The GardenDespatches from The Satyrs’ Forest

Mx Tynehorne’s link roundup, volume XLIII

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Ranking British and English patriotic songs for no discernable reason

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Britain is, as everyone around the globe agrees (source: Nigel Farage, who surely would never lie about anything), the greatest 3½ countries in a trenchcoat on Earth. To that end, there have been a great number of odes and pæans written to it, as well as England — not that there was often a distinction drawn until well into the twentieth century. (Sorry, Scotland and Wales. And the other one.)1

This is a ranking of said songs, from worst to best. Starting off with…

7. I Vow to Thee, My Country

I’m conflicted about putting this in last. On one hand, “Thaxted”, the snippet of Holst’s “Jupiter” on which I Vow to Thee is based, is one of the most beautiful pieces of music i’ve ever had the pleasure of piping into my ears. On the other hand, that’s why it pains me to see it converted into such a generikit patriotic tune.

And to the extent that it is patriotic, it’s downright creepy. England’s a wonderful place, yes, but to feel a “love that asks no questions” towards it is practically inviting Oswald Mosley over for tea. How are you meant to make Britain better if you can’t ask questions of it?

6. God Save the King

It’s a poor national anthem, frankly, because rather than about the nation, it’s about one guy. I have nothing but respect for His Majesty, but his presence alone is not what makes this country great.

5. There’ll Always Be an England

In the canon of the music that got us through the second world war, there’s no competing with “We’ll Meet Again” — but that’s not a patriotic song, now, is it? Top marks for putting the focus squarely on the country of England, rather than the soldiers who defend it or monarchs who rule it, but i could care less for the refrain of “red, white, and blue — what does it mean to you?”. Those are the national colours of literally all four of the major Allied powers, Vera. That doesn’t actually set us apart.

4. Rule, Britannia

Over the years, “Rule, Britannia” has taken on a tinge of denial — “Britannia rule the waves” sounds more like a heavy dose of copium rather than a sincere brag of naval superiority. Still, much as people rag on it as a piece of imperial nostalgia, there’s nothing like seeing the entire Royal Albert Hall chant “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves” in unison to bring a patriotic tear to a liberal Brit’s eye.

3. Land of Hope and Glory

This has gotten as far as it has based chiefly on the music itself rather than the few lyrics set to it — but brevity is the soul of wit, no? It simply has the aura of a great national anthem for reasons that are difficult to put into words. (Something something dancing about architecture.)

2. Three Lions

What makes “Three Lions” so great even outside the context of football is that it surmises a very English philosophy in a way none of the other songs on this list do: the stiff upper lip in the face of defeat.

Yes, England hasn’t won a major tournament since the sixties, and yes, the country’s gone to hell in a handbasket, but you know bloody what? [Sixty] years of hurt never stopped me dreaming. We still believe, in spite of everything around us, that it might be coming home — despite knowing that it won’t. And that’s the beautiful thing about England.

1. Jerusalem

“Jerusalem” is so explicitly Christian that it baffles even me that it’s my favourite. What makes it work is that it takes what “There’ll Always Be an England” does — praising the country of England, not its leaders — and turns that dial right up to eleven, with the romanticist flair of William Blake’s masterful pen. For just a moment, even the most hardened atheist finds himself willing to believe that maybe, just maybe, the countenance of Christ shone forth upon the Pennines.

The perfect antidote to the cultish “I Vow to Thee, My Country”, way back at the bottom of the list, “Jerusalem” is all about fighting for a better England. Yes, thank you — i will pick up my bow of burning gold and fight to build the new Jerusalem in this green and pleasant land, bugger any cynics who try to stop me. Things could be better somewhat, and they will — but only if we as a country fight for it.

Stuff i watched recently, February ’25

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A collage of the belowmentioned works
Not pictured: the Robbie Williams monkey movie.

