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Yes, it's true. I did some stand up comedy/poetry at an arts centre in my city last night and it went pretty well, people actually laughed! I was going for a deadpan thing where the introductions to the poems are long and the poems are very short. The audio is a bit low so you might need headphones or really crank the volume. Hopefully I can do some more in the future, I have a great one about ZZ Top.

Hi. I’m a 14 year old boy named Elias from Sweden, my psn is: Lanneforselias. I played with the Domestic Battery crew last Saturday and the Saturday before that in a playlist. I had a great experience and had lots of fun. I got introduced into the game by my dad (Lann3fors) and would like to join the crew. I’m a pretty new player to the game, started in the summer of 2023 but would say that I’m kind of experienced in all aspect's of the game. Thanks!

! ! ! Now Available As A Team Deathmatch ! ! ! Nearly 10 years after creating the LTS, I've replicated this in all its Glory as a TDM. Link to bookmark is in the OP.

Emilia Perez (2024) dir Jaques Audiard A multi award-nominated musical about a Mexican drug baron who always felt they were a woman born in a man's body. She fakes her own death and has gender reassignment, plus a lot of other plastic surgery, to start a new, better, life in a new identify. She is assisted in all this by her lawyer, Rita and tries to re-establish some sort of relationship with her wife Jessi and kids. Emilia is played by Karla Sofia Gascon (a trans woman) and has been nominated for best leading actress in the Oscars and Baftas. But I would say it is Zoe Saldana, as Rita, who is the main character. Both she and Selana Gomez, as Jessi, have picked up (supporting actress) nominations, as has the director, makeup artists, composers, producers, writers and others in technical roles. It could win all of those. I don't think it will, but I haven't seen that many films released last year yet. It seems to be one that you either love or hate. I suspect a lot of the hate is coming from people who are anti-trans and can't see past that aspect of the film. I liked it, the music and cinematography in particular. The acting was good, but I'm not sure if it was award-winningly good. I also think the script could have been better. It's just over 2 hours long but because it has so many musical scenes that, as is usually case in musicals, don't advance the plot the way spoken dialogue would, it felt to me like it ought to have been longer to fill in some missing details. The musical numbers were good though, sort of similar to a Baz Lurhman film, in that the actors singing them do not necessarily have a great singing voice but also with some scenes that just burst into a massive dancing and singing show that then goes back to dialogue afterwards. And a lot of it is not musical at all. There were a couple of cheesy scenes; one in-particular in a Thai gender reassignment clinic that Rita is checking out before finding the right one, did not make much sense to me. Maybe they were trying to say “this is the popular image of a s*x-change clinic, but in reality it's something far more serious”? Another slightly weak plot element is that Jessi does not recognise her former husband after the surgery. Of course that surgery has made some massive physical changes, that was the point, but even so, would you not pick up on some characteristics of a person you have been married to for years and had kids with? I can forgive that though, put it down to artistic license, in the same way I forgive William Shakespeare frequently making his characters unrecognisable to their friends and family just by doing their hair different and wearing a hat! 8 / 10

What I Watched This Week #162 (Feb 3-9) The Servant dir. Joseph Losey/1963/1h56m James Fox plays rich Tony who is looking to hire a manservant. Enter Hugo Barrett (Dirk Bogarde), who seems perfect for the job. Things get even better when Hugo insists his sister Vera (Sarah Miles) be hired as maid. But things soon get dark as Hugo becomes more and more malevolent towards Tony until finally the servant becomes the master. This is a brilliant slow-burn of a thriller with an incredible central performance from Bogarde as the insidious Hugo, slowly breaking down Tony with scary precision. He is one of the most slimy, scheming pieces of sh*t I've seen on film. There's a strong theme of the class divide being flipped here, with the working class Hugo dominating the upper class Tony. There's also a strong homosexual subtext to their antagonistic relationship, with Hugo using his sexuality like a weapon at times. The direction really adds to the atmosphere, especially in the use of a round mirror which is prominently featured in several shots, distorting and twisting reality. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Ratatouille dir. Brad Bird/2007/1h51m This Paris set film is the second Pixar movie from Brad Bird, after The Incredibles, and stars Patton Oswalt as Remy. Equipped with an almost supernaturally sophisticated palate he dreams of becoming a chef, spurred on by the words of the world famous Gusteau - “anyone can cook”. This is especially meaningful for Remy as he also happens to be a rat. Teaming up with the incompetent Linguini (Lou Romano) the duo become a lean, mean, cooking machine, which they'll need to be in order to impress misanthropic restaurant critic Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole). A big step up from Cars when it comes to story and character, this does however feel overlong, with several plotlines vying for space. I like the central pairing of Remy and Linguini, and the way Remy controls him – sat on his head and pulling his hair like a crane operator – is always funny, and led to one of the best payoffs for a joke in a totally different film from over a decade later, Everything Everywhere all at Once. It should go without saying that the animation is exceptional, and Pixar still has that magic when it comes to sincere emotional moments. Here it's when Ego tastes the titular dish and is transported back to his childhood. 7/10 The Stranger dir. Orson Welles/1946/1h35m The legendary Orson Welles directs and stars in this post war noir thriller about a war crimes investigator, Agent Wilson (Edward G. Robinson), hunting down a n*zi hiding out as a professor in a small American town, Franz Kindler/Charles Rankin (Welles). Only Welles's third film, this is quite different from his first two in that it's fairly straightforward narratively and structurally with none of the formal experimentation of Citizen Kane or The Magnificent Ambersons. But that's not to say that this isn't a masterfully crafted film. The use of shadows really adds to the tension and there are some long takes lasting several minutes that are so well staged you hardly notice that there's not been a cut. Robinson is a good lead as the persistent investigator feeling his way around town, but it's always Welles who steals the show, his commanding presence filling up the frame. Not the masterpiece like Citizen Kane or his later films like Chimes at Midnight and F for Fake, this is still an enjoyable thriller that had me on the edge of my seat at the end. 8.5/10 The Face on the Barroom Floor dir. Charlie Chaplin/1914/12m This very early Chaplin short is quite unique in his filmography in that it's an adaptation of a poem, with the lines of the poem used as the intertitles. He plays a heartbroken artist who has just been dumped by his girlfriend Madeleine (Cecile Arnold), and is now drinking himself to oblivion in the local bar, drawing her portrait on the floor with some chalk. This may be the first time in his career where he focuses more on the melodrama than the gags, though there are some of those here too, mostly involving drunken pratfalls and arguments with the other patrons of the bar. Well made compared to other films of the era, and Chaplin's charm always shines through, this still feels underdeveloped with some polish needed on both the dramatic and comedic elements. I do appreciate the originality though. 5.5/10 Perfect Blue dir. Satoshi Kon/1997/1h22m The debut film from Satoshi Kon – who went on to make the absolutely bonkers Paprika, a major influence on Christopher Nolan's Inception – Perfect Blue is an anime noir thriller about a young popstar, Mima (Junko Iwao), who leaves her famous girl group in order to forge an acting career. But soon she suspects she may have a stalker and the people who have been helping with her new career start turning up dead. This gives off big David Lynch vibes, from the dread-filled atmosphere, the unconventional narrative that at times refuses to give answers or explain things clearly, but especially in the theme of split identities. Mima struggles with the disconnect between her real self and the idealised version that her fans obsess over. The animation is excellent here, with some really effective sequences as Mima spirals further into paranoia. An excellent thriller that feels quite unconventional for an anime film. 9/10 Golden Eighties dir. Chantal Akerman/1986/1h36m The director of Sight and Sound magazines greatest film of all time, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, brings something I wouldn't expect from her, a poppy, pastel-coloured musical centred around a hair salon in that epicentre of 80's social life, the mall. The plot concerns a love triangle between Lili (Fanny Cottencon), the flighty salon manager who's having an affair with the owner, an older married man, Mado (Lio), who works in the salon, and Robert (Nicolas Tronc), the son of the owners of a clothing store across the mall from the salon. Vibrant and full of life and energy, this reminded me of the Jacques Demy musicals of the 60's like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The use of colour and the costuming is amazing, and I love the artificiality of the setting, really matching the vibe and the time period. The music is excellent, though I wouldn't call them songs, it's more like sung dialogue, again like the Demy musicals. The performances are all good, but the standout is Delphine Seyrig who plays Robert's mother and gets a substantial subplot of her own. If you don't like musicals then you won't like this, but I do, and I think that this is a lot of fun. 9/10 The Dark Tower dir. Nikolaj Arcel/2017/1h35m Stephen King's Dark Tower is an epic seven book fantasy saga set in a bizarre world that's a mash up of western, sci-fi, horror and everything in between and tells the story of the last gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and his quest to find The Dark Tower, a structure that stands at the centre of all worlds, in order to protect it from the embodiment of pure evil, The Man in Black. I've read it and I love it, and this film, which attempts to adapt all of that in a single 90 minute film, is a f*cking abomination. Imagine Lord of the Rings, but it's an hour long and they cut out all of the characters except Frodo, Gandalf and Sauron, got rid of ninety percent of the story and locations, and don't tell it from the perspective of the main character. Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey would make a good Roland and Man in Black in a totally different film with different writers and most definitely a different director. I am hopeful for the Dark Tower TV show though, because it's being helmed by Mike Flanagan, who made the much better than it should be sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep. One thing this film did do well is that it made me want to re-read the books, so I'm off to find my copy of the first volume, The Gunslinger. 1/10

