I found the film disappointing, as often happens when trailing the hyping masses to see a hotly anticipated film. I’d expected an upbeat, exciting, thrilling tale of Zuckerberg and pals, starting something massive in their dorm room. Instead I got a bleak mix of booze, betrayal, and some fairly depressing lawsuits. And Justin Timberlake as the super-confident Josh Lyman of the film injecting punchy mission statements and tacky glamour into the mix whilst mysteriously looking like a try-hard dad.

Facebook aims to make it easier to keep in touch with the people you care about, so it feels strange that the film is void of any warmth, and this lack of warmth is all pinned on Zuckerberg himself. Intentional or not, it feels a little too easy and contrived, and Zuckerberg’s character seems a little too robotic and one-sided. But perhaps I didn’t buy the screenplay generally – the break-up scene at the beginning of the film grabbed my attention, but it felt like an exchange between thirty or forty-somethings. I think in his bid to create a stinging volley of dialogue, Sorkin forgot to convey the characters as young people who are believable and emotionally clumsy. And that continued throughout the film.

A bit of navel-gazing never hurt any blogger, and as the film’s protagonist and I are roughly the same age, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between Zuckerberg’s study environment in Harvard circa 2003 and my own of the same year. Fireplaces, a proper college-wide network and signature Sorkin-speed speech were the main differences. To contrast, I was inventing cooking dances to keep warm in the kitchen, (still) struggling with dial-up internet (I think we first got 128k broadband in 2004) and being quietly socially inept.

If the film doesn’t work in itself as entertainment (for me at least), it certainly doles out good advice to budding entrepreneurs (better than Alan Sugar’s Apprentice, that’s for sure): don’t be dumb about IP, be prepared to sacrifice your friends, cover your back and get a good lawyer.

Guy 2: Nah, not yet. What’s it about?

Guy 1: Oh, y’know, it’s a bit like Solaris. Kindof boring drift through space with some weird stuff. It’s not action, it’s not even a thriller.

Guy 2: Doesn’t sound great.

Guy 1: The worst of it is that Chris Evans is in it, and he doesn’t take his top off.

Guy 2: Oh well there’s no point in seeing it at all then.

Guy 1: Indeed.

Yesterday, behind a pillow and courtesy of our brilliant new tellybox, I watched The Day After Tomorrow. Besides the intended ridiculousness of the plot, and a stupendous number of other goof-ups, I was pretty angry that after a steady period of getting worse and worse and worse, three continent-wide storms literally vanished into thin air, shocking everyone on the ground. Even astronauts in space (can’t have a disaster movie without some incidental astronauts) were astounded, even though they had bugger all else to look at. Five minutes of major/modal orchestral swooning and a bit of heroic presidential fluff later, the film is over. My pillow’s covered in sick.

I felt exactly the same way about War of the Worlds. Massive thunderbolts, bloodsucking, a futile war waged by puny man on these mammoth beasties from Mars. Everyone’s dead. Brilliant! All that’s left is for Tom Cruise to have his eyes plucked out and the film will be over and I can gleefully recommend it to all my friends. But no: the beasties get a cold and everyone’s fine. There’s a certain beauty in mankind being saved by one of its greatest nuisances, the rhinovirus. However, I think Friedman, Spielberg and co must’ve been contractually obliged by the money morons to tack on a feel-good ending. Pass the bucket. Only one good thing came out of the ludicrous ending: it gave John Williams a breather from wasting a whole orchestra solely on making menacing, chromatic, brass-led stabbing noises.

Ironic then, that The Science of Sleep – a film entirely about the beauty and power of dreams, and with the most simple and loosest of plots, floated my boat entirely. It wasn’t all that surprising, since we watched it at the lovely Electric Cinema and I’m a big fan of Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That said, it was a real tonic to watch a film with no particular agenda other than just to be a bit beautiful and quirky. More of that, please.