I’ll confess i’m skipping past a lot of Christmas films for this recap, because i’d seen most of them before and those memories are blanketed in a thick fog of advocaat and chocolate. Nevertheless: here’s — if not all — most of the things i’ve watched over the past couple of months.

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Perhaps i’m being unfair to a film that’s a rounding error away from a century old, but this was nightmarish in the literal sense. A terrifying parade of disconnected events where things just happen without rhyme or reason. By the end of it, i just wanted to wake up. (2/10)

Conclave (2024)

“If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts.”

Perfectly hits that Twelve Angry Men nerve in my brain. What i love about this, apart from the truly devious vape hits, is that rather than some grandiose, ancient, mysterious cabal, the Catholic Church is treated as exactly what it is: the world’s oldest bureaucracy.1 (10/10)

Nosferatu (2024)

“I have seen things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother's womb!”

I’m playing a dangerous game here, because i watched this on the first of January, 2025 — meaning that, once again, there’s a good chance that my “favourite film of 2025” will have come out in 2024. Not that i’m complaining.

Robert Eggers hits it out of the park again in this incredible adaptation of an adaptation of Dracula. Visually, it’s immaculate, drenched in chiaroscuro, the Count himself heralded by a sudden desaturation to bluish silver. The actors bring their A-game all around: Nicholas Hoult, perpetually an up-and-comer, seems finally to be breaking out, and having long forgotten the trailers, the midway appearance of Willem Dafoe was a most welcome surprise. Plus, despite owing her career to a surname, Lily-Rose Depp brings it all to a role that in a lesser actor’s hands could have been yet another generic traumatised wife.

Tl;dr: Don’t go to Romania. (10/10)

Brazil (1985)

I have such a love–hate relationship with Terry Gilliam. His films are so inventive, so wonderful, in theory, everything i love. But they’re always coated in this layer of grime and ugliness that brings them down for me. Here, he finally puts it to good use, building a horrifyingly relatable surreal dystopia that’ll make any Brit who’s ever had to deal with the welfare system cry-laugh in how true it all is. Have you got a 27B/6? I’m a bit of a stickler for paperwork… (8/10)

Heretic (2024)

Talk about wasted potential. Heretic starts out brilliant — two Mormon missionaries are trapped in the house of a Reddit atheist, played marvellously by Hugh Grant, who knows how to make every conversation drip with tension. If it was just two hours of uncomfortable theological arguments, i’d be strapped in.

But, nope! The third act starts, they go into his eeeeevil basement, and there’s a creeeepy emaciated woman talking in cryptic breathy half-sentences!!! Are you scared yet??? (4/10)

Better Man (2024)

I forgot i saw this and had to quickly retract the blog post and edit it back in, which says just about all you need to know. It’s pretty good, and the monkey gimmick’s fun, but i’m not itching to rewatch it any time soon. (5¾/10)

Severance, season 2 (2025)

We are so fucking back. Ben Stiller and company haven’t missed a single step in the three-year-long gap. I’m tearing my hair out trying to figure out the mysteries over here!

The Name of the Rose (1986)

The main message i got from this was reinforcement that the mediæval era is, indeed, the least interesting (to me) of the three broad ages of history. Still, there’s stuff to like here: Sean Connery is always great, and there are so many weird-ass little guys in the monastery that you have to begrudgingly love the energy. (5/10)

The Zone of Interest (2023)

“I wasn't really paying attention… I was too busy thinking how i would gas everyone in the room.”

Behold, the anti–Schindler’s List: a quiet family drama where the head of the family just so happens to be the KZ-Kommandant of Auschwitz.

The magic’s in the sound. We never get to see what goes on behind the walls of the camp, but the implication is enough. Stacks of smoke. The noise of industry. Yelling of orders. Screams of pain. It’s enough to make anyone throw up. The music’s no respite: John Williams this ain’t; what little there is is harsh, discordant, pained.

Sandra Hüller is incredible as the commandant’s wife, a woman who cares much more about the stability of their marriage and financial security than anything her husband might be doing for a living. There’s a chilling conversation where her and her friends, gathered round for tea, chat idly about the clothes of liquidated Jews they won at auction.