What I Watched This Week #161 (Jan 27-Feb 2) Rattle of a Simple Man dir. Muriel Box/1964/1h32m The wonderful Harry H. Corbett stars as Percy, a shy and quiet man in his late thirties who has no experience with the ladies. While down in London to watch United play in the FA Cup final his loutish and laddish mates dare him to try and chat up a beautiful woman in the pub where they're drinking. This is Cyrenne (Diane Cilento), a prostitute with a heart of gold who takes pity on him and invites him back to her flat, in which the film is mostly set. What follows is a excellently written and performed two-hander between Corbett and Cilento that is very progressive for its time – exploring themes of masculinity, gender roles, and the class divide. But first and foremost this is a comedy and I think it's still hilarious today. Corbett was well known for the sitcom Steptoe and Son (later remade for the US as Sandford and Son), which had only begun a couple of years earlier, and his comic timing and delivery is near perfect here. But he's also a very good dramatic actor, bringing genuine pathos to this role, making him feel like a real person and not just a joke. Cilento is also very good, with her character going from pitying Percy, to being intrigued by him, all the way to falling in love with him. I went into this expecting a cheeky s*x comedy, something like a tame, British, 60's version of American Pie, but this is much deeper and more meaningful than that, which I think is thanks in part to having a female director. Corbett's Mancunian accent may be a bit dodgy but that doesn't detract from this charming, funny, and surprisingly touching film. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Love Affair dir. Leo McCarey/1939/1h28m This classic romantic melodrama tells the story of two strangers, Michel and Terry (Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne), who meet and fall in love aboard a cruise ship. The only problem is that they are both already engaged. They make a vow to meet again in six month's time at the top of the Empire State Building if they are able to end their current relationships. Starting off very sentimental and typical, there is a pretty shocking twist at the mid point that presents an obstacle to our star-crossed lovers. It also shifts the tone in a way I wasn't expecting and allows Dunne to show off a different side to her character and to go through a substantial arc. Her performance is what really drives the film in this second half and she does a great job of eliciting sympathy without coming across as pitiful, quite the opposite in fact as she gains a determined self-sufficiency in this part of the film. Boyer is also good, though his character isn't nearly as interesting, being just a typical lovestruck Frenchman for the most part. There's some nice direction here, I particularly liked the shot where Terry throws open the door of her apartment to reveal the Empire State reflected in the glass. Not on the same level as Brief Encounter, which is my measuring stick for this genre, but this is still worth a watch if you're in the mood for love. 7/10 Boiling Point dir. Takeshi Kitano/1990/1h36m An early film from Takeshi Kitano, this stars Yurei Yanagi as Masaki, a young man who plays for a pathetically bad baseball team that is coached by a former Yakuza. When the coach is threatened by current Yakuza Masaki decides to travel to Okinawa in order to get a gun. While there he meets the psychotic gangster Uehara (Kitano), who has his own plans for revenge. This has a very strange tone for a crime film in that it's very relaxed, almost shambling. There's no effort to build any tension, with events coming and going with ease, punctuated by dry, dark humour and occasional moments of violence. In that regard this reminds me of the French New Wave of the early sixties where the plots were so unimportant they were practically ignored. Yanagi is good in the lead, someone who is both passive and active at the same time, he feels impotent. That's in contrast to Kitano's performance, you can't take your eyes off of him, he has such an imposing presence. This is very well shot, Kitano having a great eye for interesting compositions. Not your typical gangster film and it's all the better for it. 8/10 Three Ages dir. Buster Keaton, Edward F. Cline/1923/1h4m This silent comedy from Buster Keaton sees him vie for the romantic attention of The Girl (Margaret Leahy) with a brutish bully (Wallace Beery). The unique selling point for this very standard plot is that we see it play out over three different ages of man – the Stone Age, the Roman Age, and the Modern age. The different gags he comes up with for each age are what makes this worth watching over the threadbare plot, and he's got some great ones here. My favourite comes during the Roman period where he has a dog-drawn chariot, and when he needs to replace one of them he pulls a spare out of the trunk. Keaton was also known for his death-defying stunts and there's a very impressive one here where he falls down the side of a building, his life saved by some conveniently placed awnings. Keaton gives a great performance here, his style quite different from Chaplin. His slightly bemused yet stoically unchanging expression never betraying more than the slightest emotion makes all of his stunts and pratfalls even funnier. Not as substantial as his later films like Sherlock Jr. or The General, this is still an entertaining watch. 7.5/10 The Second dir. Taylor Ramos, Tony Zhou/2024/16m This short is set in a modern world where 18th century duels are still the preferred manner of settling disputes and stars Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as Phillip, a man who must act as the second – the person on each side of the duel who tries to negotiate a peaceful resolution before the pistols are pulled out - for his son Danny (Ethan Hwang). This is from the couple behind the excellent YouTube channel Every Frame a Painting, which used to make video essays about filmmaking and what makes particular directors unique, so it's disappointing that this film is pretty bland visually. Most of it is just people stood in a field talking and they're unable to inject any life into proceedings through camera movement of framing. Sun-Hyung Lee is a good lead, bringing a lot of personal history to his character, who made his name as a young man by participating in a duel himself, and I would've liked the film to focus more on the relationship between himself and Danny. 6/10 The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift dir. Justin Lin/2006/1h44m Tokyo Drift is like the Halloween III of the series in that it's trying to turn the franchise into an anthology where the only connection between each film is the fact that people are driving ridiculous cars fast and in a furious manner. In this instalment Lucas Black plays middle-aged high schooler Sean who's sent to live with his military father in Tokyo after getting into car related trouble involving one of the kids from Home Improvement. While there he inevitably gets caught up in the underground drift racing scene (the montage of Sean learning how to drift is the highlight of the film). The Tokyo setting is interesting and makes it visually distinct from the previous films, but I found this to be pretty boring. Sean is such a nothing character that I forgot he exists every time he's not on screen. My knowledge of this series is that it gets really over the top and insane – apparently they go to space in the tenth one – so at this point I'm just hanging in there waiting for that madness to start, which I hope is soon. 4/10 Pepi, Luci, Bom dir. Pedro Almodóvar/1980/1h22m The debut feature length film from Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, this stars Carmen Maura as Pepi, a woman who is r*ped by a policeman (Felix Rotaeta) and decides to take revenge. This comes in the form of befriending his shy and retiring wife Luci (Eva Siva) and corrupting her with the help of her friend, punk singer Bom (Alaska). This starts with Bom pissing on her, unlocking Luci's masochistic tendencies. This is a transgressive, vulgar, sexually frank anti-authority film and one of the most punk movies I've ever seen. I don't think there's ever been a male filmmaker who can write and direct female characters like Almodóvar, something he proves time and again with films like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and All About My Mother. This isn't as refined as his later films, but that rawness adds to the feel of the piece. That also goes for the performances, they are good but in an amateurish way. It all feels very DIY, right down to the pop art style intertitles. 8/10

