Last weekend i found myself with an unexpected glut of downtime, and i figured iâd put it to good
use by crossing four films, all thrillers, off my âto-watchâ list. I went into most of them
essentially blind: for two out of the four, i had no idea what the premise even was, and for one of
the remaining two i guessed incorrectly. Without further ado â hereâs what i thought of each.
What i âknewâ going in: Nic Cage tracks down the creators of a child porno.
The celluloid macguffin is, blissfully(?), merely a teenage snuff film rather than a full-on porno â
for the best, given they occasionally show snippets of the thing and i doubt Joel Schumacher wanted
to be put on a list.
Regardless: Mr Cage is our greatest living actor, and, this being the nineties, he
goes âfull Cageâ in
a gloriously grimy thriller that sinks him into the depths of Los Angelesâ erotic underworld. Also
featured is a disconcertingly young Joaquin Phoenix1
and Peter Stormare as a comically evil crossbow-wielding porno director. The third act gets pretty
over-the-top, at times nearing John Wick territory. But thatâs fine by me: i
like over-the-top! Itâs better for a film to go out with a bang than to die with a whimper.
When this came out, it was slammed by reviewers, and it still only sits at a six out of ten on all
the major movie-buff websites. I hesitate to invoke the word âunderratedâ, so often misused, butâŚ
come on. The only assumption i can make is that it that the critics still held a grudge against Mr
Schumacher over Batman and Robin, and that, four years after Showgirls,
Eight Millimeterâs frank sexuality was still considered too much. Bah.2
They wouldnât know kino if it hit them in the face. (8/10)
What i âknewâ going in: I thought it was going to be about a really, really old man.
Itâs not. Iâm willing to say Frailty, a directorial effort by Bill Paxton (of all people)
ostensibly starring Matthew McConaughey, is good, even if it is mostly told through flashbacks (and,
ergo, a child actor doing much of Mr McConaugheyâs heavy lifting). But the twist veers things so
sharply and so suddenly into a supernatural direction that the audience deserves a bit more time to
take in the ramifications. And since for most of the film the viewer has been focussing not only on
a child actor, but the wrong child actor, by the end of it i still felt i didnât really
know Mr McConaugheyâs character â which is a problem when weâre talking about our alleged
protagonist! (5½/10)
What i knew going in: Stephen King adaptation about a crazy fan who traps the author of
her favourite book in her bed and demands he write Glup Shitto back in.
This is the only one i had a solid grasp on going in, since itâs hard to avoid learning about by
osmosis. Great in concept, great in performance, great in script⌠but i could never quite shake off
the fact that i was watching a psychological horror film from the director of
The Princess Bride. (7/10)
What i âknewâ going in: Denis Villeneuve. Jake Gyllenhaal. Hugh Jackman. Iâm in.
Probably the best thing iâve watched all year. Itâs a punishing watch, but, my god, the talent on
display from all cylinders is like nothing else. Behind the camera you have Denis Villeneuve, right
in the middle of his transition from QuĂŠbĂŠcois dramas to Hollywood blockbusters, and Roger Deakins,
the legendary cinematographer who shot Fargo and No Country for Old Men.3
In front, you have a powerhouse ensemble cast of actors who could all easily carry a film by
themselves. Hugh Jackman! Jake Gyllenhaal! Viola Davis! Paul Dano! David Dastmalchian!4 A
masterpiece through and through â i hope we might some day get to see the original
NC-17 cut, censors be damned. (10/10)
I couldnât possibly give a better review than a paraphrase of Roger Ebert: First, you laugh at the
joke; then, you laugh at yourself for laughing at something so stupid. Brilliant stuff. (7/10)
Poignant and funny in equal measure. The scene that really stuck out to me was near the end, in
Krasnystaw, as our two Jewish-American main characters visit their late grandmotherâs old home and
place stones in remembrance⌠only to be chided by an angry neighbour, who has no idea about the
tradition, but does know that the old woman living there now is infirm and might well trip.
He says this, of course, in Polish, but the two leads donât speak it, and need his son to translate
for them.
The short-term tragedy of the Holocaust, the cruel annihilation of the six million, has been
well-trodden in cinema, but this film gets to the heart of the long tragedy â the hole left in
European culture by the hollowing out of its Jewish communities (the angry man who doesnât know),
and, equally, the alienation of the survivors from their own roots (the two travellers who need an
interpreter for their own ancestral tongue). (9/10)
If you need any convincing at all to watch this, i have five words: Vampire musicians in 1930s
Mississippi.
A rare successful original blockbuster that must be protected at all costs. It takes a while to get
to the vampires, but it puts that time to good use setting up its characters so you can, like, care
about them and stuff. (A lost art.) (8/10)
Companion is better than it has any right to be. Itâs a schlocky premise, but it mines every
last twist and turn it can get out of it, with snappy dialogue, a galloping pace, and a magnetic
cast. It might not be the best movie ever, but itâs the best movie Companion could ever be.
(8/10)
This Tarantinoesque rip-roarer of a period action film has all you could ever ask for: yakuza gangs,
cross-dressing geishas, card-counting, a celebratory ending tap-dance routine, and heaps of dodgy
CGI blood. When i found out the directorâs name was Beat Takeshi, my
first thought was âsurely itâs not that Takeshiâ. Reader⌠it was that Takeshi. The
guy with the castle. We love a man of many talents. (7/10)
The left image is the result of asking an image-generating machine-learning model to draw the prompt
âstill from a science fiction movieâ. It was made by a soulless, unthinking machine, and represents,
roughly, the average of every science fiction film in its dataset. It is utterly generic, because
thatâs what happens when you average out thousands of film stills into a grey smoothie.
The right image is from the Tom Cruise movie Oblivion. Do you see the issue here?
Oblivion is a film with no identity of its own, an empty bottle of milk drifting along a back
street. Itâs just entertaining enough to keep you watching, and no more. The only saving grace is
that â for those of you keeping track â it
includes a full Tom Cruise Triathlon; he runs, he gets on his motorbike, and he swims (in a
skyscraper pool, but a swim is a swim). (5/10)
If youâre going to make a generic music biopic, the least you could do is spice it up with some
fantastical musical sequences, like Rocketman and Better Man. This âeffortâ, starring
the unavoidable TimothĂŠe Chalamet as Bob Dylan, has none of that, instead falling into all the usual
tired biopic tropes. Mr Dylan is not a character in this â he is a vessel that spouts platitutes and
occasionally sings. At least the music was good? I guess? (2½/10)
I buy, like, one video game a year, and this is 2025âs entry, a tough-as-nails momentum platformer
thatâs the third in a series based on a Flash game i have fond memories of. The noughties vibes are
truly immaculate, not just in the futuristic ĂŚsthetics but the trancey
EDM soundtrack as well. (8/10)
I had sworn off Marvel after all the characters i cared about had their stories wrapped up with a
bow, so, though i had heard through the grapevine that this was actually quite good, i was fully
prepared to put on my clown makeup and order my âFell For It Again Awardâ rosette if i tricked
myself into watching two hours of super-slop for nothing.
