Category: Films

Above is a polaroid I took of my beloved Spider-Man when I was 8 or so. He came in a proper cloth suit but for some reason, I didn’t think that was shiny enough so I stripped him naked and painted on my version. It took me fucking ages. I was obsessed with Spider-Man as…

Taken at face value, this is a gripping thriller about the D-Day landings in World War Two. Andrew Scott plays James Stagg, a metereologist appointed to give Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) the weather report for the day. If it was just these two, in a box, reciting the script at each other, I would love it.…

God, I wish I was as handsome as Archie Leach. ? In an alternate reality, he was happily out and bi and perhaps experienced less heartache in his life. #CaryGrant ????????????

A Night To Remember is, in every way, a better film than Titanic. The clincher is when it soo accurately depicts the awfulness of a rubbish cuppa. Brutal. [EDIT] Just re-watching Titanic and it’s soooo… corny? Whereas A Night To Remember feels like a documentary, Titanic feels smug. First big wince is Zane with the,…

Here’s me top MERRY CRISIS SEASONS GREASONS films! 1. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)2. The Bishop’s Wife (1947)3. Scrooged (1988)4. The Holdovers (2023)5. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)6. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)7. The Shop Around The Corner (1940)8. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)9. A Christmas Carol (1951)10. The Snowman (1982) what’s yours?

I was twenty or twenty-one when this film came out. Though I was older than Danny Embling, 1987 was the year of my first (requited) love. And, like Danny’s, it was complicated.  This review is of the film I know, the film I love. It won’t be the same film as you watch, unless you’re…

People really hated on Babylon when it came out and I never quite got why. To me, it seemed to be a likeable update of Bogdanovich’s 1976 Nickelodeon ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickelodeon_(film) ). Yeah, some of the jokes don’t land for me and some of it seems a little forced but I love the sentimentality of it and the…

In mildly startling news: Venom – The Last Dance was not awful. Decent tea-time film, a solid 6/10. I’m sad that Chiwetel only slightly reprised his character from Serenity. I had hoped he was gonna be a big bad but nah.

My Old Ass (2024) Firstly, a warning: if you’ve had anyone close to you die this year, probably don’t watch this film. Or even read the rest of this review.  Secondly, I had some mild spoilers about My Old Ass appear on TikTok which annoyed me so if my review sounds all vague and hand-wavey,…

I’m having to watch # GodzillaMinusOne (#???-1.0??????, #GojiraMainasuWan) in chunks cos it’s just making me cry too much. The contrast between this film and the sub-video-game-cutscene bilge currently doing the rounds is astonishing. The last time Hollywood Gojira had any real heart was when Bryan Cranston was in it – TEN years ago. I actually…

From the opening introduction by Omar Sharif, I knew I was going to love this film, it was simply a matter of how deep that love would be. Well, it’s 9/10 deep. The story is that patriarch Moulay Hassan Bel Amor, (played by Sharif) has passed away and his family and friends are gathering to…

This film is exactly as good as any of the Fast & Furious films, Expendables or Megs 1&2. It is WAAY more fun and watchable than the last Jurassic Blah film. It is not as good as The Bourne Identity or Oceans Thirteen. It is not trying to be The Bicycle Thieves or The 400…

I was curious about Babylon. So many reviews utterly panned it. Said it was confused, shouty, simplistic and, most damningly, not as good as the films it referenced. Twenty minutes in, I was hooked and in that mindstate which is a bit like the stares. If I’d been at the cinema, I would have been…

Currently re-watching #TheMatrixResurrections and loving it. It could slip into being too meta / post-modern / empty bricolage and yet it does not. “Nothing can breed violence like scarcity.” For those of us who were inoculated with Marxism early and are now fat and old, there are extra layers of nostalgia, pathos and deep regret.…

Just watched Living with BIll Nighy, the Ikiru remake and I am sooo drained from the sad beauty of it and dehydrated from crying. Aimee Lou Wood is flawless, her performance is impeccable. I’m sure Oscars are in her future. Nighy so reminds me of my Dad, of a lost ideal of literally gentle men…

I really don’t understand the low score for this film, I expected something dull and lifeless. But it’s a hoot, from the start to the last meowing post-credits scene. It is way, way better than I expected from the critical savaging it got at release. PEOPLE – IT’S A MONSTER FILM! The clue is in…

First – this is not a romcom. Well, it’s about as much a romcom as Punch Drunk Love or Eternal Sunshine are. There are funny bits but it’s the baby chickens on Eraserhead’s dinner plate funny. Fundamentally, it’s a science fiction film that uses the mechanism of time travel to explore determinism, identity, existentialism and,…