The Forgotten Battle (2020) dir Matthijs van Heijningen Dutch WWII film, in Dutch, German and English, about three people involved in the The Battle of the Scheldt (and that is what the original Dutch title translates as, so not sure why they changed that for the English tittle). It was a battle in late 1944, going on whilst Operation Market Garden (as in A Bridge Too Far) was happening and continuing after that. It was crucial to the Allied war efforts in order for them to be able to make use of the port of Antwerp, to bring in supplies on much larger ships than they otherwise would have had to rely on. The problem with Antwerp was to get to it, ships had to navigate through the many islands of the Scheldt estuary, which were all still in German hands. The story follows three main characters. Teuntje (Susan Radder), a young Dutch civilian living in German occupied Vlissingen on one of those islands, Marinus (Gijs Blom), a Dutch born soldier in the German army assigned to a desk job assisting the German officer in charge of Vlissingen, and Will (Jamie Flatters), a British glider pilot, shot down on his way to Arnhem during Operation Market Garden, who makes his way back to Allied lines and joins in the assault on the Scheldt. I have to criticise the character of Will a bit. Given most of the Allied soldiers involved in this battle were Canadian (as the film makes clear), why not have the allied character one of those, rather than a British soldier who gets involved by accident? If they had made more of relationship of this battle to Operation Market Garden I could understand it, but they don't. It's as if they wanted a British, not Canadian, main character. Why? But apart from that small aspect, it's a good film. It feels real, not that I would know what real battle is like of course, but I mean it does not over do the action. It shows the full horror of death and injury in battle (from both sides), nothing is glamorised at all, and nothing seems to done be just for the sake of special effects. The acting is good without any particularly outstanding performances. There's some good cinematography. It includes authentic looking aircraft (for those interested in that sort of thing, Horsa gliders towed by a mix of Halifax and Dakota planes). It starts with a great summary of the state of the war at that point using an animated map showing the allied advance from the Normandy landings. 8 / 10

A short windy course at the base of Mount Chilliad. HSW off and top-tier cars restricted in the sports and super’s class. RSC link: https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/job/gtav/5qKsWInqWEmPWE3-l2wkhA Updated from the original. Polished a few checkpoints with added features and extended track.

The Teachers' Lounge (2023) dir Ilker Çatak Leonie Benesch plays a teacher, Carla, at a German school where there have been a series of thefts. Only small amounts of money have been taken, but someone is clearly making a habit of it. She teaches a class of 11 and 12 year olds. One is accused of being the thief, but she senses the accusation is false and borne out of another kids prejudice. The school handles it badly. She then has an idea, sets a trap and gets pretty conclusive evidence of who the real thief is. She confronts them hoping they can put an end to it without having to report the suspect, but they deny everything. Then the whole situation just spirals out of control, with counter accusations, further suspicion, protests, people not knowing the full story jumping to the wrong conclusion, etc, etc. Throughout all this Carla tries to do the right thing, keeping things confidential, that if she actually revealed would make life far easier for her, and so on. It's well acted, particularly by Benesch who I have seen previously in the excellent TV series Babylon Berlin. I found the child actors all quite good too, largely because they are just being normal kids. This is not the sort of drama where kids do adult things, like solving crimes, or coming to the rescue of someone in danger. They just do what you would expect kids that age to do in that situation. In some ways its quite a simple drama, no thrills, no special effects, not that much tension at first. But it does build up the tension quite subtlety for something which, at the end of the day, is quite a minor crime to something that seems bigger. The ending was a bit confusing to me. I can't say much without spoilers but it was not what I expected and I thought the story would go on a passed where it ended. I'm not sure what point the film makers where trying to make with this ending. But it was very interesting none-the-less. 8 / 10

What I Watched This Week #150 (Nov 11-17) The African Queen dir. John Huston/1951/1h45m The African Queen stars Katharine Hepburn as Rose, a missionary in Africa at the outbreak of WWI. When her brother is killed by the Germans she persuades a drunken riverboat captain, Charlie (Humphrey Bogart), to take her down river and blow up a German gunboat. This is a fun adventure movie with a large part of it shot on location, which was unusual for the time, making it stand out from other films of the era. But what really makes this movie are the two lead performances and the chemistry between Hepburn and Bogart. Hepburn is fantastic here as a woman who discovers her love of adventure after a life of quiet devotion to the lord. One scene in particular stands out – as they are boating down some white water rapids she is laughing in delight even though she is also terrified, it perfectly captures her newfound lust for life. The romance is predictable but done with real charm and affection that makes it work, and it culminates in one of the funniest wedding scenes I've seen. 8/10 A King in New York dir. Charlie Chaplin/1957/1h44m Chaplin's penultimate film sees him play King Shadov, deposed ruler of a fictional European country seeking refuge in New York where he soon becomes a celebrity. But before long he is accused of being a Communist after helping out a Marx obsessed schoolboy, Rupert, played by his son Michael. This is deeply personal for Chaplin as he was exiled from the USA in 1952 after being accused of being a Communist himself. This gives the film a melancholic air as he truly loved America, the country that allowed him to make something of himself after his poverty stricken childhood in Victorian England. Despite that he still managed to make a very funny film here, with the scene at the boy's school where he first meets Rupert being a highlight. There are also glimpses of his physical comedy from his silent era, but being nearly 70 at this time he has lost a bit of the sharpness he once had. Not on the level of his two masterpiece talkies, The Great Dictator and Limelight, this is still a great late film from one of the true geniuses of cinema. 8/10 Wish dir. Chris Buck, Fawn Veerasunthorn/2023/1h35m The most recent Disney film at time of writing, Wish stars Ariana DeBose as Asha, a young woman in a magical land called Rosas where wishes have power. One day she makes a wish so strong that it summons a star down from the sky and the two set out to topple the evil King Magnifico (Chris Pine). The main thing that stands out about this film is the art style, with the backgrounds going for a hand painted look while the characters are cel shaded models that reminded me of the character style from the TellTale Walking Dead Games. Taken on their own each is fine, with some quite beautiful work at times, but the two don't really mesh and makes the characters feel disconnected from the world. This film's biggest sin is just being plain bland. This was released in Disney's centenary year but it shares nothing with the companies best films. If I was in charge of Disney I would have made a third Fantasia film with each segment representing the different periods and styles of the company for their 100th birthday, not this wet blanket of a film. 5/10 Two short films by Radu Jude: Caricaturana 2021/9m (no videos of this) Semiotic Plastic 2021/22m These two short films from Romanian director Radu Jude, who made the excellent Bad Luck Banging and Do Not Expect Too Much From The End of the World, both showcase his love for experimentation but feel very distinct from each other. Caricaturana takes up an idea from Sergei Eisenstein by taking illustrations of a fictional French character and juxtaposing it with modern headlines, making him react to the headline “actress Gwyneth Paltrow sued as man claims v*gina-scented candle exploded”. Semiotic Plastic takes children's dolls and toys and sets them up in various different tableaux, mostly quite infantile like a couple of Barbie dolls 69ing, but others seem to deal with war and famine, just all in an artificial, sanitised way. Both of these films deal with modernity but I feel that Semiotic Plastic is more successful though it does seem overlong even at 22 minutes. Caricaturana – 5/10 Semiotic Plastic – 7/10 Kneecap dir. Rich Peppiatt/2024/1h45m Like The Village People film Can't Stop The Music, this film tells the fictional origin story of a real band, in this case the titular Kneecap, a Belfast based hip-hop trio who rap in Irish as a political act and a way to preserve the language. When music teacher JJ O Dochartaigh is called in by the police to translate for someone who refuses to speak English he meets Liam Og O hAnnaidh, an angry young man who likes to write poems. Seeing potential in him he lays down some beats and, along with Liam's friend Naoise O Caireallain, Kneecap is born (thankfully for any of us who don't speak Irish they also go under the names DJ Provai, Moglai Bap and Mo Chara). This is a funny, vibrant, confrontational film that revels in the club scene these lads find an escape in, expressing themselves through music and copious amounts of drugs. What really impressed me is how good they all are at acting despite this being their first film. O Dochartaigh is the stand out bringing some real nuance to his role as the older of the trio, conflicted between his responsibilities and his calling as a balaclava clad DJ. One of my favourite films from this year. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Cabin in the Woods dir. Drew Goddard/2011/1h35m A group of the most stereotypical teens you can imagine, including a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth, head out to a cabin in the woods for a weekend of fun. However, after reading a Latin incantation from an old book they summon a family of torture obsessed zombies who start to hunt them down. There's also a parallel storyline going on at the same time that I won't go into as it would spoil the best thing about this film. It's hard to talk too much about it without giving anything away, but I'll say that everything seems clichéd for a reason. I did find the dialogue to be pretty bad, having the typical Joss Whedon problem of everyone being snarky and witty making them pretty much indistinguishable from each other. But I found the concept of this film really interesting, even if it does devolve into CGI ridiculousness by the end. 6/10

I'm back with another set of of stand-up poetry, this time I got a bit obsessed with Harrison Ford, but I don't think it's that noticeable.