Still, it’s a little disjointed; some fragments and branches never quite meet back up with the main trunk of the film. It’s a hard thing to rate… but let’s say (7/10).

Mx Tynehorne’s link roundup, volume XLII

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The 2024 Satyrs’ Forest Horny Awards™

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Film

The Laurel Wreath Award for Annual Achievement in Film

There’s been a terrible glitch in the system. See, last year, i designated Avatar: The Way of Water — a film which by all possible standards was released in 2022 — as my favourite film of 2023. I figured that this was alright, since i had first seen it in January of ’23, during its original release, and it was unlikely to happen again in 2024.

It happened again in 2024.1 Even more egregiously, it was, to my knowledge, long after the film in question’s original 2023 run; my local arthouse cinema just happened to be showing it. Alright then, i thought — i’ll make a new category for my favourite film of last last year, and give the actual award to the second place.

The second place was also a 2023 film — but, in my defence, one which didn’t see a British release until 2024. It’s not until you get to the bronze-medal spot that you get an undisputable, certifiable 2024 release.

As such, not wanting to deprive any of the three of recognition, i, acting in my role as the governor of the Satyrs’ Forest’s Board of Archons (est. time immemorial, number of members: 1), have elected to split the award three ways. Please try to enjoy each movie equally.

The Laurel Wreath Award for Annual Achievement in Film goes to… Anatomy of a Fall!

I caught up with Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall in late March, in what must have been a repertory showing at the Tyneside Cinema, and on paper, this should in no way be my film of the year. I’m a maximalist at heart: i think, generally, that more is more, and the best art is that which stops just short of total sensory abuse. So what’s this quiet legal drama2 about an accident in the French Alps doing on here?

Autobiographical reasons, mostly. I worry about disclosing too much, but i saw so much of myself in the character of Daniel — a shy, mildly disabled kid torn between two cultures who has to deal with the sudden absence of his father — that by the end i was sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and i didn’t even know why.

If you believe the hubbub, this is a mystery film. Who’s really responsible for the dad’s death? Was it Sandra Hüller? Did he kill himself? But Ms Triet has an answer, one that she’s sworn not to reveal for decades — and, if we all saw the same film, i think i know what it is. It was an accident. Always, we see these deliberate shots of the dog’s ball precariously on the stairs, or the son nearly slipping off of snowy ground. The prosecutor even says as much: accidents happen, but they don’t make for a flashy story. So, as humans, we make up intrigue where none exists — because it’s easier to accept evil than that the universe is sometimes a cruel and arbitrary thing.

The Laurel Wreath Award for Annual Achievement in Film also goes to… Poor Things!

Poor Things! Released in 2023 in the U.S., but took until January of 2024 to arrive on this side of the pond. Last year already had a whole awards cycle with it in contention, everyone knows about it, so i’ll be brief. This film would give the average puritanical zoomer a heart attack with the amount of fucking in it, the average puritanical boomer a heart attack at about the point where Emma Stone joins the communist party, and the average modern sadsack a heart attack with how wonderfully optimistic Ms Stone’s character is despite the dour circumstances of her creation. Quality flick.

The Laurel Wreath Award for Annual Achievement in Film goes to… The Substance!

Finally, we come to the only awardee unambiguously released in 2024, and the goopiest film of the year: The Substance. If last year Avatar was a warm bath for the senses, then this is a kick to the face. From the moment the pounding techno score kicks in, every little smack and crinkle of sound is perfectly calibrated to be disgusting in the best possible way, even if it’s just Dennis Quaid eating a bowl of shrimp. Every shot is cranked up to eleven, like you just guzzled down ten Potions of Swiftness and forgot to turn off Quake Pro. It’s fucking glorious.