Well, the credits are rolling and I’m wiping away my tears. Again. Oof, I probably shouldn’t have watched this film once I’d seen the premise. But what a film! You know how Pixar do kids films but they gut you if you’re an adult? Slumberland just did that to me. The energy of this film…

(This is very much a deliberately vague, no spoilers review) Watching Honor Society was a funny-sad-oh-what-OH NO-awh rollercoaster that left me feeling good in the way that alleged feel-good movies rarely do. This is very nearly a perfect film. I think it’s Mean Girls-level in terms of the whole ensemble being perfectly cast and not…

Years ago I worked out how to travel between universes. I was pleased but not overly so, thinking, ‘well, this is a normal skill, like riding a bike or getting cold butter to spread.’ Turns out, no it’s not and if you talk about it too much, people will start thinking you’re a nutter and…

What could have been a very join-the-dots high school sex frolic takes some nice twists and delivers some very goofy laughs framed around the most ridiculous things humans do: sex.

Watched this today – it’s a lovely film and has some deft twists and turns which I’m certainly not gonna ruin with spoilers. However, if you’re a fan of hunky werewolves, be prepared to do a little squeal at one point. This is Adrian Greensmith’s first feature and he’s definitely deserving of a future in…

So, I just watched ‘Kate,’ an action flick on Netflix (not bad, I’d give it a solid 8.5/10) and I thought I’d pop and see the score. Hmmm… seems quite low… I wonder why? Then I see this review: There’s a load of reviews like this, sometimes the woman-hating is better disguised than this, mostly…

“Annihilating an ecosystem for political appearances is not my modus operandi.” So, how do you know when you’ve just watched a great film? Not a good film but a great film? Film is such an accretion of magical sleight-of-hand, such an array of hidden talents that I think you have to feel it. In your…

I was expecting this to be quite throwaway and was really only drawn in by Weaver and Rodriguez. But then, up pop Shalhoub, Lapaglia etc. ~ there are no bad performances in this film. That being said it veers between B-movie with an A-movie cast and arthouse, Looper-esque weirdness. That’s not an insult as I…

I was tagged by @thesuburbanerd to list nine films. Here we go! Kings Of Summer  An American Werewolf In London L’homme Qui Aimait Les Femmes Ordinary People Pather Panchali Ruby Sparks A Canterbury Tale Mean Girls The Year My Voice Broke I nominate whoever reads this and feels like it. 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6811018/ A great romp, based on the Arthurian legends but set in a modern, believable Britain. Like Attack The Block, the film depicts kids without going all Disney and syrupy and shite. Also, a really lovely, inventive score that has some of the best melding of orchestral and electronic sounds I’ve heard in years, by…

Everest is a 2015 biographicaladventure film directed and produced by Baltasar Kormákur and written by William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy, adapted from Beck Weathers‘ memoir Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest(2000). It stars an ensemble cast of Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Robin Wright, Michael Kelly, Sam Worthington, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson,…

Just watched PM&TWW with my bff and I feel really emotionally wrung out. It’s perhaps the most positive, honest film depiction of polyamory I’ve seen so far. As someone who’s been in both mono and poly relationships (though I’d never go mono again), this film finally gets past the prurience and into the meat of…

Gustave: I suppose this is to be expected back in… Where do you come from again? Zero: Aq Salim al-Jabat. Gustave: Precisely. I suppose this is to be expected back in Aq Salim al-Jabat where one’s prized possessions are a stack of filthy carpets and a starving goat, and one sleeps behind a tent flap…

(This is from a Tumblr thread where people were defending Tatum. Well, I had to add something, didn’t I?) He IS brilliant in Hail Caesar, not least because he’s also having sly fun with popular notions about him as an actor. Takes a brave actor to do that and keep on point. May I also…

I’ve *just* finished watching this (the credits are still rolling) and I want to get my review down while it’s all fresh… PICO VERSION: good romcom with actual rom and com. See it! Now, onto the long version. Chris Rock is Andre Allen, a hugely successful comedian. The trouble is that his success is based…

I’m just watching Attenborough’s biopic of Charlie Chaplin. It’s an embarrassment of riches. The first is, of course, a young, impishly handsome Robert Downey Jr. As Chaplin. Now, if you’ve only seen RDJ in his more recent roles, it’s not like he’s got any worse as an actor; he’s tremendously assured and mature. Possibly only…