It's been a while since I posted here, and I've watched too many films to be bothered to review them all, so here's a selection of the best of the best that I've seen over the past couple months. I'll post a few of these until I've caught up. I log and give a rating to every film I watch on my letterboxd account if you're that interested in all the random stuff I watch (Spermageddon was a highlight). https://letterboxd.com/LimeGreenLegend/ The Lion in Winter dir. Anthony Harvey/1968/2h14m Henry II (Peter O'Toole) has his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn) taken out of imprisonment for the Christmas period so they can trade barbarous insults whilst discussing which of their sons is to be heir to the throne. The chemistry between O'Toole and Hepburn is incredible here, they really love hating each other and hate that they love each other and that tension really elevates what is already a brilliant script. The supporting cast is small - most of the film is confined to Henry's castle over a short period of time - but just as good as the leads, and it features in their first film roles both Anthony Hopkins as Prince Richard, Eleanor's preferred heir, and Timothy Dalton as the French King Philip II. This domestic drama is both intimate and epic at the same time, with the stakes feeling appropriately high. Watching this is like being on a bus and overhearing a couple having a really juicy argument that makes you stay on for a couple of extra stops because you need to see how it ends. 10/10 Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron dir. Kaku Arakawa/2024/2h1m This documentary takes an unprecedented look behind the scenes at the legendary Studio Ghibli as we follow the equally legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki over the period of seven years as he comes out of retirement (not for the first time) to make The Boy and the Heron, released in 2023 it was his first film for a decade. As a subject Miyazaki comes across as very guarded and closed off, but you soon realise that everything you need to know about him is in his art, that is how he communicates. You get the feeling that working gives him energy and purpose and he can't really do anything else. When he's in work mode he is very single minded, occasionally having a negative impact on his personal relationships. But there is a warmth to him, and a love for humanity and nature and it's all in his incredible films. 9/10 Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem dir. Kazuhisa Takenouchi/2003/1h5m Interstella 5555 tells the story (5tory) of a superstar band on an alien planet who bring peace and love with their awesome funk, but during a concert they are abducted and taken off world, their memories erased, their appearance changed and they are brainwashed into performing corporate pop made just to sell products. Shep, a space pilot in love with the beautiful bass player Stella, goes on a mission to rescue them. This film has no dialogue and was made as a visual companion to Daft Punk's Discovery album, much like The Who's Tommy or The Wall by Pink Floyd. The animation is gorgeous, crisp and colourful thanks to a recent 4k remaster, and it goes without saying that the music is amazing with songs like One More Time, Digital Love and Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Discovery is one of my favourite albums and in my opinion this is the best way to experience it. 10/10 It's Such a Beautiful Day dir. Don Hertzfeldt/2012/1h2m It's Such a Beautiful Day is a simple animated film - stick figures against plain white backgrounds - that tells the story of an unremarkable man, Bill, who has a mundane life and suffers from a neurological problem and mental health issues. This feels incredibly personal, thanks in part to the fact that is was basically made by one person, and deeply moving. I found myself caring more about this stick figure than most characters in every film I've ever seen. Don't be put off by the style, this is an incredibly profound film that will make you appreciate your life a little bit more after watching it. 10/10 Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes dir. Junta Yamaguchi/2020/1h11m Kazunari Tosa plays Kato, a cafe owner who discovers on day that the TV in his flat and the TV in his cafe downstairs have somehow become linked and can communicate with each other, the kicker being that the cafe is two minutes in the future. This leads to a series of ever more complicated complications as he and his friends try to work out a way to make some money off of it. This is a brilliantly ingenious film with a really clever and original take on time travel that doesn't sacrifice character depth or charm. What makes this film really stand out is that it's all shot in one take with some really intricate choreography that sees us travel between the cafe and the flat and back again several times as well as have the characters interact with multiple past and future versions of themselves on the TV screens. It's like a magic trick or a beautifully complicated bit of clockwork. All credit to the actors for being able to do all this and still give great performances. I only watched this because it's short and has a cool title and I'm glad I did, I don't know why this isn't already a cult classic. Honestly, I think this is the best time travel film I've ever seen. 10/10 Superman dir. James Gunn/2025/2h10m James Gunn reboots the DC cinematic universe with a new take on Superman (David Corenswet). I'm not really a fan of superhero films, but I have to say I loved this. Right off the bat, it's not an origin story, which we really never need to see again. I also like how Superman feels and acts like a kid from the midwest who was raised right, he's not been turned into a cool guy who makes jokes all the time like Tony Stark. He's a boy scout who says stuff like gosh darn it, and that's how it should be. Lex Luthor is played here by Nicholas Hoult, and he's also great. He's petty and fuelled by jealousy and he's totally self aware of that and he hates it. I appreciate that this is a bright colourful film, but Gunn hasn't just copied the neon soaked aesthetic of his Guardians of the Galaxy films, here it's a natural brightness fuelled by Earth's yellow sun. The score uses the classis John Williams Superman theme, but sparingly and just for the epic moments, with the original music blending with it perfectly. This is a great film that left me feeling good, and isn't that what Superman's supposed to do? 9/10 All About Eve dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz/1950/2h19m This classic drama stars Bette Davis as aging Broadway star Margo Channing and Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington, an aspiring actor who insidiously worms her way into Margo's life by playing the fawning fan. Over time she is able to push Margo out of the spotlight whilst also nearly destroying her personal relationships. The only one who can see through her lies is theatre critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders). The film opens with Eve accepting an award before flashing back to the start, showing us how she got there, and ends not long after the ceremony with the cycle beginning all over again as Eve's biggest fan shows up, ready and willing to take her place. This is a sharp film with a script full of cutting one liners, mostly given to the always excellent Davis. The real tragedy of the film is that Margo gets everything she deserves in the end, and Davis plays that perfectly. Baxter is equally impressive as the parasitic Eve, all sweetness and smiles at the start but when she flicks that switch to reveal the fame hungry monster inside it's almost scary. 1950 was a good year for showing what fame can do to a person as Sunset Boulevard was also released, that would make a brilliant double feature. 9/10

The Northman (2022) dir Robert Eggers This is described with terms like action, adventure, historical and epic on Netflix and IMDb, but it's quite different to the usual films with those sort of description. The brief Netflix trailer makes it seem to be something similar to TV series like Vikings or The Last Kingdom, set at same period of time with similar locations and characters. But this is not really like those. It's more in the style of a medieval Norse saga with a lot of elements of fantasy and some supernatural characters, with quite a lot of scenes depicting Viking culture and religion, rather being a more action-packed film with a clear narrative story. It's about a betrayed Viking prince, Amleth, played by Alexander Skarsgård, seeking revenge on the man who killed his father and took his inheritance when he was a boy. The story of Amleth comes from a Danish legend and was William Shakespeare's inspiration for Hamlet (the way Amleth is pronounced almost sounds like Hamlet as well). It has a very good cast who put in good performances. In addition to Skarsgård it features Anya Taylor-Joy as Olga, the sl*ve who helps and forms a romantic relationship with Amleth, Nicole Kidman as his mother and Claes Bang as the target of his revenge. There are also some good cameo roles from Ethan Hawke as Amleth's father, Willem Defoe as the father's fool / shaman, and an almost unrecognisable Bjork as the blind seer who the adult Amleth meets on a raid and reminds him of his oath to avenge his father. It has a lot of very well shot scenes of stunning scenery, especially when the story gets to Iceland, and Viking rites and rituals. Although it does not have as many battle scenes as the trailers might suggest, it still does have plenty of graphic hand-to-hand combat scenes and others that are quite brutal but with some of the more gruesome bits just out of shot in or in quite dark settings. It was not what I expected, but I thought it was very good. I can see why it's got some negative reviews on IMDb though as it seems to have been promoted as something it really is not. 9 / 10

