Popcorn and Pace - Catching Up on 2025

Life is little different since I last wrote a blog post at the back end of 2024, and I'm sure there are a lot of people who haven't known what to think about all things Film and TV over the last few months as a result of my thought pieces disappearing, but don't worry, I am back with some life reflections with some new film/tv opinion pieces to come soon.

I've spent a lot of time over the last few months trying to gain a better understanding on what makes my brain tick, and truthfully I feel like I'm the closest I've been to understanding it for the first time in a long time. It's something that I probably should have done a long time ago, but I never gave myself the respect or time to work out who I am now because It was always too easy to look at who I was coming out of University and ask myself why I don't feel like that person anymore. I had a lot of successes as a result of my time in Student Radio, and they are all still things I am incredibly proud of, but I would be lying if I said I didn't get stuck on that period for a really long time. However towards the back end of 2024, things started slowly clicking into place in my head that maybe it was finally time to stop asking myself why I am not feeling like the person I was at 23, and instead start asking myself who I am now at 27.

doing a speech at the SRAs

The thing is though, I wasn't really sure how to work that out, and the concept of trial and error seemed a little bit overwhelming, so I decided that I would take up running in my spare time because it seemed like such an accessible hobby to start. I'd been thinking towards the end of last year about getting involved in Parkruns (free community led weekly 5kms) and I had started running slightly more throughout December so the combination just seemed like a safe bet. A few months later and I can comfortably say that I'm glad I made that decision. I wouldn't go as far as saying that it's changed my life, and I definitely wouldn't go as far as saying I am planning to run a Marathon (unless I can get entry into the one at Disney World) but the structure and discipline involved in trying to improve my time/fitness has been incredibly effective at helping me stop looking so far back. When I started the year, I was just over 2 stone heavier than I am now, and my 5km time was sitting at around 32 minutes. My original goal was to get below 30 minutes for the first time and now I am sitting at 5km of 26:16 with a brand new target of getting below 25 minutes. This is something I am incredibly proud of, as well as the fact that I am also 14 parkruns in (with my original year goal being to do 10) which includes an international parkrun I really enjoyed doing.

a parkrun pb

The success of embracing running as a new interest led me to start having a bigger think about what else 27 year old me is passion about and one of the things that kept coming to my head is something that most people, especially in the UK, might be slightly surprised by and that is: the History of Saturday Night Live (aka SNL). I think it is fascinating, so fascinating that I am actually a couple of books deep into learning as much as I can with more books to go. I've decided to really embrace how interesting I find it and so far, I've read Live From New York: An Uncensored History Of Saturday Night Live, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, and Born Standing Up (by Steve Martin - not directly SNL but he does talk about it!) with two or three more SNL books on my shelf ready to go. For me, it's crazy how much of a cultural anchor the show has been over the last 50 years for pretty much all entertainment. It has made the careers of virtually every star in US comedy that you can think of, and if it hasn't made them, it's most likely to have heavily influenced them to get to where they are now. I am actually planning one of my next blog posts to be about why I love learning the history of the show so much because with the SNL UK launch around the corner, I think it will be a really fascinating watch to see if this new version can have as much cultural impact over time as the original has.

outside 30 rock in april last year

Outside of all these things, I've still been watching as much Film and Television as I can. I think for me being able to immerse myself into these worlds will always be my favourite type of escapism. According to Letterboxd, I've watched 34 films so far this year with my favourite new films being Saturday Night (see above), Mickey 17 (love you R Patz) and Sinners (along with most of the internet). Three different films but all using the art of film making in various different ways to tell interesting stories. There is a particular sequence in Sinners which is arguably one of the best uses of cinema as a storytelling medium that I've experienced for a long time and is rightfully getting a lot of praise online from fans and critics alike. Weirdly, compared to previous years, I actually find myself watching more television than I do film at the moment but I think that's just because we've been incredibly lucky as audiences that so much good television has come out so far in 2025. Off the top of my head, shows that I've seen that I would recommend to people include; Severance S2 (although not as good as the first), Paradise, The Studio, Your Friends and Neighbors, Adolescence and to be honest, there are still plenty of other really good shows from this year that I haven't mentioned. I am effectively working on the general rule that I trust Apple TV pretty heavily at the moment with the shows they're releasing. For me, they are pumping out a lot of really high standard, well written shows with most of that list just mentioned being on their streaming platform. On a sidenote, another thing that's happened so far this year is that I completed a distant learning course in Freelance and Music Writing with the London School of Journalism achieving a Diploma with Honours - another mini fun achievement from 2025.

To conclude, I am really interested about where the rest of 2025 is going to go, and I feel proud of myself for getting back to a stronger position mentally where I can say that I feel pretty confident that there are some exciting things ahead for the rest of the year and that is a nice feeling to have again.