The Arrival of Spring

The biannual changing of the clock has happened again, and, as usual, it seems to be too much for people to deal with. Not only is Twitter full of people making the same Stonehenge joke, but the 6 Music news this morning carried a report from a group that wants to keep BST all year round because "it would create 38,000 jobs in the leisure industry," because apparently it's the clocks changing that makes it get dark early in the wintertime, and not, I don't know, our latitude or something.

Anyway, ever since the time a friend accidentally turned up two hours early for a breakfast date on the first day of BST, I've developed a method of coping with the forwards/backwards motion of the year. In the autumn, when we get an extra hour, I watch a crappy film. The kind of film that makes you say, "that's two hours of my life I'm never getting back," because I can at least get one back on that magical night in October.

But in the spring you lose an hour, so it's important to spend that Saturday night watching a really good film so that the three hours you've spent on it will have been worth it.

Arrival is one such film.

Amy Adams tries to remember whether it's now 9am or 11am

If you haven't seen Arrival, I recommend you learn as little as possible about it before you do see it. (Don't worry, I'm not going to tell you anything about it). That's what I did, anyway. I saw the very first teaser, said "yes, I will see this film," and then made sure to avoid all discussion or reviews of it, so I had no idea what to expect. And I can tell you that it is very much the Deep Impact to Interstellar's Armageddon.

Saying that made me wonder what Michael Bay's Arrival would look like. If I were one of those YouTube people, I would now cleverly cut some clips together to make it look like Nicholas Cage was in Arrival, and he would maybe try and hand a bunny through the barrier to the... but Michael Bay didn't even direct that film, which is why it's the one that's good.

Certainly, it would have involved a lot more shouting. That is one thing I really, truly loved about Arrival. It has almost no shouting in it. Oh, and no hilarious paedophiles. Or Aerosmith. Or close-ups of Megan Fox's arse (I realise some people might see that as a negative). I won't say any more, in case I give anything away.

In case you're wondering, I've picked out my candidate for this October. It's this. Who's with me?