Having watched a couple of Quentin Tarantino films in the last few months and with a week's holiday (sort of) just at home, I decided to catch up and review those I have not seen in a while and the one I had not seen at all. Kill Bill (2003 – 04) dir Quentin Tarantino This is a revenge film starring Uma Thurman as Beatrix Kiddo, taking her revenge on former boss and lover Bill (David Carradine) and his gang of assassins (Vivicia Fox, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen and Julie Dreyfus) that she was once part of. It's a film made in two parts, released separately, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Kill Bill: Vol. 2. It should be seen as one film. The second is not a sequel, it simply carries on the same story started in the first and ends with pre-credits acknowledgements of the main characters that appeared in either part. If I had to split them up then I do have a slight preference for Vol. 1. I love the final part in that where Kiddo goes to Tokyo to take out O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) now the head of organised crime there, and fights her way with a samurai sword through O-Ren's army of bodyguards in a brilliantly choreographed scene (see trailer). Also I find Vol 2. can be a little slowly paced in places. But these are minor points. The whole thing is great. Obviously, it is very violent. Normally I am not that keen on really violent films, but Tarantino does them very well and the violence is almost integral to the plot rather than there for it's own sake. For example as the afore mentioned samurai scene in Vol. 1. and the fight with the same weapon with Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) in Vol. 2. It has some fantastic music, including various Ennio Moricone pieces from Sergio Leone Westerns. The acting is good, particularly when Thurman and Carradine are in the same scene. 9 / 10 Reservoir Dogs (1992) dir dir Quentin Tarantino Tarintino's first feature film about the aftermath of a jewellery heist gone wrong, and a film I have seen at least twice before. Watching it this time I found myself appreciating it far more than in the past. The main characters are four of a gang of six thieves, all known only by code names, who survived the shoot out with the cops; Mr White (Harvey Keitel), Mr Orange(Tim Roth), Mr Pink (Steve Buscemi) and the psychopathic Mr Blonde (Michael Madsen). Some called it the most violent film ever made when it was released, they had clearly not seen the film and / or not seen many other violent films. Of course it is violent, it's about armed robbers! But I would not like it if it was too violent. There is a part of one scene where when I first watched it I had to look away (I'm sure people who have seen the film know which bit I mean), but when I watched if again I realised it wasn't that bad. Although there is a lot of blood, with one character essentially spending the entire film slowly bleeding to death from a gun shot to the guts, it's not over-the-top and this is actually a very dialogue heavy film. It could easily be done as a stage play (and I think it has), since most of it takes place in one location, the gang's safe house where the survivors gather. Others scenes are done in flash back giving us a bit more insight into how White, Blonde and Orange came to be on this heist. So there is some great actor between the people playing those four characters. And the opening scene is brilliant. Set when the gang first meet, in a diner, discussing two topics in great depth. One is the lyrics of Madonna songs, particularly “Like a v*rgin” with Mr Brown (Tarantino) giving a speech that could have been straight from an academic music-studies essay, followed by Mr Pink explaining in great detail why he does not generally tip waitresses. The relationship between Mr White and Mr Orange is also great, somewhat father-son-like, with a tragic ending. It's set to some great music too. 9 / 10 Pulp Fiction (1994) dir Quentin Tarintino Tarintino's second film, the only one I have ever seen at the cinema, and for me his best. It has a brilliant script (also written by Tarintino and Roger Avery) that weaves together 5 separate stories, some featuring the same characters, presented in a non-linear order that ends where it began. It has an impressive ensemble cast. The main characters are two hit men, Vincent (John Travolta in a role that resurrected his career) and Jules (Samuel L Jackson), working for a Mr Wallace. It also features Uma Thurman as Mrs Mia Wallace, Harvey Keitel as “The Wolf” who cleans up the messes that hit men sometimes leave behind, Bruce Willis as a boxer, Butch, paid to throw a fight for Mr Wallace and in the opening and closing scenes Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer robbing a restaurant. Each of the 5 stories could work on their own, but how they connect to each other is great. Like all Tarantino films it is violent at times, but never over the top in that respect. Some of those are actually quite funny, e.g. the situation that leads to Vince and Jules requiring The Wolf's assistance and the Samurai-sword scene that concludes business between Butch and Mr Wallace.. It has fantastic dialogue, delivered by great actors, that sometimes takes a mundane topic (e.g. what a Big Mac is called in France or is 5$ milk shake really worth 5$?) and elevates it to something almost deep and meaningful and has a great soundtrack. Travolta, Jackson and Thurman all got well deserved Oscar nominations (and I remember at that year's Bafta's when Hugh Grant won best actor for 4 Weddings and a Funeral he actually apologised to John Travolta who we thought deserved it better). It was also nominated for best Picture, Director and Editing and won Original Screenplay. One of my all-time favourite films. 10 / 10 Death Proof (2007) dir Quentin Tarintino This is the one I had not seen before. In fact I was not even aware of it for quite some time. I don't know for sure why that is, maybe because originally it was released as a double bill “Grindhouse” alongside Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. It's his tribute to slasher / exploitation movies and is quite different to his other films. It has the usual violent elements and prominent soundtrack, but to me it lacks the great story telling, character development and dialogue of his other films. If it were not for that fact that Tarantino himself plays one of the minor roles early on, I would not have recognised it as his. Descriptions of this will tend say it stars Kurt Russel, but although he is the character that binds it all together, he isn't in enough of it to be the “star” in the usual sense. Then again neither is anyone else, so if a film has to have a star then it's him. Anyway he plays Stuntman Mike, a serial killer who used to be a stuntman specialising in car crashes. He uses a stunt car to kill his victims by crashing into their cars. They die or are horribly injured whilst he survives due to all the “Deathproof” modifications made to his. We don't know why he does this nor anything else of his back story. Also we do not know why he chooses the victims he does, other than they are all young women; but I guess that tended to be the usual case in slasher films (I don't know for sure, they are not my sort of thing) so it's the same in this one. It's made almost as two separate stories, a year or so apart and certainly each would work as a relatively short film on their own. The first is mainly set in the Texas bar the victims gather in, with friends and boyfriends. Mike is also there, having followed them. I won't say more to avoid spoilers, but we know at least what he is going to try to do, even if not when and exactly how. The next one is in Tennessee and this time his victims, who all have various film-related jobs, put up quite a fight. One of them is in fact played by real-life stunt woman Zoe Bell, as herself, and another is also a stunt woman. So although they don't have a Deathproof car, they certainly know how to drive as if they did. And the ending is pure Tarintino. But the highlight of whole film, in this section, is one of the greatest car chases ever. In fact, for me, someone who is not usually a fan of such things when they dominate a film, I would say this is the best car chase I have ever seen. There's a bit of it in the trailer, Zoe Bell is the one strapped to the front of the car. So well worth watching, but don't expect all the usual Tarantino elements. 7 / 10

Oppenheimer (2023) dir Christopher Nolan The multi-award winning biopic of Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who led the Los Alamos Laboratory which, as part of the Manhattan project, developed the atom bomb in the Second World War. I had been meaning to watch this for a while, but with a 3 hour runtime it did not easily fit into my usual film-watching routine. But this week it did, and also it was an appropriate time, given it was the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6th August. I have to say I was a little disappointed for a film that won best picture. It was technically very good and deserved it's awards for things like sound and editing. Also Cillian Murphy lead a fantastic cast that included Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer' wife, Matt Damon as General Groves (in charge of the Manhattan project) and Robert Downey Jnr as retired Admiral Strauss (the post-war head of the US Atomic Energy Commission, who Oppenheimer worked for). But I found the way the story was presented hard to follow, especially in the first half of the film. It is told in a very non-linear way, which I don't have any issue with in principal, but I just found this too confusing as it switched between 3 main different time-lines and a couple of minor ones. One of these was shot in black and white for reasons I did not follow, unless it was supposed to make things less confusing, if so it failed to do that for me. When it focussed on the main story later in the film, that of the Manhattan project, the scientists and science and technology behind it, it was very good. But early on this was intercut with scenes from the early 1950s when Oppenheimer was facing losing his security clearance and therefore his job and another one a couple of years later (I presume) when Strauss was picked to be a member of President Eisenhower's cabinet and facing his Senate confirmation hearings. There's also other scenes from Oppenheimer's student days and early career and some of his conversations two fellow theoretical physicists, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, played in fantastic cameo roles by Tom Conti and Kenneth Branagh – these scenes were the highlight of the film for me. I liked that it showed the views of various scientists about the morals of developing such a dreadful weapon. At first, when n*zi Germany was trying to develop their own atom bomb there were no qualms. But after Germany had been defeated and the prospective target became Japan, who did not have an atom bomb program, some began to raise more questions about what they were doing. It shows how after the war Oppenheimer himself was troubled by what he had been a part of, but genuinely believed the bomb not just ended the Second World War but had the potential to prevent any future such war. The film is not judgemental, does not say who was right or wrong, just portrays the various questions and misgivings some of those involved inevitably had. 8 / 10