At some point, you think, ah, okay, i’ve got a handle on the idea here. The movie then slaps you right on the cheek and reminds you that this is The Substance, bitch, and we are going to take this to its logical conclusion whether you like it or not. We’re making it even goopier. Even grosser. Even weirder. And you’re going to either like it or throw up in your popcorn bucket and we don’t care which.

The Zoetrope Award for Classic Cinema

The Zoetrope Award for Classic Cinema goes to… Little Shop of Horrors!

I watched a lot of great old films for the first time last year. Some Like It Hot is a fantastic queer comedy that’s aged far more gracefully than it has any right to (a bit like Dick van Dyke). Schindler’s List3 is a masterpiece that should, by all rights, be this year’s recipient — but i’d be hard-pressed to say i “enjoyed” it, per se. That’s a one-and-done watch.

So, being the certified world #1 Gremlins 2 enjoyer that i am, it falls to 1986’s Little Shop of Horrors to take the crown. I just love this little slice of musical puppet madness. Steve Martin proves that the D in BDSM stands for “dentist”.

The Pebbledash Dildo Award for Cinematic Disappointment

The Pebbledash Dildo Award for Cinematic Disappointment goes to… The Fall Guy!

Oh, Ryan Gosling. I put my trust in you, and this is how you repay me? The Fall Guy had everything teed up for a hole-in-one and whacked itself in the face with a golf club instead.

The problem is in the edit. Dialogue scenes go overlong. Every shot lingers just a second or so too long. The jokes (in this comedy film) are atrocious — but they could have been salvaged with a tighter edit! The setpieces are fun and Mr Gosling is as magnetic as always; the ingredients are there, but it’s just too scattershot to make it work.

The Megalopolis Award for Megalopolest Megalopolis

The Megalopolis Award for Megalopolest Megalopolis goes to… Megalopolis!

Megalopolis. Megalopolis megalopolis megalo polis — me galopolisme gal opolism egalopolis. Megalopolis! Mega10polis/Mega10polis.

Music

The Golden Lyre Award for Excellence in New Music

The Golden Lyre Award for Excellence in New Music goes to… Brat!

I am convinced that Charli XCX’s Brat, where hyperpop grows up and gets a job, is music from the future that only wound up back in 2024 via some horrible spatiotemporal accident that killed two scientists and irradiated the entire Australian Capital Territory. Best song: “Sympathy Is a Knife”.

The Hurdy-Gurdy Award for Enduring Musical Resonance

The Hurdy-Gurdy Award for Enduring Musical Resonance goes to… Levelling the Land!

I found out about the Levellers after a Discord acquaintance put the lyrics to “Sell Out”, off the album Levelling the Land, as their status. I then off-handedly played said song to my mother at a family get-together, who, unbeknownst to me, was a Levellers super-fan in her youth, and informed me that they were going to be in Newcastle this summer and would you like a ticket?

Some months later, and i can comfortably say that yes, they may all be geriatric now, but by the Gods, can they still play. (I’m very glad i found a nice balcony to stand on, because the pit looked like an earthquake was hitting it!) It was a much younger crowd than i’d anticipated, too — lots of old crusty punks, but a decent number of teens and twentysomethings, so the kids (i’m including myself in this) are all right. Best song: “Sell Out”.

Artes electronicĂŚ

The Bedroom Coder Award for Interactive Entertainment

The Bedroom Coder Award for Interactive Entertainment goes to… Sonic Robo Blast 2!

Well it can hardly be anything other than the game that got me off my arse to make a whole dedicated page for it, no? Sonic Robo Blast 2, the longest-developed and most storied Sonic fan game in a community positively choked with them, successfully reactivated the dormant fan neurons in my brain that hadn’t been used since i was twelve. (#SilvazeForLife.)

The controls take some getting used to (if you’re a mouse-and-keyboard type of guy, i suggest in the strongest of terms that you should go into the options and set the control scheme to “Manual”) if you’re used to how other 3D Sonic games control, but you can hardly blame them given that when they started making it Adventure wasn’t even out yet in North America. Once that wee hurdle’s over with, you’re in for a proper joyous adventure.