Thankfully, it was great! My understanding is that all the characters here have shown up in
MCU projects in the past, but the film does a great job at getting you
up to speed with what their deal is that you never feel out of the loop. The action is on point, the
comedy got some good laughs out of me, and the climax, thank fuck, eschews the usual
âincomprehensible CGI battle against a giant laser beamâ in favour of a
more introspective talk-âem-up approach. Special commendations should go to
the soundtrack, by
Everything Everywhere All At Onceâs Son Lux. Go watch it. (7½/10)
What a great flick! My beef with Tarantino is that you can often tell that, just behind the camera,
heâs jacking off at the thought of how clever he is and how many obscure seventies
TV shows he knows, and while thatâs still true here, the electric
pairing of Pam Grier and Robert Forster washes all those eye-rolling feelings down until youâre left
with the aftertaste of nothing but a good-ass crime thriller. 8/10 â my Tarantino power ranking goes
something like Inglourious Basterds > this > Pulp Fiction >
Django Unchained >>> Reservoir Dogs.
Spoorloos (The Vanishing)
This grim Dutch crime thriller is consistently mentioned alongside Paul Verhoeven as proof that
âsee? Dutch cinema isnât all badâ, which is something you could almost convince me of if it
werenât for every top-five listâs inclusion of
a film about an evil lift.
Anyway, while Spoorloos does occasionally veer uncomfortably close to âTV
movie of the weekâ territory, itâs carried by its villain, an exemplar of the banality of evil. He
does what he does because heâs experienced being a hero, and heâs just curious what it feels like to
be a villain â and thatâs what makes him fucking terrifying. Check this out if you get the
chance. 7/10.
The Monkey
Osgood Perkins returns right soon with another horror endeavour, this time a gory comedy about an
evil cuddly monkey. The Monkey doesnât reach the highs of fear and tension that
Longlegs does, but neither does it completely bottle the ending, so letâs call it a draw,
shall we? 6ž/10.
Quiz Show
I put this on on a lazy afternoon. I was suitably entertained. I remember nothing from it. A
platonically perfect 5/10.
The Mist (rewatch)
The Twelve Angry Men of horror puts modern (well, 2000s) American society up against a mirror
and examines how people would really react to a mass calamity in a way that hits different
in the post-covid era, where everyoneâs brain has had time to cook in the sun. Plus: the cruelest
twist ending in cinematic history. 8/10.
The Blues Brothers
Dan Aykroyd is an actual crazy person and thatâs why The Blues Brothers works. This is
two-and-a-half hours of overindulgent insanity, the cinematic equivalent of a five-year-old playing
with their toys, and i wouldnât want it any other way. I nearly had an asthma attack laughing so
hard. 10/10.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Warm. Fuzzy. Inessential. Itâs weird seeing Adam Scott with a beard. 6/10.
Severance (season 2 finale)
The back half of Severanceâs sophomore season fell victim to some shonky pacing decisions,
placing two self-contained, slow-paced bottle episodes right before the final two, messing up the
flow we were in and negating the chance for an epic Season 1-style three-episode ramp-up, but
nonetheless, the double-length finale successfully sticks the landing. The camcorder conversation,
where Markâs innie and outie finally âmeetâ, may as well be what the whole show has been building up
to, and it just keeps going from there. Every company needs a Choreography and Merriment department.
9/10.
Flow
The first part of a feline double feature, about an adorable black kitty who goes on a
maritime journey after the world is inundated by a mysterious flood. The gimmick (if you can call it
that) is that the film is told without a single line of dialogue â just animal noises and a backing
of beautiful C418-esque music composed by the filmâs director.
Itâs a beautiful, serene, lovely experience â all animated in good olâ open-source Blender, no less!
It got me to really feel things for these animals â it was a good idea to dial the anthropomorphism
down to, like, 10%, rather than 75%. Theyâre intelligent enough to steer a boat, but thatâs about
it. The kibby bats around a lemurâs tail and hates dogs. 9/10.
FelidĂŚ
The second part of the double feature: FelidĂŚ1, a 1994 German film about⌠okay. Okay. Look. Bear with me here. The idea is that itâs a film noir
except everybody is a cartoon housecat. And for the first twenty minutes or so, i was thinking,
okay, thatâs a nice idea, but i donât know if it has much more than that idea? And then it
goes full-tilt into Crazytown. This movie contains, in no particular order:
Cat buttholes
Cat sex
Cat homophobia
Cat eugenics
Cats speaking Latin
Cats reading German
Cats using a computer
Cat murder
So much gory cat murder
An electroshock cat cult
Genetically engineered lab cats
A cat psychopomp who takes care of the cat dead in his cat catacombs
A dream sequence involving a giant evil Gregor Mendel commanding a literal sea of dead cats
And itâs all done in the animation style of an eighties-nineties-type Disney film (with some
budgetary concessions and dodgy lip-synch, because, hey, nobodyâs actually going to watch this). It
reminded me, weirdly enough, of an old Garfield cartoon i watched as a kid â the one where he
had nine lives, specifically that segment where he was an escaped lab cat. I have only the haziest
memory of it, but damned if it (and the annoying-ass little girl in the Garf-den of Eden) didnât
stick with meâŚ
I donât know who the fuck the audience for this is other than furries and sicko Europeans, but i
fucking love that it exists. Iâm gonna be thinking about it forever, whether i want to or not. All
hail Claudandus? 9/10.
Iâll confess iâm skipping past a lot of Christmas films for this recap, because iâd seen most of
them before and those memories are blanketed in a thick fog of advocaat and chocolate. Nevertheless:
hereâs â if not all â most of the things iâve watched over the past couple of months.
Perhaps iâm being unfair to a film thatâs 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)
âIf 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.â
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 worldâs oldest bureaucracy.1
(10/10)
âI have seen things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother's
womb!â
Iâm playing a dangerous game here, because i watched this on the first of January, 2025 â meaning
that, once again, thereâs a good chance that my âfavourite film of 2025â will have come out in 2024.
Not that iâm complaining.
Robert Eggers hits it out of the park again in this incredible adaptation of an adaptation of
Dracula. Visually, itâs 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
actorâs hands could have been yet another generic traumatised wife.
I have such a loveâhate relationship with Terry Gilliam. His films are so inventive, so wonderful,
in theory, everything i love. But theyâre 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 thatâll make any Brit whoâs ever had to deal with the welfare system cry-laugh in
how true it all is.
Have you got a 27B/6? Iâm a bit of a stickler for paperworkâŚ
(8/10)
Talk about wasted potential. Heretic starts out brilliant â 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, iâd be strapped in.
But, nope! The third act starts, they go into his eeeeevil basement, and thereâs a
creeeepy emaciated woman talking in cryptic breathy half-sentences!!! Are you scared yet???
(4/10)
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. Itâs pretty good, and the monkey gimmickâs fun, but iâm not itching to
rewatch it any time soon. (5ž/10)
We are so fucking back. Ben Stiller and company havenât missed a single step in the three-year-long
gap. Iâm tearing my hair out trying to figure out the mysteries over here!