Munich – The Edge of War (2021) dir Christian Schwochow. Film of Robert Harris' historical fiction novel about the Munich conference in 1938 where Britain, France, Italy and Germany did a deal, sacrificing parts of Czechoslavakia (not represented at the conference) to Germany, in exchange for a peace deal. Depending on which view of history you take, this was either a failed attempt to avert the Second World War and merely delayed it by a year, bought France and Britain the time they needed to re-arm and ensure when war inevitably came they had a chance of winning, bought Germany the time it needed to re-arm and ensure when war inevitably came they had a chance of winning, or a combination of those. The cast is generally good. The main characters are two fictitious junior civil servants, one British, Hugh Legat (George MacKay) and one German, Paul von Hartman (Jannis Niewohner), who were friends at university. Jeremy Irons is great as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin, the man who infamously returned from Munich assuring the public he had achieved “peace in our time”, Liv Lisa Fries plays Lenya, mainly in flashback scenes as another former university friend of Hugh and Paul, and August Diehl plays another friend of Pauls, now a member of Hitler's bodyguard. Hugh is assigned to the British delegation because he speaks fluent German and knows someone on the German side, after British intelligence receive a message from anti-n*zi sources in Germany that they want to pass on crucial, top secret information. This gives the film a bit of spy-thriller feel at times. I have read the book and the film is fairly faithful to it, changing some things to fit the whole story into a manageable 2 hours or so. I think that was right, this would not have made a good 3 hour+ epic. The one difference I did notice is with respect to what the various parties at the conference really wanted to get out of it. As I recall the book seemed to show the motivations where mixed. There were some politicians on both sides who thought their country was not prepared for war so wanted to buy time, others who thought they were prepared but the other side wasn't so they wanted to start the war now, and then others who just wanted to avoid the war at any cost. This film is less ambiguous, but I won't spoil it by saying which interpretation it strongly leads towards. Given we all know what happened in reality it does not have as much tension as it might otherwise of had. There are some typical thriller plot elements that if this were pure fiction you have been wondering what might or might not happen. It's a good film though, about an important historical event I have not seen a film about before. 7 / 10

Emily (2022) dir Frances O'Connor Emma Mackey stars as the Victorian, Yorkshire, author Emily Bronte in a partly fictional story of her short adult life. She only wrote one novel, Wuthering Heights, before she died aged 30 from something like tuberculosis. Her sisters Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling) and Anne (Amelia Gething) were also published novelists. They live with their father (Adrian Dunbar), who was the village priest, brother Branwell (Fion Whitehead), and Aunt (Gemma Jones), their mother having died some years earlier. This story portrays Emily as being a trailblazer, a woman author in a very male dominated world, who led the way for her sisters to follow (which is not quite the order things actually happened in). But that is fine, it does not claim to be history. It's historical fiction. Mackey is very good in the lead role. The only other thing I have seen her in is Netflix's s*x Education and I wouldn't have pictured her as Emily Bronte based on that, but she is perfect in this. She really does a great job of portraying a very intelligent but troubled woman, who refuses to confirm to what society expects her to be, writing a novel that was controversial, depicting domestic abuse and challenging the traditional ideas of Victorian morals. She is portrayed as very uncomfortable around strangers, preferring her own company and escaping into a fantasy world. She has an affair with the church curate, William Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). Those aspects of the plot are also fictional, as far as I am aware. William actually married her sister Anne. But who is to say what else might have happened before that? It's a very good story, quite bleak at times, just like Wuthering Heights, and there are some similarities between the Emily-William relationship and that of Kathy-Heathcliffe in the novel, though without the violence. 8 / 10 Before I Go To Sleep (2014) dir Rowan Joffe A somewhat lacklustre psychological thriller with a very good, and I would say wasted cast. It stars Nicole Kidman as Christine, and 40 yr old English woman who wakes every day with no recollection of what happened the day before nor anything from the last 14 years or so. This is due to a traumatic event coupled with a serious head injury that happened 10 years earlier. Colin Firth plays her husband, Ben, who every morning has to explain this to her, helped by various sticky notes and photos left around their house. Mark Strong plays the neurologist treating her and Anne-Marie Duff here best friend. The neurologist is trying a new treatment, that over the course of the couple of weeks the film spans seems to make an improvement and Christine starts to remember things from her past as well as holding on to some recent memories. What she starts to remember does not exactly match she is being told by Ben. He is able to explain why; that some memories have come back before and caused more trauma and stress, and that he too finds this all very difficult, naturally, so for his own sanity he has to be economical with the truth sometimes. But then as the story unfolds there are clear contradictions between what the various others characters are telling or not telling Christine, especially with respect to the incident that triggered all this; why did it happen? was it an accident or was she attacked? This is all exactly what you expect from a thriller film of course. It's not that original a premise, think of Memento for example. That does not matter, if its done well, but this just seems not that good a script. Some of the lines sound a bit banal and I was left wondering why it had such high-profile cast members. In fact at the end there is a scene with unknown (to me) actor, and he actually seems better than all the rest of them, because it just has the feel of a low budget film that you would expect a cast of unknowns to be in. And if it had been that I would probably have liked it more. When the inevitable big twist came, it was something I had seen coming from early on. The music is fairly lame too and felt like the sort of thing you would get in a made-for-daytime-TV movie. There's nothing really wrong with it, just nothing noteworthy for me. 5 / 10

Ferrari (2023) dir Michael Mann This wasn't exactly what I expected, but I enjoyed it. Adam Driver stars as Enzo Ferrari, who with his wife Laura (Penolope Cruz in very good performance), founded the Ferrari sports car & racing company. It's not got that much racing in it, and it's not really a biopic either, rather it focusses on events from one specific year, 1957. Those events relate just as much to the Ferrari's personal life and their business as much as it does to motor racing. So if you think you might like a film all about the Ferrari motor racing team, then this might not be for you. But also if you don't like those sort of films then this may be something you would like. I don't know for sure how much of the plot was true, some I definitely know was, but obviously most of what I describe here is just what is portrayed in the film. Enzo was a former racing driver who had limited success and retired in the early 1930s. He then went into the sports car business as a way to finance the racing team he managed. That was, he says in the film, the opposite way round to what most of the other famous names; Maserati, Porsche, Jaguar etc, did. Their racing teams promoted their sports car sales. By 1957 Ferrari was in financial trouble and some of the plot is about Enzo setting things in motion that would eventually lead to Fiat buying the company. They go into the engineering side of things a bit too, Enzo describing how he comes up with ways to improve engine performance by imaging himself inside the engine. There's a personal side to the plot. Laura and Enzo are really just business partners at this stage and she knows he is seeing another woman, and is not really bothered. But then she finds out a bit more about her husband's mistress, Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley), and doesn't like what she finds. There's a couple of racing scenes early on at a test track where Maserati and Ferrari are competing to set a new lap record and then the last part of the film is about the 1957 Mille Miglia (Italian for Thousand Mile) race. This was an endurance race for sports cars on public roads in northern Italy. The roads were obviously closed to the public for the race, but it's obviously far from a race on a purpose built circuit. Ferrari entered 5 cars, 4 with established Ferrari drivers and one with their latest signing, Alfonso de Portago (Gabriel Leone). You see these drivers preparing for the race in the morning, rather like in a WWII film about pilots preparing for a mission they know they might not return from, leaving letters for their wives and girlfriends to be opened in the event of their deaths. The Mille Miglia had an average of about 2 fatalities per year, from drivers and spectators, and due to what happened in this edition, it was the last time it was raced. The film shows a couple of accidents in quite graphic detail, leaving no doubt about consequences for those involved. The racing sequences are very good, featuring some classic cars which you see and, just as importantly, hear. There's also some other famous racing drivers from the time named and / or seen. One was very recognisable as Stirling Moss and Graham Hill is also mentioned. They show the camaraderie between the drivers, with one Maserati driver surviving a minor crash that writes off his car, and then continuing the rest of the race as a passenger in a Ferrari. Some great scenic shots of the Italian country side in this section as well – see trailer. 8 / 10

Brief Encounter (1945) dir David Lean A classic British film about two middle class, happily married strangers who fall in love following a chance meeting on a train station. Celia Johnson plays house-wife Laura and Trevor Howard plays Alec, a doctor. It's not really a typical romance film, I wouldn't have watched this the number of times I have if it were. It's more a drama about the relationship between Laura and Alec. The script was adapted from a play by Noel Coward, who also produced the film. The play is called Still Life, which to me sums up the story, describing Laura's situation as a women who has nothing important to do. She has a stereotypical perfect middle class life; two kids and a husband who she is devoted to. He has a well paid job, enough to pay for a maid / cook and the very idea of a woman in her position having a job of her own, at that time, would have probably been unthinkable. So when something different and little bit risky happens to come into her life, she cannot help herself from taking a chance. It really is a great film. The script, direction and Johnson's performance all got worthy Oscar nominations, and it is accompanied by a wonderful score that is mainly a performance of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No-2 in C Minor (you might recognise bits of that as it's one of those orchestral pieces whose theme got used in a number of more modern songs). The accents are quite funny, but as far as I am aware some people really did talk like that at the time (and some probably still do). 10 / 10 And in-case anyone is wondering, recently I have been watching some of my favourite films that I have not seen in a while.