Oh, and since it’s open source, the modding support is excellent to boot, with tonnes of level packs, tweaks, and nearly every playable character4 from the games you could care to name. So what are you waiting for? Go and download it today!

The Broken Link Award for Best Use of Hypertext goes to… Tidings.potato.horse!

“Fake news” was the defining term of the twenty-tens, and the introduction of easily accessible generative machine-learning tools has only sped up the slop production line. It’s a rough landscape out there — as they say, the truth is paywalled, but the lies are free.

This year’s winner turns the whole tripe-conomy on its head by going more retro than you could possibly imagine. Enter Tidings.potato.horse ­— a self-described “mediæval content farm”, where four robot bards sum up the week’s news in absurd lyrical form. I’m always on the hunt for people doing interesting things with generative ML, so much of it being just plain tacky or a cheap imitation of humanity, and this hits the spot, because no human except a proper mark would ever put in the effort to do this. (Moreover, a human would probably raise some ethical qualms at around the fourth stanza on mass slaughter in Gaza.) So come on up, ye bards, and grasp your award with all six-and-a-half fingers.

The Fred Figglehorn Memorial Award for Online Video

As a card-carrying transhumanist, i long for the day when we defeat aging — and though we’re not there quite yet, the field of longevity is abuzz with both scientists doing their best, and… uh… other people. Ordinary Things’ “How to Live Forever” takes an empathetic look at the other people, like the meme-infamous Bryan Johnson, and sees what they’re all about, from clinics on private Caribbean islands to limited-edition paperback manifestos.

Real life

The Blinking Sam Award for Word of the Year

Language generally trends in the direction of politeness and euphemism. We replace the impolite with something less direct, which then becomes generally accepted, which then becomes impolite, and the cycle starts all over. This is how we got from idiot to mentally retarded to special needs to SEND.

Every so often, though, something opposite will happen: a magical dysphemism, where, the realm of polite speech not being enough, someone will reach into the taboo for description. Such is the case with 2024’s word of the year:

rawdog

verb. To have sex without a condom, or, latterly, to undertake something without the usual comforts and conveniences.

The most prominent new usage of rawdog has been in the case of rawdogging flights: no books, no films, no games; just you, the window, and the back of the seat. One might also rawdog an illness by forgoing medication, or rawdog a hike by going ultra-light. It’s a tremendously useful addition to English vocabulary, and one i expect will stick around for many years to come.

The Spruce Panflute Award for Outdoor Splendour

The Spruce Panflute Award for Outdoor Splendour goes to… Birkheads Secret Gardens!

I recently moved from Northumberland to County Durham, and, in the process, had to reload my mental map of all the nice places and interesting things to do, to which Birkheads Secret Gardens has been a most wonderful addition. After decades of mining and intensive farming, two gardeners bought this wee plot of land and have transformed it into fourteen luscious themed gardens overlooking the Durham countryside. I never got around to writing a full post on the place (my procrastination having got the better of me), but i hope this award is hearty enough a recommendation to make up for it.

The Hubert J. Farnsworth Award for Good News, Everyone!

The Hubert J. Farnsworth Award for Good News, Everyone! goes to… the end of coal power!

Though things, as always, kept on ticking in the background, 2024 lacked big bombastic breakthroughs in science like 2022’s fusion ignition or 2023’s semaglutide revolution. The good news of the year was quieter, overtaken by the political shouting of the busiest electoral calendar in world history.

One item on the docket that slipped under the global radar was an important milestone on Britain’s route to net zero. With coal already dipping to a mere intermittent blip on the National Grid’s supply, it was time for the last supplier to close, and in late September, Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station officially shut its doors, ending 142 years of coal power in the UK. We still have a ways to go, but slowly, surely, this green and pleasant land is getting greener.