The main message i got from this was reinforcement that the mediĂŚval era is, indeed, the least
interesting (to me) of the three broad ages of history. Still, thereâs 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)
âI wasn't really paying attention⌠I was too busy thinking how i would gas everyone in the
room.â
Behold, the antiâSchindlerâs List: a quiet family drama where the head of the family just so
happens to be the
KZ-Kommandant
of Auschwitz.
The magicâs 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.
Itâs enough to make anyone throw up. The musicâs no respite: John Williams this ainât; what little
there is is harsh, discordant, pained.
Sandra HĂźller is incredible as the commandantâs 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. Thereâs 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, itâs a little disjointed; some fragments and branches never quite meet back up with the main
trunk of the film. Itâs a hard thing to rate⌠but letâs say (7/10).
Watched as a double feature for the Halloweâen season â Evil Dead 2 is as funny as ever, and
all you need to know about Army of Darkness is that itâs a film where a stop-motion skeleton
explodes, and if that doesnât sell you, itâs not for you. (I did find myself wishing iâd watched the
theatrical cut, rather than the directorâs cut â the studio-mandated happy ending has so many iconic
bits i didnât realise i was missing!) (7/10)
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 â and, yep, still a certified 11/10
masterpiece.
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 itâs weighed down by the jarring tonal mish-mash and a glued-on fourth act where
they seem to have suddenly realised they forgot a â0â in their special effects budget. (5½/10)
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 Bridgesâ 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)
I had bought the tickets and everything for Clint Eastwoodâs final film â 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)
Thereâs 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 donât 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 Orionâs Arm-style shimmer and sheen to it, and
let me tell you, i live for that shit. (9/10)
This is some kind of primordial film, one that youâd 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 â those old-timey wickie accents donât mess about.)
Also, Robert Pattinson is really, really hot in this. No man has ever been this Fucked Up.
(10/10)
I didnât 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)
I reviewed this one in full back in August, so go check that out
if you want more detail. A stylish sequel (sevenquel?) that makes the world of Alien more
believable than ever and introduces some great new talent. (7/10)
Seeing Christopher Lloyd in this was like seeing Jeff Goldblum in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Like, hey, youâre not meant to be famous yet!
Itâs one of those films thatâs been talked about so much that i have very little new to add, but i
will say that i wasnât expecting this to be as funny as it was.1(7/10)
Ugh. Once the plot gets moving two thirds of the way through itâs pretty good, but that
first hour is ĂŚsthetically revolting in the most perplexing way. The Spanish countryside has never
looked so grimy and clammy. I hate all of these people. (3½/10)
I didnât know Steven Spielberg had the capacity to be so⌠cryptic? I love how the film builds up the
mystery of whatâs going on, with an ending that leaves you wondering in both senses of the word.
Contactâs better, yeah, but Contact wouldnât exist without Close Encounters as
a base to work off. (9/10)
Douglas Trumbull, 2001âs special-effects man, gets into directing with this sickeningly
seventies environmentalist sci-fi fable. Thereâs a lot to like here, but i canât help the feeling
that this would have worked a lot better if youâd cut it up into five twenty-minute
TV episodes and had Tom Baker show up midway through. (5/10)
Went to the cinema for this, for⌠some reason? Tim Burton is back, baby, having finally freed
himself from Disneyâs offputting computer-generated tendrils, and while
Beetlejuice²: Beetlejuice Harder is ultimately inessential, itâs a fun legasequel thatâs
better than anyone was reasonably expecting, keeping up the same manic energy as the original.
Michael Keaton, Catherine OâHara, and Winona Ryder havenât missed a step since 1988. Willem Dafoe is
great too, though like most of the new cast, his character doesnât have much to do in the story,
which struggles to commit to any of its three plot threads.
Also, the lead girl falls in love with a socially awkward zoomer who listens to Sigur RĂłs, which
means thereâs still a chance for me. So thatâs⌠thatâs good. Thatâs reassuring. (6/10)
Come on. Itâs Casablanca. What do you want me to say? Every five minutes thereâs a line that
made me point at the screen like Leonardo DiCaprio. âWeâll always have Paris.â(10/10)
Unnerving to see Dev Patel before his ongoing âsexiest man aliveâ era, but you can never go wrong
with Danny Boyle, whose kinetic, saturated style elevates a simple feel-good rags-to-riches story.
(6/10)
I cannot fucking believe i roped my mum into coming to the cinema with me.2
Greatest decision of my life. Her fucking face!
The Substance is the goopiest [sic] movie iâve ever seen, and thatâs ignoring all the
body horror. Demi Moore digs through wet rubbish to pick up a sticky
USB drive and splatters eggs everywhere. Dennis Quaid eats a bowl of
shrimp that makes the worldâs most viscerally disgusting noise. Margaret Qualleyâs teeth fall out.3
My one complaint is i wish it had gone further. Everyone on the internet thinks it went too far. No.
They are fools. That blood-sprayed audience should have started melting into The Thing, and we all
know that deep inside our hearts. (9½/10)
Long live the new flesh! A film starring a Betamaxussy and a man who exists exclusively
through semi-sentient VHS tapes. So many ideas, so little time (the
Cronenberg special). Watching this is like trying to remember a nightmare you just woke up from.
Iâm filing this in the same folder as Rear Window, a film with a surprising amount to say
about an internet that it couldnât have reasonably foreseen. What are we if not, like Brian
OâBlivion4, ghosts of all our past transmissions? Is the online avatar not the new flesh?
Existenz tackles the internet more head-on, but suffers from the fact that David Cronenberg
doesnât know what a video game is. Videodrome is unburdened by the future facts, and so can
say whatever it wants. (10/10)
Francis Ford Coppolaâs final fart is why Hollywood canât have nice things, an incomprehensible
schmaltzy mess about how Adam Driver is a Very Special Boy who is always right. I donât know where
the money went â everything looks like Spy Kids. What an embarrassing way to go out.
(2/10)
Francis Ford Coppola shoots for the moon and misses with Megalopolis, his long-gestating
passion project that shows why studio interference isnât always the worst thing. Sometimes you need
someone in the room to say ânoâ. Every creative decision made here is baffling: Adam Driverâs
character can stop time, and this never comes up. Our main character can
stop time, and this does not play a role in the filmâs story! His political rival
leaks a video of him having sex with an underage pop star, and within about five minutes, it turns
out it was fake and she was 23 anyway, so that plotlineâs resolved and never comes back up. Every
conflict is like this. I donât know whatâs going on. (4/10)
Francis Ford Coppolaâs Megalopolis: A Fable defies your puny human notions of âgoodâ or âbadâ
in an ambitious sci-fi drama thatâs like if Hillary Clinton wrote a Neil Breen film.5
You can neatly split the cast into âknew what kind of movie they were inâ and âdidnâtâ. Shia LeBeouf
knew â he chews the scenery with every line as if the sets were made of cotton candy. Aubrey Plaza
knew, because thereâs no way not to know what kind of movie youâre in when your character
is called âWow Platinumâ and makes Mr LeBeouf give her head. Adam Driver probably knew? He can get
pretty hammy, but heâs kind of trying to keep a straight face. Nathalie Emmanuel didnât know â sheâs
the female lead, but her performance is so wooden i was genuinely shocked to find out she wasnât a
nepotism hire. Giancarlo Esposito is insulated enough from the properly weird stuff that i donât
think he knew. (6/10)
Francis Ford Coppolaâs Francis Ford Coppolaâs Megalopolis: A Fable is so sincere i canât help
but love it. Itâs a man who built his fame on films about the criminal underworld and the hell of
war going: âI refuse to let this be my legacyâ. Megalopolis is about a man with a vision for
a better future and the power to make it happen. (His vision for a better future mostly involves
those moving walkways they have at airports. I never said it was perfect.) And, yeah, itâs a little
undercooked. Yeah, itâs as subtle as a brick.6
But itâs the film the man wanted to make, and itâs a film that proudly stands against the cynical
doom and gloom that has infested popular culture since the nineties. I canât help but respect that.