What I Watched This Week #173 (Apr 21-27) South dir. Chantal Akerman/1999/1h11m This documentary sees Chantal Akerman travel to Jasper, Texas in the aftermath of the brutal lynching of a black man, James Byrd Jr., who was dragged behind a truck for several miles, an act so brutally violent that he was decapitated during it. This is not a crime documentary that seeks to explore what happened, but rather a portrait of a town and the people who live there and how they are trying to process what happened shot in Akerman's distinctive style. Like a typical documentary there are talking heads interviews with people close to Byrd Jr., but Akerman's use of long takes and silences allows us to really absorb what they're saying. These static shots are juxtaposed with extended tracking shots where Akerman drives through the community, filming people going about their lives with this tragedy still hanging over them. This is something she did in News From Home in New York, but the context here makes it feel like a funeral procession. The most effective of these shots is the very last one, the view looking out of the back of a truck as it drives down the road where Byrd Jr. was murdered. It just keeps going and going and forces us to imagine the unimaginable torture he went through. Incredibly powerful filmmaking 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Meetings of Anna dir. Chantal Akerman/1978/2h8m Akerman's follow up to her revolutionary Jeanne Dielman, The Meetings of Anna is a deeply personal semi-autobiographical film about a female director, Anna (Aurore Clement), traveling around Europe promoting her latest film. This is a melancholic film about isolation and even when Anna is talking to other people there is a disconnection there that always makes her feel alone. Like Jeanne Dielman this is heavy with repetition and routine, with each different hotel room blending into the next, each conversation being interchangeable with any of the others. This culminates with the ending where Anna returns to a home just as anonymous as any of the other rooms she has inhabited and, lying expressionless in bed, she listens to messages on her answerphone. People are reaching out to her, but she doesn't return the call. Akerman's style really lends itself to this story, with the carefully composed shots feeling almost like a prison trapping her. The feeling also comes through in Clement's performance. Her detachment from other people growing over the course of the film, that is apart from the scene with her mother (Lea Massari) in which she is able to revert to an almost childlike state of vulnerability. 8.5/10 The Black Hole dir. Phillip Sansom, Olly Williams/2008/3m This comedic short film stars Napoleon Ryan as an office worker putting in some overtime when he prints out a black hole (though technically it acts more like a portal than a black hole, as that would immediately destroy the planet). At first he uses it for trivial things like free snacks from the vending machine, but his greed leads him to a darkly comic end. It's very simple with an obvious message, but I thought that the ending moves it up a notch, making it feel like a mini episode of The Twilight Zone. 6/10 The Platform 2 dir. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia/2024/1h41m This is a prequel to what I thought was a fairly decent dystopian thriller set in a prison where the cells are stacked on top of each other with an open hole in the middle. Every day a platform loaded with food is lowered down cell by cell, with nothing being left for the prisoners at the bottom. This adds nothing to the concept with totally forgettable characters who I didn't care about. There are a few scenes of quite grisly violence but again, it's nothing that the first film didn't do better. I did enjoy the small appearance from Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor), one of the main characters from the original film, memorable because he actually had some character. 4/10 Three short films from Georges Méliès: A Terrible Night 1896/1m The Vanishing Lady 1896/1m The One-Man Band 1900/2m These three shorts from Georges Méliès really highlight his earlier career as a stage magician whilst also showcasing his evolving cinematic techniques. A Terrible Night is the simplest of the three where a sleeping man is harassed by a giant spider. There's really nothing of note here other than the fact that this is the first creature-feature. The other two are much more interesting and entertaining. The Vanishing Lady gives a macabre twist to a classic trick where he makes a woman disappear beneath a sheet, but not before she is transformed into a skeleton. The final film is the most playful and experimental and it sees Méliès using what were at the time cutting edge editing tricks to duplicate himself several times over, creating the titular one-man band. These films, while charming, all feel like Méliès honing his techniques in preparation for his magical longer films starting with 1902's A Trip To The Moon. I'll give these a combined score of 6/10 Inside Out dir. Pete Docter/2015/1h35m Going through all of the Pixar films in order I've finally come to the point where I've not seen hardly any of them going forward, having gotten burnt out by all of the sequels. I knew nothing about Inside Out going in and I can't believe it's taken me ten years to watch this, it's fantastic. It tells the story of 11 year old Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) who has just moved to a new city with her parents, leaving behind all of her friends and everything she loves, stirring up her emotions. These emotions are personified and live inside her head, with Joy (Amy Poehler) doing everything she can to keep Riley happy. But lately it seems like Sadness (Phyllis Smith) keeps making things worse. When the two are accidentally expelled from HQ they have to work together to make it back and save Riley's mental health. This is a brilliantly simple concept well executed with a strong message that's not just for the younger viewers. The fact that it can be unhealthy to want to be happy all of the time and that you need a healthy mix of emotions, even negative ones, for good mental health. This is also a really funny film, with the juxtaposition between Joy and Sadness's personalities making them a great double act. There's also good support from Lewis Black, Bill Hader, and Mindy Kaling as Anger, Fear and Disgust. The instantly recognisable voice of Richard Kind also appears, playing Riley's forgotten imaginary friend Bing b*ng who ended up as my favourite character. I wasn't really looking forward to this run of Pixar films, but if they're even half as good as this I'll be satisfied. 9/10

Bladerunner (1982) dir Ridley Scott For me, this is one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time. It's a film that has be re-released at least twice. I have seen the original theatrical release, the 1992 Director's Cut, and the 2007 Final Cut. The 1992 version, I think, set the trend for other director's to release Director's cuts of their films. It's certainly the first one I ever saw. However, despite the name, Ridley Scott did not have complete control over that version. He did over the 2007 one, and it's that one that I am reviewing. I could not remember the differences to the 1992 one without looking them up, but both of the later ones get rid of a voice over (a bit like a 1940s detective film) and different ending that got added to the original after feedback from test audiences (I think). It's based on the Philip K. d*ck novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”. The basics of the plot is the same as the book, but the specific story is very different in places. I would recommend the book to anyone who is a fan of serious sci-fi, but it's the sort of book you need to really concentrate on. It was written in 1968 and set in 2019 when that seemed a long way in the future. The world the story is set in is way more advanced than we are now. Harrison Ford plays Deckard, a retired LA cop, a Bladerunner, who specialises in tracking down and terminating rogue androids, called replicants. These are indistinguishable from real humans to all but the experts. Even people like Dekard can only tell for sure by lengthy interrogation of suspected replicants that is designed to show up lack of emotions that real humans have. Replicants are banned from Earth, only supposed to be used on off-world space colonies. Any that do get found on Earth can be killed on the spot. Deckard is brought back by his boss Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh) and his assistant Gaff (Edward James Olmos) because a group of replicants hijacked a ship that was later found abandoned on Earth. They are believed to be in LA seeking their creator, Mr. Tyrell (Joe Turkel). The replicants, at least those that have not already been eliminated, are lead by Batty (Rutger Hauer) and others are played by Daryl Hannah, Brion Jones and Joanna Cassidy. William Sanderson plays Sebastian, a lonely man with a premature ageing disease who makes his on androids (not realistic or dangerous enough to be classed as replicants) and Sean Young plays Tyrell's PA Rachel. The cast are, overall, good, but Rutger Hauer gives the best performance I ever saw of him as Batty varies from charming, to psychopathic, to child-like fearful naïvety. There is a big plot element to do with Deckard and Rachel that I won't spoil, and various things thrown in that have kept some fans speculating as to the true nature of the various characters. If you know the film you will probably know what I am referring to here. I will say that I don't see in the film all the things that some claim to clearly see, but I see enough to agree with the consensus. Also some of the theories about that do not apply to all versions of the film. The sets and cinematography are stunning. It still looks to me well ahead of its time, as does Ridely Scott's Alien, so to me it shows what great film makers could achieve well before they had access to sort of CGI and AI tech available today. It also has a pretty good modern score from Vangelis. The best scene is the penultimate one, just with Batty and Deckard and includes the famous “tears in the rain” monologue that, apart from a few hundred years of technological development, would not have been out of place in a Shakespeare play. 10 / 10 The theatrical version I would only give an 8 to because, although I have only ever seen it once, I do remember the voice-over annoying me and the altered ending, a little bit added on, pointlessly changes the story.

