6th Mar - The Greatest Movie?



Still reeling from yesterday's news, I spoke to a select group of my closest friends, expressing gratitude for their involvements in my life. All of us sports fans, we'd seen the likes of Marc Vivien-Foe, Antonio Puerta, Daniel Jarque, and Cheick Tiote succumb to cardiac-related deaths whilst live on the football field over the years, whilst other established athletes such as Nwankwo Kanu, Fabrice Muamba, Iker Casillas, Daley Blind and - most recently - Christian Eriksen, were fortunate enough to fall victim to the grip reaper after similar health issues. 

Remarkably, causes like Myocarditis, and Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, seem to have elevated rates within athletes, proving that often, the fittest of hearts can be under the most stress. This research was backed up by Jack Goodman, Professor of Cardiovascular exercise psychology at the University of Toronto, who remarked that intense exercise can act "as a trigger" to these conditions, with slower, or more relaxed forms of exercise, such as the #WalkToWork scheme, providing less strain on the valve. 




With that in mind, I decided to fill my own heart with happiness, and watched the hotly-discussed new movie, 'The Batman'. Every decade or so, a film comes along which captivates expectation and proves something of a lightning rod for cultural occurrences, and common societal phenomenons. We may have just found that movie for the Millennial generation, who were lucky enough to grow up in an era when re-runs of classics such as 'The Empire Strikes Back' were shown in cinemas, but were then forced to wait until their late-teens, and early 20s for Nolan to save the day with his 'Dark Knight' trilogy, 'Inception', and 'Interstellar', all within the space of eight glorious years.

Pierced by the brilliance of 'The Wolf of Wall Street' in 2013, and Marvel's two-part Avengers finale, 'Infinity War' (2018), and 'End-Game' (2019), the 'teenies' were perhaps, the glorious rise before the fall of COVID, and a dark beginning to the 20s. This latest offering, directed by Matt Reeves, is not just the best Batman movie since 2008, but perhaps the best movie - full stop - in the past 14 years of cinema. I wrote a full review, in fact, about this one...







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