(8/10)
âWhaddaya think of this boner i got?â âJon Voight, 2024 (10/10)
First up is Enemy (2013), a movie somebody peed on. Summarising the plot it sounds
a bit thin â Jake Gyllenhaal meets his evil twin Jake Evyllenhaal and not much else happens â
but Denis Villeneuve does a fantastic job of building up tension and dread around a slow-burning
premise which, in itself, isnât necessarily the scariest thing. 6/10.
Took a trip to the cinema to see Longlegs (2024), starring the greatest living
actor himself, Nic Cage. I say âstarringâ; heâs not in it so much, as itâs more about
the internal tensions of our mildly psychic, mildly autistic Clarice Starling stand-in, played
wonderfully by Maika Monroe. Again, the plotâs a bit thin, falling apart with a whimper in the
third act, but the style and execution more than makes up for it. There are so many looming
shots of doors and windows just at the edge of frame, snippets of interspersed terror, ominous
rumbling soundscapes⌠pretty good! 7/10.
Green Room (2015) is a solid little low-budget thriller where a punk band get
trapped in a nazi bar. Not much to say other than 6/10.
Watched Schindlerâs List (1993) for the first time. Cue several hours of inelegant
blubbering from me. (âI could have got moreâŚâ) I would like to apologise for calling John
Williams a hack. I was not familiar with your game, sir. 10/10, but it feels wrong to give it a
numbered score in the first place.
In Bruges (2008)! The online hype for this is ravenous and iâm not quite sure it
lives up, but i was suitably entertained. Colin Farrell has very kind eyes. 6½/10.
The Olympics were as uplifting as always. A Discord friend of mine put it best: âThe
Olympics makes me feel patriotic for the human raceâ. For a few glorious weeks, it doesnât
matter that the IOC is the third most corrupt organisation on the
planet behind Fifa and the Mafia. It doesnât matter that there are wars raging across the old
world. All that matters is that the most fit people on the planet have come to show what the
human body can really do when pushed to its limits.
After years of putting it off, i finally got around to
The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), all 3½ hours of it. Itâs hard to review just
the first part of the trilogy, but if the rest is as good as this, itâs on track for an easy 9.
Iâve been getting into the Eighth Doctor audio dramas recently and
âThe Chimes of Midnightâ might be among the best things to come out of Doctor Who.
Very dark. Very weird. It builds up this offputting atmosphere perfectly, Paul McGann and India
Fisher making you wish theyâd gotten a proper series, with the traditional timey-wimey twist.
9/10.
Hyped up to me as one of the best horror films in history, iâm convinced itâs actually an incredible
comedy. There is so much Gremlins energy oozing out of this whole film; every scene, you can
just imagine George Romero sitting back and going ââŚcan i, like, put that in a movie?â and then
putting that in a movie. A zombie gets pied in the face. 8/10.
Mad Max: Fury Road is not the greatest film ever made, but it feels like the
greatest film ever made while youâre watching it. Iâve never seen a film edited like this: a
two-hour-long sugar rush where every shot is overcranked till it breaks and nothing ever stops
moving. 9/10, with one point added solely because of the guy in the post-apocalyptic convoy whose
job it is to play the guitar.
Stepdadâs pick, in honour of Donald Sutherlandâs death. Great stuff, with a fascinating eerie
soundscape, creepily good practical effects, and, hang on, is that Jeff Goldblum? 7/10.
Well, that sure was a Russell T. Davies Doctor Who finale, wasnât it? Part oneâs always
great, and then, as always, he canât write an ending for the life of him.
Now the seasonâs over, itâs clear that it needed more room to breathe. Eight episodes of forty
minutes just isnât enough for a show to do both monster-of-the-week and a longer arc; with two
episodes taken up by the finale, two Doctor-lite episodes, and one where sheâs unconscious for half
of it, weâve barely gotten to know the relationship between Ruby and the Doctor, which is a shame,
because what we do get is brilliant! They play off each other so well, and i wish we could
have seen more of them together.
Seen on a whim. A nice little drama about a motorbike club, starring Elvis and Jodie Comer, whoâs
doing a⌠fascinating⌠Midwestern-type accent. 6/10.
âItâs like Rear Window, but on a lorry.â This scrappy Australian flick delivers just what it
says on the tin, with an early turn by Jamie Lee Curtis as a hitchhiker who gets picked up in the
second half. 6/10.
Iâm out of touch with music these days, but listening to Charli XCXâs
pulse-pounding new hyperpop record, i canât help but think this is what pop music must sound like in
the next universe over. I was sleep-deprived after staying up for election night and that definitely
helped the vibe⌠8/10.
Tombstone (1993). I have this pathological aversion to westerns, so i wasnât
expecting much â but once i turned off the part of me that was waiting for Richard Pryor to
show up i realised that this the ââemâ in âthey just donât make âem like they used taâ: just
a solid, well-made flick, regardless of my thoughts on the genre! I cried manly man tears at
the end. 7/10.
The Thirteenth Floor, everyoneâs fourth favourite film about a simulated world from 1999. I found it
surprisingly interesting whenever it didnât remind me too much of The Matrix, and a
bit pathetic whenever it did. (Donât try to do action, simulated world movie from 1999.
Youâll never measure up.) 6/10.
As a bonus, since nobody cares about this movie, you can just
watch it on Youtube if you
want.
Little Shop of Horors (1986). My pick for family movie night. Utterly charming
from leaf to toe â the best example since Gremlins 2 of a film where you can see the
craft that went into making every frame. Incredible effects, wonderful music, magnetic
comedic performances from the whole cast⌠10/10!
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), the impromptu double feature to the
above. My brain has been completely frazzled by watching this. I went from loving it to
hating it to complete bafflement to examining it like a scientist would a new species of
frog. This film may very well have invented homosexuality. Defies numerical rating/10.
Late Night with the Devil (2023). Always nice to see David Dastmalchian, even
if itâs nothing that hasnât been done before â 6/10.
The Fall Guy (2024). Ryan Goslingâs a brilliant comedic actor, but him and
some great setpieces struggle to save this film from a shoddy script and baffling editing
choices. The jokes arenât funny, the dialogue scenes linger for far too long, half the stuff
from the trailer is gone from the movie⌠the whole thing desperately needs a trimming down
to a tight ninety minutes. 4/10.
