this up to date as Week 13 might actually occur next week!

Si