In summary…

Category 2022 2023 2024
Best New Film The Northman Avatar: The Way of Water Anatomy of a Fall / Poor Things / The Substance
Best Old Film Cloud Atlas Syn­ec­do­che, New York Little Shop of Horrors
Most Dis­ap­point­ing Film Nope The Congress The Fall Guy
Best New Music The 1975’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language Young Fathers’ Heavy Heavy Charli XCX’s Brat
Best Old Music XTC’s Apple Venus Volume One — Levellers’ Levelling the Land
Best Game Return of the Obra Dinn — Sonic Robo Blast 2
Best Hypertext Corru.observer Atlas Altera Tidings.potato.horse
Best Video “Who Took the First Selfie?” “How Not to Travel America” “How to Live Forever”
Word of the Year special mili­tary oper­a­tion rizz rawdog
Best Outdoor Thing The Ouseburn — Birkheads Secret Gardens
Best News NIF fusion breakthrough Sema­glu­tide revolution End of coal power

Mx Tynehorne’s link roundup, volume XLI

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A list of countries that should change their name

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Look. Look. The world has seven jillion more pressing issues than the matter of international toponymy. But i’ve been staring at maps for long enough that i’ve got some strong opinions, and there’s a lot of confusion to be resolved.

First and foremost: one of the Congos is gonna have to take one for the team. There’s no way about it. I get that “Zaïre” is kind of skunked, but at the very least, one of them should consider making “Congo-Kinshasa” or “Congo-Brazzaville” official, to spare us all the tyranny of having to repeat “Democratic Republic of the Congo” a thousand times until we die.

The other main snafu of nomenclature is Dominica and the Dominican Republic: two countries, both of which are in the Caribbean, and both of which have the demonym “Dominican”, except stressed on different syllables. (Dominica on the -ni-, the republic on the -mi-.) This is not tenable.

The republic is the better known Dominica, but i’m going to say it should draw the short straw here, because it has a ready-made alternative right in the national anthem, which honours its valiant Quisqueyans. Not only would the name “Quisqueya” put them in the élite ranks of countries whose names start with a Q1, but it’s far more mellifluous than the other isle’s equivalent, “Waitukubuli”.

The Central African Republic might be better off going by the Sango “Bêafrika”, too. The name worked when it was the Central African Empire, high on Bokassa the butcher’s tinpot monarch dreams, but in a world of sixty-second attention spans, most of the time, it’ll end up shortened to CAR and confused with a Honda Civic.

We’re getting into pettier territory now with New Zealand, Britain’s antipodean twin2 and runt of the Anglosphere. I don’t particularly have anything against its current name, but when the alternative is this good, that’s hardly enough! Throw off your Dutch trappings and become Aotearoa, land of the long white cloud — culture war be damned, it rolls off the tongue like honey from turned wood. (And, hey, you finally get a usable adjectival form.)

Lightning round! Equatorial Guinea is neither crossed by the equator3 nor anywhere near the other two Guineas. Fix it. South Africa means the opposite of “North Africa” is “Southern Africa“ and is overall terribly generic. “Azania”’s the obvious pick, but historically inaccurate at best, being the Greeks’ name for what is now the Tanzanian and Kenyan coast. Might i suggest “Macrobia”, the opposite of Hyperborea, the semi-mythic land of the long-lived and happy at the very tip of Africa, beyond where the Romans ever ventured? And “United Arab Emirates” is trivially true, but boring as sin. The worst part is there’s no compelling alternative, with the area being an artificial conglomerate of princedoms once called the “Trucial States” because… er, they’d all signed truces with the British Empire. 10/10 naming, bang up job, good enough, let’s all go home.

Last, the bald eagle in the room: the United States of America, hogging the name of two entire continents all for itself in typical Yankee fashion. For all i care, they can keep it: the alternatives are straight trash. “Usona”? “Fredonia”? “United Statesians”?? Gods know nobody’s saying that with a straight face. Plus, it’s really funny when people from the rest of the Americas get riled up online about people using the word “American” for the U.S.