Eurovision 2024. Bullet-pointed, as per tradition:
I went in totally blind this year, having missed the semi-finals while building a new
PC. Oops!
Sweden appear to have trapped the Backstreet Boys in the Matrix.
There is no country named the Netherlands and never has been. Doesnât exist. Not real.
We begin bombing in five minutes.
Big fan of Spainâs bizarre campy cougar energy, even if the audience and juries werenât!
Estonia are frankly embarrassing.
Completely maxed out my scorecard for Ireland, who have sent in Xanthe-bait of the
highest order.
Yes⌠hahaha⌠yes!!!
Greeceâs song is the most annoying thing since Crazy Frog and it baffles me how highly
it scored.
I think the UK is just cursed at this point. We send a legitimate star with the worldâs
gayest performance (admittedly more in the âgetting sucked off in a dingy bathroomâ way
than the âcampy drag queenâ way) and not a single point from the audience?
God bless Finland. I usually hate it when acts try deliberately to be funny but i died
laughing at a pantsless man in a censored Windows 95 T-shirt
emerging from an egg while pyrotechnics go off.
Switzerland have taken Sam Ryderâs mantle as this yearâs designated golden retriever⌠a
great performance from someone whoâs clearly happy beyond words to be there. A deserving
winner if there ever was one.
Croatiaâs catchy pirate dance is great but i cannot forgive that abominable stage name.
I donât care how many records you sell; there is no excuse to call yourself Baby
Lasagna. Go back to the drawing board. Now.
T2 Trainspotting (2017). Mamaâs pick for family movie night. I wasnât so hot
on the idea going in⌠and then it was, to my surprise, pretty great! It uses the idea of the
legacy sequel to its advantage â itâs a film about nostalgia, the good and bad of
it all. It really does feel like youâre catching up with these characters twenty years
later, all wondering where their lives have gone. Some beautiful shots, too â a film from
2017 that bothered hiring a gaffer?? What a concept! 8/10.
127 Hours (2010), continuing the Danny Boyle theme. Probably the best film a
film about a guy whose hand is stuck next to a rock could ever be, it convinced me of the
occasional merit of a good biopic over a documentary â this would not and could not work if
you only had access to the original crummy camera footage and talking-head interviews. Also
perhaps the only movie in history to contain an inflatable Scooby-Doo jumpscare. I was going
to give it an 8, but then they played Sigur RĂłs in the triumphant ending scene, so sod it,
itâs a 9/10.
Chris Chibnall is dead and Doctor Who is alive! I thought Ncuti Gatwa was
playing the role too young at first, but the season proper has me totally convinced. His
Doctor, the first Doctor to Fuckâ˘, has this infectious energy and zest for life thatâs
totally new to the character, and a great rapoport with his companion â even when the new
series is bad, itâs unhinged in a fun way, rather than the forgettable doldrums of the
Chibnall era.
Aniara (2018). I actually watched this one back in February, but forgot to
mention it at the time â a Swedish hard(ish) sci-fi tragedy, where a colony ship on its way
to Mars gets knocked off course with no fuel left to turn
back. This is unrelentingly bleak, sometimes to the point where my brain would shut off and
stopped caring, but thereâs a lot to like.
I love the idea of the Mima as a character/narrative device/whatever: a living
AI that uses peopleâs memories to bring them back visions of
Earth as it was, then gets depressed because too many people
are using it and flooding it with memories of the apocalypse. Giving the holodeck a soul?
Genius.
Unfortunately it doesnât so much end as it just fizzles out â i guess you could make a case
that thatâs on purpose, since thatâs how these situations go in the real world, but i found
the whole dĂŠnouement deeply unsatisfying excepting the veeeery final shots (if you know, you
know). 6/10.
Anatomy of a Fall (2023). Caught this one at the
Tyneside, where it happened to be the next film
on at the time i got in. This spoke to me not just because of the powerhouse performances
from Sandra HĂźller, a dog named Messi (how did they get him to do that?), and the
fifteen-year-old(!!!) Milo Machado-Graner, who i wish nothing but the best in his future,
but because it matches up with events in my life to a frankly concerning autobiographical
extent. This would never, ever be in my wheelhouse were it not for random chance, but i
teared up thrice over. 10/10, and iâm annoyed i couldnât make it my best of last year.
Ten seconds after watching⌠Wait, people online think she killed the husband? Are
they fucking stupid? What? Itâs obviously an accident. Did we watch the same film? Did the
cut they saw not have all those carefully-inserted moments where people almost fall off of
ledges or get hit by cars to hammer home that accidents can, in fact, just happen? What?? I
â am i just projecting my own experiences here and not wanting to believe that my mum would
kill someone? And then if they donât think she killed the husband, theyâre like,
oh, well the husband deserved it, he was so awful in that argument, and like, no!!! The mum
in the film near enough turns to the camera and says âthe worst moments in someoneâs life
are unfairly cherry-picked as evidence for a trail and do not represent them as a wholeâ;
again, did we watch the same bloody film? Are people stupid? Am i stupid? Is Justine Triet
stupid? Am i dying?
Reservoir Dogs (1992). Mamaâs pick for family movie night. Every time i watch
a Tarantino film i really get the sense that heâs jacking off to how clever he is writing
the script and this is that tendency at its worst. I get why it caught on, i really do, but
this is absolutely insufferable from start to finish any time someone whoâs not a cop is on
screen. I do not care about your thoughts on Madonnaâs âLike a Virginâ, Quentin!
3ž/10.
Monkey Man (2024). I have been hyped as shit for this ever since the first
trailer came out. You can tell this is Sexiest Man Alive Dev Patelâs first time in the
directorâs chair (looooots of shaky-cam close-ups), but itâs damn stylish, and he shows a
lot of promise. I can also see why Netflix did not want to touch this with a barge pole
given that the plot is essentially âDev Patel kills the BJPâ.
(It has some, ah, terroristic overtones that would be a little concerning if it
were even 10% less shlocky.)
That aside, i really enjoyed the film, and thought it got better as it went along â early
on, i wasnât super clear on the character motivations at play, but then the most me-bait
thing since The Northman happens: Mr Patelâs character has a near-death-experience
flashback and wakes up having been rescued by a hijra priest at a secret temple to
Ardhanarishvara, a half-male, half-female incarnation of Shiva. Into! my!
fucking! veins! 6½/10.
De dolende god (2018),
as seen previously on The Garden. This is pretty much designed to appeal to me specifically, and yeah, itâs really good.
Itâs sweet, heartfelt, absolutely gorgeous, and of course, extremely European. Itâs the odd
one out in this list, being a comic book rather than a film â a medium i donât have much
experience with, so itâs hard to give it a numerical rating in the absence of comparisonsâŚ
but letâs say 8/10.
Star Trek: The Next Generation, season three. How did i let myself not get around to this earlierâ˝ This is soft
sci-fi running at peak performance â a crew of hyper-competent and endearing1
people on a starship, sometimes just going on wacky space adventures, other times using science
fiction as a lens through which to view our own world. 10/10. My three favourite episodes so
far:
âTin Manâ. Our character actor of the week, Harry Groener, plays a member of a
mildly telepathic species who has a small problem: he has Space Autism, thus canât turn
said telepathy off. Man, does this episode get it. Every little thing about him
is painfully relatable, the ending reduced me to tears, and i would like seven seasons
of a buddy cop spinoff show starring him and Data right now, please and thank you.