I guess innocent child-like fantasy escapism from grotesque and graphic horror isn’t exactly a new idea, but here it’s completely affecting. I strongly recommend it, but only in the same way that I’d recommend that other film that left recently left me a jibbering wreck, Requiem for a Dream: watch it and plan to do something wholly comforting immediately afterwards.

So I’m really intrigued to know what the world thinks of Casino Royale’s opening credits. Stylistically they reminded me slightly of the superb Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and generally I thought they were awesome. But what was going on with David Arnold & Chris Cornell’s theme? I’ve listened to this several times now and still I feel as though it doesn’t fit well at all. Is it just me?

• View all the Bond film title sequences

The only downside is that it left me feeling acutely mortal – it’s quite unnerving to feel so dissociated from something which happened a mere nine years ago, isn’t it? Where did all that time go? Where are all those distraught, ill-coiffured public mourners now?

I’d forgotten about the wonder of the Y-front-shaped 3D glasses and the resultant action scenes which occur in your face. Brilliant. The music was rousing, Lois was a bit of a feisty madam, and clever with it (except that she’s still fooled by Clark’s not-very-convincing glasses), and the kid – despite having two of the sexiest citizens of Metropolis for parents – still ended up looking like a mini Mark Owen. How did that happen?

Which leads me to another thing – when did Superman have the time between saving old grannies to get Ms Lane up the duff? I know he’s a speedy guy, but surely if he’d been too hasty there’d've been chafing? Either way I’m glad we didn’t have to see the deed. I bet it was all awkward with Superman getting his cape caught on the doorhandle whilst fumbling with Lois’ bra, and Lois struggling with his sewn-on outer pants. And I bet she was a complete skank and had a quick ciggie afterwards too. Bleurgh.

Despite these distressing thoughts, I really enjoyed the film. Every single role was cast perfectly in my eyes, and though it wasn’t particularly mind-shattering, I’m definitely looking forward to the next instalment. I might even go back and watch all the originals again and overcome my paralysing fear of the robot woman in Superman III…

Things which have been floating my boat recently, and which should be at least entering your general pond:

• Google Calendar – I especially love the way it integrates with GMail – when emails with events come in, GMail provides a link to add it directly to the calendar. Look out, Outlook (OK, I’ll hand myself in to the Pun Police)
• Belleville Rendez-vous – wonderfully diverting, mind-expanding and wholly endearing piece of animation. I’m not the only one who loves it – Metacritic: 91, IMDB: 7.7.
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  Kate Rusby – she’s been loved for a few years in Pearson Towers but I only saw her live last week at The Big Ask Live at Koko (VIP ticket very generously supplied by Stephen, who won a pair over at Friends Of The Earth). Also great to see Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood playing some new Radiohead material (I have very high hopes for the new album) as well as a good chunk of the downright awesome classics. It’s been 6 years since I last saw Radiohead. Shows how poor I am, I guess.

• Being a hermit (did I mention this already? Hiding under the duvet and chomping an easter egg whilst watching Miles and Anna arguing is just excellent)
• This Life – for all its dodgy acting, annoying (arty) shaky camerawork, persistent references to the 90s and the odd laughable computer, it’s still compelling drama. Thank goodness for the DVD.
• Soil and Pimp – giant Japanese jazz artists with so much energy you wonder exactly what the pimp has been feeding them.
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  Ginglik – this tiny little club is surely the dictionary definition of intimate. At The Big Secret on a Wednesday it’s all sofas, drapes and the Wand Of Silence – waved at noisemakers by Amity the host – as she presides over an evening of live music from carefully selected up-and-coming singer/songwriters. Inspiring stuff.

And now off to the pub in search of a much-needed Corona at dusk. I think it should definitely be late spring all year round.

The last film I saw which came close to provoking a similar reaction in me was Crash. I won’t spoil it for you here, I just recommend that if you’re toying with the idea of seeing it, then please do.