All that said — if they were to change, they’d do well to go back to the civil war, and start branding themselves as “the Union”, rather than “America”. All the historical swag, none of the cringe.

P.S. “Britain” is also ambiguous between the island and the country, but my preferred solution there is to make Northern Ireland the republic’s problem. Sorry, Sir Ian junior, but you’re reëntering the EU, and you’re going to like it.

Stuff i watched recently, December ’24

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GoodFellas (1990)

The first time i’ve actually enjoyed a Scorsese flick.1 I love how it uses music to illustrate the main character’s psychological decline. (8/10)

Evil Dead 2 (1987) (again) and Army of Darkness (1992)

Watched as a double feature for the Hallowe’en season — Evil Dead 2 is as funny as ever, and all you need to know about Army of Darkness is that it’s a film where a stop-motion skeleton explodes, and if that doesn’t sell you, it’s not for you. (I did find myself wishing i’d watched the theatrical cut, rather than the director’s cut — the studio-mandated happy ending has so many iconic bits i didn’t realise i was missing!) (7/10)

Synecdoche, New York (2008) (again)

In honour of Megalopolis2, Tyneside Cinema were doing a season of films with dizzying ambitions and variable results, from Southland Tales to Synecdoche. I jumped at the chance to finally see my favourite film on the big screen — and, yep, still a certified 11/10 masterpiece.

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

I have a “hear me out”. (7½/10)

Poltergeist (1982)

Steven Spielberg did not technically direct this, but come on now, we all know this is as spiritually Spielberg as it gets. Some fun stuff, especially the motley crew of paranormal investigators, but it’s weighed down by the jarring tonal mish-mash and a glued-on fourth act where they seem to have suddenly realised they forgot a “0” in their special effects budget. (5½/10)

The Fisher King (1991)

I knew absolutely nowt about this going in, so when Robin Williams showed up, it took some time for me to mentally adjust to the combination of his zaniness, Jeff Bridges’ shock-jock sleaze, and the trademark layer of Gilliam grime coating it all. All of it comes together beautifully in a surprisingly good-hearted fantasy tale of big-city redemption. (8/10)

Juror №2 (2024)

I had bought the tickets and everything for Clint Eastwood’s final film — but it was the day after the U.S. election, and fifteen minutes in, i thought, cripes, do i really want to be sitting through a drama about the dysfunction of the American legal system right now? (N/A/10)

AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

There’s nothing i love more than a big, ambitious, messy film, and this hits all three. You can see the joins between the Kubrickian rigour and Spielbergian spectacle, but i don’t care. Viva the mess.

Haley Joel Osment is incredible in this. You can totally see why Kubrick thought no child actor could ever pull off the script.

All the tech has this glorious early-noughties Orion’s Arm-style shimmer and sheen to it, and let me tell you, i live for that shit. (9/10)

Summer of Sam (1999)

I kind of forgot i even watched this? (3/10)

🎵️ Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn into You (2023)

Favourite tracks: “Welcome to My Island” (especially the George Daniel remix), “Blood and Butter”, “Billions”. (7/10)

Se7en (1995)

It’s good. I have little more to say on the matter, except that the title is pronounced /sə.ˈsɛ.və.nən/. (8/10)

The Lighthouse (2019)

This is some kind of primordial film, one that you’d find washed up at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, and six months later, radiocarbon dating would show it to be older than civilisation itself. (Very glad i had subtitles — those old-timey wickie accents don’t mess about.)

Also, Robert Pattinson is really, really hot in this. No man has ever been this Fucked Up. (10/10)

Wicked (2024)

I didn’t know Hollywood still had it in it to pull out all the stops for a big, colourful show-stopping musical like this. Ariana Grande stole the show, but the goat stole my heart. (9/10)

Mx Tynehorne’s link roundup, volume XL

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I overheard this fleetingly on Radio 6 (Gods bless ’em, as always) and immediately smashed that like button.