âThe Survivorsâ. The third episode in the season, this is the one that made me
sit up and go: God damn, thatâs good television. Our character of the week, John
Anderson, is the man of the house for an elderly couple who are the only ones left after
the decimation of their planet. I canât reveal anything more than that, but he sells it
like noĂśne else could.
âDeja Qâ. This oneâs just funny.
The Revenant (2015). Stepdadâs pick for family movie night. When the credits
rolled, i thought it one of the best films iâd ever seen⌠but a few weeks on, iâm not so sure.
The cinematography is epic, and Tom Hardyâs brilliant, no doubt, but i really feel more could
have been mined from the premise. Leonardo DiCaprioâs half-Pawnee son in particular is the heart
of the film, and the key role through which to interpret the conflict between the three warring
groups, but he gets unceremoniously killed off halfway through, for no other reason than to
bolster Mr Hardyâs villain cred and, i am left to infer, because the writers had no idea what to
do with his character for the rest of the story. Mr DiCaprio himself goes completely overboard
and could really take Lawrence Olivierâs advice to heart: âMy dear boy, have you tried just
acting?â 6½/10.
True Stories (1986). My pick for family movie night. This sweet and mild-mannered
musical comedy is David Byrneâs only director credit, and thatâs a damned shame. Most places
call it a satire, and i canât help but think theyâre projecting. This is a genuine ode to
small-town American life, whatever its pros and whatever its cons, and next time iâm sick, i
know exactly what iâll be putting on. 8/10.2
The Wicker Man (1973). Figured iâd watch a whimsical musical from the seventies in
preparation for the next one on the list. Great vibes, great music, great ending, great showing
from the legendary Christopher Lee3, but good heavens, is our main character ever an unsympathetic, bigoted prick. Heâs stumbled
on a conspiracy to murder, and he just wonât let go of the fact that he saw some
NEKKID WIMMEN prancing around a henge! 7/10.
Wonka (2024). Mamaâs pick for family movie night. This is a bad idea for a movie
and they should not have made it. Thatâs fine, though: lots of good films make poor ideas on
paper. This isnât one of them. TimothĂŠe Chalamet is terrible! You never once buy him as
anything other than TimothĂŠe Chalamet in a hat. Heâs far too much of a goody two-shoes â not a
droplet of the sinister nature of Gene Wilder and Johnny Deppâs4
WonkĂŚ is anywhere to be found. 3/10.
An American Werewolf in London (1981). Stepdadâs pick for family movie night. A
bit of a throwaway, but thereâs some good stuff in here, especially the titular American
Werewolf (Who Went Hiking In The North But For Some Reason Is Taken To A Hospital) In Londonâs
zombified friend. 6/10.
Iâm Thinking of Ending Things (2020). Shades of Tenet and
Asteroid City here: itâs not Charlie Kaufman at his best, but it is Charlie Kaufman at
his most, and he may have finally metatexted too close to the sun. Some really
interesting stuff spread out over a turgidly paced first and second acts and a completely
nonsensical third. I presume Jesse Plemonsâs directions were just âpretend to be Philip Seymour
Hoffmanâ. 5/10.
Dune Reloaded / Dune 2: Dune Harder / D2NE (2024).
Seen in Imax. A titanic achievement that improves upon the often unfeeling first in every way. I
take back everything i said about Wonka â Mr Chalamet is magnetic in a way that cements
him as the zoomer generationâs first true movie star. Every gushing ten-star review youâve heard
is true. See it now on the biggest screen you can, with bass that shakes the leather in your
seat, because youâll never forgive yourself if you donât. 9/10, with that final point
conditional on the inevitable third part hitting the mark.
Some Like It Hot (1959). My pick for family movie night. Iâve been accused of
being a bit of a âmiserabilistâ (iâm sorry, but Synecdoche, New York bangs, and i have no
regrets on making them watch it), so i thought iâd kick the year off with something a bit funny,
a bit light-hearted, and a bit gay, and cor, was this an absolute classic! A comedy from the
fifties about two men cross-dressing to infiltrate a womenâs jazz band should be positively
radioactive, but this misses all the potential pipelines of âwell, you know, back in the dayâŚâ
sewage and instead hits a gold-mine of timeless commentary on gender relations. Iâm on Team
Daphne â heâs so much more confident in being a woman than Josephine and does not deserve that
terrible toad man. (And, having seen both this and Rear Window, i can finally weigh in:
Grace Kelly is a thousand times prettier than Marilyn Monroe. Sorry.) An instant 10/10.
âNoĂśne knows who created skull trumpet (until now)â. Had to click this as soon as it appeared on my feed. Thereâs really something beautiful about
the amateurism of the early web, how a woman with no formal training in graphic design or
anything of the sort could make all these wonderful, whimsical images, and have one of them
persist into the present day. Rest in peace, Cathy Jarboe, you beautiful diamond, you. 6½/10.
The Master (2012). Mamaâs pick for family movie night. Philip Seymour Hoffman is
incredible in this as an L. Ron Hubbardâstyle cult leader, to the extent that you often
find yourself agreeing with him â i totally get why people join these sort of things now.
Joaquin Phoenix, on the other hand⌠man, i hate to say it, but i might be falling off the
Phoenix train? Heâs always doing that same snivelling Joker thing, even when itâs totally
inappropriate like in Napoleon, and itâs getting kind of old. Joaquin Phoenix Play A
Character With Social Skills Challenge (Impossible). Paul Thomas Anderson directs the shit out
of this. 6/10.
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994). Rewatched with mama.1
Loved it even more than the first time, especially Jennifer Jason Leighâs character. Just a
terribly good-natured film that only sits in obscurity because of its obsequious title. Itâs a
shame Tim Robbins disappeared after this â i looked up his filmography and he seems to have been
in bomb after bomb (Green Lantern, Mission to MarsâŚ). 9/10.
Poor Things (2023, but didnât come out until 2024 here). Watched at the
Tyneside. Iâd been eagerly awaiting this since i saw
the bonkers trailer back in September, and it didnât disappoint. There was a moment 15% of the
way through where i thought i might walk out, but good lord, did it ever win me back over! Bella
Scissorhands goes on a steampunk adventure across Europe filled with childlike whimsy, discovers
herself, has lots of sex, and winds up Mark Ruffalo. Everyone is absolutely brilliant in this â
special commendation to Willem Dafoe as a Scottish mad scientist. Already the strong
front-runner for my favourite of the year. 9/10.
Iâve missed, erm, quite a lot of âmonthly updatesâ, so hereâs me catching you up on everything iâve
watched, listened to, and otherwise done since February.
(I should note that from here on out iâll be using numeric ratings instead of letters â i find it
much easier to figure out whether somethingâs a 7 or an 8 than whether itâs an A or a B.)
