A winter's fail

I would love to do a detailed review of Winter's Bone, this season's critical darling movie which I went to see last night. Unfortunately, whilst I did indeed pay for my ticket, took my seat and watched the first half hour or so,  wherein the basic premise was established (teenage girl living in Midwestern wilderness and looking after her semi-comatose mother and younger siblings must find her absent dad who's put their house up as a bail bond), I did not manage to catch the whole thing.

Don't get me wrong, I was there in my seat for the duration. It's just that getting older appears to have bestowed unto me the ability to nod off whenever I find myself in a cinema after a certain time of night. It doesn't matter how entertaining the film is, nor how noisy. I managed to snooze during Inception and even near the end of Star Trek, for goodness sake (and I love Star Trek).

So Winter's Bone unfolded for me in a somewhat hallucinatory fashion as I drifted in and out of consciousness. (CONFUSING SPOILERS ALERT) One minute Ree (the superb Jennifer Lawrence, above) was being threatened by a terrifying hillbilly crone, the next she was trying to join the army as a way of paying off her family's debts, then she was showing her bro and sis how to skin squirrels, then she was in a boat - OMG she's cutting the hands of a sunken corpse! - and finally I caught the last 15 mins where everything ties up fairly nicely, if ambiguously.

From the bits I managed to see, it seemed very well made and immersive, and pretty much everyone else has considered it to be brilliant, so I suppose I'll have to take their word for it. This cinema sleepytime thing, though, is getting REALLY ANNOYING. For a few years now, the combination of the darkness and comfy seats of cinemas and an advanced time of night has always made me nod off.

I had a bit of a cold yesterday and didn't sleep brilliantly the night before, though I still got a good seven hours so that's not much of an excuse. Alcohol doesn't help the situation though. I only had one pre-movie pint last night, but past experience suggests that the slightest drop decreases my chances of staying awake - and later film showings almost always form part of a wider evening out which also contains a pub or restaurant visit where beer or wine is invariably on the agenda.

The stupid thing is, I knew I'd be running the risk of falling asleep last night and yet I still arranged to do the pub-food-cinema sequence of events, when I could quite easily have lobbied for an earlier screening with more socialising to follow. For some reason the former option seemed more socially acceptable. Well, no more. From now on, I'm going to avoid any post-8pm cinema visits if at all possible. And if I am invited to such an event, any alcohol that evening will be replaced by AT LEAST two cans of Monster and/or Relentless (other scarily powerful energy drinks are available). I may not be able to sleep for the whole night as a result, and other patrons may well be disturbed by the loud thumping of my heart beating thirty-to-the-dozen. But at least I won't miss any more bloody films.