đĽ Films on the big screen
There are few films i would recommend unconditionally to anyone and everyone, but by Gods,
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) is one of them. Itâs
belly-laugh funny, has brilliant action, and features some of the most truly ridiculous scenes
ever put to film, but all without ever losing its sincere, heartfelt core. Just go watch it.a
(9)
The Northman (2021) is Robert Eggersâ first attempt at a big
blockbuster film â and probably his last, looking at the box office. Which is a shame â this
weird, grim, beautiful, gory Pagan epic just tickled me in all of the right places, and very
well might be in my top 3 films ever made. I loved how it struck the balance of âmaybe itâs
magic, maybe itâs mundaneâ; BjĂśrk and Willem Dafoe absolutely steal the show in their brief
appearances. (10-)
Top Gun: Maverick is everything a blockbuster should be. Itâs so, so
refreshing to watch something so grounded in the real world after what feels like decades of
fantastical superhero CGI fluff dominating the box office. Yes, itâs
a recruitment ad for the US Navy and probably the Sea Org, but who gives a shit? It had me glued
to my seat start to finish.b (8)
The same, alas, cannot be said of its predecessor, which i tried to watch to bring me up to
speed. Tried is the operative word there: homoerotic beach volleyball and extreme Dad
Movie energy can only go so far to prop up flat characters and stakeless action; i ended up
turning it off halfway through. I canât recommend it to anyone whoâs not a Dad Who Likes Planes.
(2)
Sam Raimi takes the wheel at the newest Marvel theme park ride,
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Mr Raimiâs hectic style shines through in some glorious, fleeting moments, but most of it is
just another by-the-numbers intellectual property orgy which left me sorely disappointed. I
considered walking out of the screen several times. (5-)
The Batman is a very good adaptation of a story we all know by now. I
loved, loved, loved Paul Danoâs weird incel version of the Riddler, the Pat-manâs
eyeshadow, and that one part where he flubs the landing with his cool flying squirrel suit. (7+)
I watched Morbius in the cinema. Dear god, why did i watch
Morbiusin the cinema? Why did i do that to myself? Donât believe the
memes. Excepting one truly glorious scene with Matt Smith, this isnât the funny kind of bad.
Itâs just plain bad. (2+)
Moonfall, on the other hand⌠now thatâs a good bad movie. I swear my
IQ dropped several points after walking out of the cinema. (5) Here
are some things that actually happen in this actual movie that was actually released into actual
cinemas across several actual countries and made millions of actual dollars:
The government successfully covers up the fact that the moon is falling, and
not a single person notices except for a crazed conspiracy theorist.
Said conspiracy theorist is inexplicably British.
The characters take the Space Shuttle out of a museum because their other rocket broke,
and it still works just as well as the day it was put in there. Also, someone graffitiâd
it with the words âfuck the moonâ.
The day is saved by superior Chinese technology, because of course it is.
On that note â there is a character in here whose sole purpose, iâm pretty sure, is to
just stand there, say some lines now and then, and be Chinese for the Chinese audience.
You could cut her out of the film and literally nothing would change.
You can guess what the department of defence wants to do to the moon. Thatâs right, they
try to nuke it!
But they donât because a five-star general knows his ex-wife is up there.
There is a shot of the moon falling on New York City in which, i shit you not,
every building except the World Trade Centre gets absolutely blown to
smithereens.
Someoneâs brain is uploaded to the moon.
One of the main charactersâ friends owns a Lexus⢠dealership. All of the characters
drive Lexus⢠cars, and they escape oxygen thieves(??) by activating Turbo Mode on their
Lexus⢠automobile.
The Space Shuttle is vaguely âsecuredâ by the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, who,
just weeks after my screening, got sanctioned by the EU in the wake of the special
peacekeeping operationâ˘.
A main character gets trapped underneath a log and
he escapes because the moonâs gravity pulls it off of the ground! This really
happens! I am not making this up! Someone says âSonny, the moon will help us!â
âI know; thatâs why we lost the house.â â a seven-year-old
đż Music
Sigur RĂłsâ () â I may now have a new favourite album. At the very
least, itâs my favourite album where none of the tracks have titles and my favourite album where
every song is sung in asemic gibberish. Check out
the opening track. (9)
John Grantâs Queen of Denmark â A surprise gift from my papa. A really
lovely piano record â check out
the title track. (7+)
Spinvisâ Spinvis â Hallelujah, Dutch-language music that doesnât suck
donkey dick! Check uit
âVoor ik vergeetâ. (7-)
After acquiring it on black plastic, i thought iâd give Green Dayâs
American Idiot a spin â last time around i gave it a C+, but itâs much
better when youâre able to properly appreciate each track on its own merits. You know the hits,
so check out âLetterbombâ. (8)
Charli XCXâs Crash is pretty good, but anchored too firmly in the
mainstream for my liking. Check out the hyperpop-inflected
âLightningâ. (7)
đş Apple TV+âs Severance is some of the best bloody television iâve
ever seen. I pray to the heavens above that they donât fuck up that cliffhanger. (9+)
đş Netflixâs animated Inside Job has a wonky start, with an abundance
of forced pop-cultural references, but really finds its footing by the end of the season. Hereâs
hoping they donât cancel it â i canât wait to see where it goes next! (7)
đĽď¸ Kane Parsons continues to breathe new life into a worn-out e-horror setting with his
Backrooms
series. (7)
â°ď¸ I am, as of last month, an official sponsor of the otters at
Northumberland Country Zoo. My only regret is that iâm not allowed to hug them. (cute/10)
Cat tax. Otter tax?
â°ď¸ Finally, as ever, i can highly recommend
going outside and touching grass. Really, one of the most fulfilling things you can ever do. (10+)
Hello. Iâve done some things in the past month and a half. They were alright.
Films watched
Miranda Julyâs Kajillionaire: watched on a whim as part of my local art-house cinemaâs âbest of 2020â programme. A soppy
gay kiss and a solitary touching scene canât save this film from its own worst tendencies, with
irritatingly quirky characters, jokes so dry they donât deserve to be called âhumourâ, and a
flat, unemotional lead. (D)
Quentin Tarantinoâs Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003): Man sure does like his
feet. (A)
Marvelâs Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021): I canât be a cynic about this
â itâs just plain fun from start to finish. Willem Dafoe and Andrew Garfield absolutely steal
the show, almost making up for the formerâs goofy mask and the latterâs abysmal Spider-flicks.
Some of that CGI was a bit dodgy, though, wasnât it? (B+)
The Wachowskisâ The Matrix Reloaded (2003): Iâm going to say it: i
enjoyed it more than the first one! Is it a better film? I donât know about that. But
it takes itself so seriously while being so unabashedly goofy that i canât help but fall in love
with it. Where else can you find PS2 Keanu fighting hundreds of Hugo
Weavings in the same film as a monologue about the meaning of free will? (A-)
The Wachowskisâ The Matrix Revolutions (2003): This one, on the other
hand, did the worst thing a film can do. It bored me â which youâd think wouldnât be possible
given its massive scale. (D+)
Lana Wachowskiâs The Matrix Resurrections (2021): Finally, the film i
binge-watched the other three to see. I appreciate what it was trying to do, and some of the
worldbuilding was fascinating, but as much as i want to like it, it just falls flat on its face
everywhere else. Hugo Weavingâs tech-bro replacement is a poor fit for the job. The action is
just plain awful, and the dialogue isnât much better (Lana, please log off).
The best part about it was the cut-ins from the original film. Sorry, Ms Wachowski, but i think
iâll be taking the blue pill. (C-)
Jason Reitmanâs Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021): Itâs a cynical
cash-grab any way you slice it, sure. Itâs less of a sequel to the original film and more a
sequel to a parallel, schmaltzier Spielbergian version of it which never existed. Thereâs a
character called âPodcast.â But⌠i enjoyed it! It recaptures the spark of those classic eighties
kidsâ films â The Goonies, E.T., &c. â in a way thatâs been
sorely missing for the last decade. (B)
Spoilers
Not sure how i feel about the ethics of CGI Harold Ramis,
mindâŚ
Things which are not films
đş Adult Swimâs Smiling Friends (2021): I have no idea what this
absolutely deranged cartoon is, but i would like three more seasons and a movie greenlit
immediately, thank you very much. (A)
đş The BBCâs
Around the World in 80 Days (2021): Just not my thing, iâm afraid. (E)
đŽ Josh Wardleâs Wordle (2021): A nice way to unpick my brain at the
start of the day. (C+)
đ Mary Roachâs Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003): I
was very much enjoying my copy, which i had received as a Christmas gift, until i misplaced itâŚ
somewhere? It is, one presumes, now in the same dimension where all the socks and pens
go.
đż Talking Headsâ Speaking in Tongues (1983): Picked this classic up
at Beatdown. âThis Must Be the Place (NaĂŻve Melody)â
may just be the greatest song ever written. (A)
đď¸ GĂŚaâs Ouseburn (4.5 billion
BCE), with assistance from Lord Armstrong and T. Dan Smith: The
finest place for a walk in Newcastle, if i do say so myself. Iâve been working on a post for
ages about all the nuances of it, but, alas, the heavy writerâs block sits unmoving on my
keyboard. (A+)
Other recent minutiĂŚ
Your authorâs pinky finger was recently intimately acquainted with the inside of an antiseptic
wipe dispenser, and she had to go to A&E to get it
fixed.i Not my proudest moment.
Home-made flatbread. Need i say more?
Gods bless whoeverâs been sticking up all those anti-anti-vax stickers. Theyâre
fighting the good fight! âItâs not Covid-1984.â
I donât mean to be a cynic, but something about the concept of a âzero-waste shopâ does strike
me as a little oxymoronic⌠and if not that, then at least a bad business model.
Newbiggin-by-the-Sea: itâs okayâ˘!
Cary Joji Fukunagaâs No Time to Die (2021): Having never seen a James Bond film before,
i have to say i enjoyed it, even if
the artsy-fartsy cinema i saw it at wasnât the ideal
venue for a massive blockbuster. A racist gets kicked into a vat of acid; what more do you want?
(C+)
Lana and Lily Wachowskiâs The Matrix (1999): The most 1999 movie to ever 1999 its way
onto the screen. It suffers somewhat from its own success; iâd heard so much good about it that,
even though by technical standards i could of course tell it was a good film, i still found
myself somewhat underwhelmed by the ending. (B)
Denis Villeneuveâs Dune: Part One (2021): I got the immersive experience by
really needing to go to the toilet about halfway through and having no idea when the film was
going to end. Amazing visuals, amazing scope, amazing score, i did not feel a single emotion.
(B)
Wes Andersonâs The French Dispatch (2021): Part two of an unexpectedly TimothĂŠe
Chalamet-filled day at the pictures. Itâs another Wes Anderson film! If you like Wes Anderson,
youâll like this. If you donât, you wonât! There is nothing more i can say about this except
that the projector was slightly broken and cut off the top 10% of the frame. (B)
Mary Harronâs American Psycho (2000): Me and a group of friends watched this over
Discord for laughs and generally memed our way through it â and yet, even among our decidedly
unserious,
Scorcese-killing
atmosphere, we were all genuinely fucking terrified at the chainsaw scene. A masterclass in
tension and subtle comedy. (A+)
Sam Raimiâs Spider-Man (2002): Watched with friends over Discord. It feels like iâm
throwing an axe at someoneâs altar here, but good fucking heavens, this movie was
laaaame. It ticks off basically every clichĂŠ on the list, with seemingly no
self-awareness⌠iâll admit, though, i did have fun on a purely campy level. (C-)
John McTiernanâs Die Hard (1988): An absolute thrill-ride from start to finish. Every
time you think it canât get any more extreme, it does.
âNo shit, lady, do i sound like iâm ordering a fucking pizzaâ˝â (A)
Brian Hensonâs The Muppets Christmas Carol (1992): Greatest Christmas film ever made.
(B-)
Music listened to
Sam Fenderâs Seventeen Going Under: Iâm naturally biased as a Geordie boygirl myself,
but the second i heard this, it went straight to the top of my album-of-the-year rankings â and
itâs not even a contest. (A+. Best track:
âSeventeen Going Underâ)
Lucy Dacusâs Home Video: No spoilers, but the closing track? Ye Gods, did the closing
track give me a teary eye. (A. Best track:
âTriple Dog Dareâ)
Underscoresâ Fishmonger: A fascinating fusion of hyperpop and pop-punk. Itâs patchy in
a few places, and the repeated samples got on my nerves, but iâm excited to see what this
band(?) does next! (B-. Best track:
âSpoiled Little Bratâ)
Sigur RĂłsâs TakkâŚ: I love it. I really do â but i found myself having to take breaks
every so often because lead singer JĂłnsiâs falsetto came dangerously close to giving me a
migraine. (B. Best track:
âHoppĂpollaâ, natch)
Some interesting stuff from the Isle of Wight-based band
Wet Leg, dripping with wit and
sardonic vocals. Canât wait for the album!
I went to my first concert since, you know, the thing. All glory to Elbow.
Other recent minutiĂŚ
Iâve been taking up sketching in my journal to ease the brain. Iâm not anywhere near good enough
to be posting anything on here â trust me â but itâs just nice to have a creative outlet. :)
I went on a brief jaunt out to
the old Roman temple at Benwell, but to tell the truth, there wasnât enough interesting about it to turn it into a full post.
I did, funnily enough, pass about five different religious denominations on the bus
there â a church, a mosque, a gurdwara, a Hindu temple, and a Hare
Krishna society.
Storm Arwen absolutely fucked parts of Northumberland. My neck of the woods was largely
unscathed, but the next town over didnât fare so well â they didnât have power for about a week.
There were a couple of Barbadians interviewed on Radio 4 about the countryâs transition to a
republic, and it rather struck me how similar their dialect is to our West Country accent.
Now that the nights are getting longer again, itâs getting to be good weather for stargazing. I
really must get myself out to that observatory in Wark again at some pointâŚ
Relevant pictures (and one audio file) from jaunts out
The aforementioned temple, dedicated to the obscure Romano-Celtic God
Antenociticus.
One of the many, many trees knocked over by the storm. (And this was taken a fortnight after the
fact!)
The sound of Arwen pattering against the window.