Local Hero (1983) dir Bill Forsyth A great early 80s British light comedy drama. Peter Reigert (who I have never seen in anything else) plays Mac, a lawyer / accountant / fixer working for Texas based Happer oil. The CEO, Mr Happer (Burt Lancaster), sends Mac to oversee the purchase of an entire Scottish fishing village that they want to demolish to build a new oil terminal. Mac expects at least some of the villagers, led by their lawyer / accountant / hotel manager Gordon Urquart (Denis Lawson - Wedge from Star Wars), to put up somewhat of a fight. But they are not quite the simple folk he expects. They already know what is going on and Urquart intends to squeeze as much cash as possible from the big oil company. It also co-stars a young Peter Capaldi, almost unrecognisable at times, as Oldsen, a Scottish Happer Oil employee assigned to help Mac and Jenny Seagrove as marine biologist Marina, working for them in what she knows is really just a job to generate good PR in case of environmental problems. Marina has slightly webbed feet, making her seem a bit like a mermaid as she swims, which her job requires a lot of. This is possibly a nod to the Jerry Anderson puppet show Stingray that had a mermaid called Marina. (And maybe having watched Team America last week this is what subconsciously made me decide to watch this film that I have seen many times before). It also features a host of other faces, mainly Scottish actors, familiar to anyone who has watched a lot of British TV over the years, like me. But sometimes it takes a while to recognise them, because this was made over 40 years ago. One of the non-Scots is Christopher Rozycki, who is great as the captain of a Soviet fishing trawler that makes frequent visits to the village. He quite clearly is not a believer in the political ideology of his homeland. He has a great line I wish I could remember word for word, but at one point he says to Mac something like “Don't look so worried. You are doing a great thing here. You are making people very rich!”. It is a beautifully made film, technically very, very good. It's set mainly in the village, but starts in Houston and switches back there a couple of times and has some stunning scenes of the Scottish countryside and coast. There's no great tension to the story, no massive plot twists. It's quite a gentle tale of Mac falling in love with the village he has basically come to destroy, but the locals just wanting the money. Forsyth got a well deserved BAFTA for the direction and a nomination for the original script. It also got a number of other worthy nominations including Chris Menges' cinematography and Mark Knopfler's modern score that includes the iconic “Going home” guitar – saxophone instrumental that accompanies the end credits. The only acting one was for Lancaster but the rest of the cast are very good, even down to some quite minor roles. I do have to pick it up on a couple of factual issues. The village is shown on a map in North West Scotland, but the oil is (was) all on the east, in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway. And I know, from a friend who used to live there and remembers the filming, it was mainly filmed on location in various villages on the east coast. The other thing might have been a deliberate joke at the expense of Hollywood. This is when Marina is showing Oldsen a colony of what are described as grey seals, but what we see on screen are quite clearly sea-lions, the sort you might well see in California but certainly not Scotland! Those don't really detract from the overall film though which is one of my all time favourites. 10 / 10

What I Watched This Week #171 (Apr 7-13) Captain America: Brave New World dir. Julius Onah/2025/1h59m The latest entry in the MCU sees Anthony Mackie take up the shield as Captain America for the first time (on the big screen at least, I've not seen the TV show, which made a lot of this quite confusing), getting caught up in an international incident that I honestly can't remember anything about. The entire time I was just waiting for Harrison Ford, playing newly elected president Thaddeus Ross, turn into a big red Hulk, which is all I knew of this going in. It's actually quite amazing that I can't remember any of the actual plot because most of the film is made up of people spouting exposition at each other in bland locations. The villain, played by Tim Blake Nelson, looks so stupid that I thought his reveal was a joke after being kept hidden in the shadows for a lot of the run time, but no, that's the look they actually went with. I don't care if it's accurate to the comic books, it looks f*cking stupid on film. Mackie and Ford both give decent performances, and and I liked Danny Ramirez as Cap's new sidekick Joaquin Torres, but this just feels like content churned out to meet a schedule drawn up by committee. 3/10 Mickey 17 dir. b*ng Joon Ho/2025/2h17m Robert Pattinson stars as Mickey Barnes, a man who, to get away from some dangerous people he owes money to, signs up as an expendable on a colonisation voyage to a distant planet. His job is to perform all of the most dangerous tasks and occasionally act as a lab rat, and each time he dies they just print out a new one, an act made illegal on Earth. This is director b*ng's follow up to his Oscar winning masterpiece Parasite, and while this film shares similar themes with its attack on the elite it comes at it with a very different tone. This leans heavily into comedy, with Pattinson giving an almost slapstick performance at times. His whiny, weedy accent also took me by surprise, but it really does fit the character. Mark Ruffalo as failed politician Kenneth Marshall, the leader of the colony, also gives a very broad comedic performance, similar to the one he gave in Poor Things, and he steals every scene he's in. I had a lot of fun watching this but it all feels kind of inconsequential and throwaway, like all of the clones of Mickey, and a little short of b*ng's best films like Parasite, Memories of Murder or Mother. But this is still an excellently crafted film with great supporting performances from Toni Collette, Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, and British comedian Tim Key as a man dressed as a pigeon. 8/10 The Foreigner dir. Martin Campbell/2017/1h53m The Foreigner is an action thriller starring Jackie Chan as Quan Ngoc Minh, a London restaurant owner whose daughter is killed in an IRA bombing. He suspects that politician and former IRA member Liam Hennessey (Pierce Brosnan) knows something about it, and seeing that he's former Chinese special forces he'll stop at nothing to find out what. A conventional yet well made film from the director of two of the best Bond films: Goldeneye and Casino Royale, what really kept me hooked here was the totally serious performance from Chan, something I've never seen before. That extends to the fight scenes where there's none of his usual fun and games with random props. Here he just wants to hurt people. There's a haunted look in his eyes that he has for most of the film that feels so real and full of pain. Brosnan is also very good as a politician with a murky past, and he does a good job at keeping us guessing as to how much he actually knows. 7/10 Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw dir. David Leitch/2019/2h17m The Fast and Furious franchise takes a little detour with this spinoff film starring The Rock and Jason Statham as the titular Hobbs and Shaw who must team up to defeat Idris Elba's evil cyborg Brixton who is searching for a virus that could wipe out humanity. The virus is in the hands of Shaw's sister Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) because what would these films be without family? Just as mindlessly fun as the recent films in the series, what let this one down for me is the constant trash talk between The Rock and Statham. It's cute for a while but over two hours of this pissing contest is just tiresome. There's also an extended cameo from Kevin Hart who I can't stand. The action scenes are totally ridiculous - Elba's transformer like motorbike is a personal fav - but they're all fun and unique. The final act showdown set in Samoa is also a nice change of location. This does feel like a script where they changed the names of the two main characters to make it fit into the Fast and Furious universe just for the name recognition, but this film delivered exactly what I expected from it, which I guess is both a positive and a negative. 6.5/10 Threads dir. Mick Jackson/1984/1h57m Made for BBC TV on a tiny budget, Threads is a docu-drama set in the Northern English city of Sheffield during the lead up to and fallout of a nuclear war. With its use of actual BBC documentary narrator Paul Vaughn, stock footage and text on screen detailing the time line of events this could be mistaken as real. The drama part of the docu-drama comes from following young woman Ruth (Karen Meagher) who has just become pregnant with her boyfriend and is just about to start her life. In the background on news reports and newspapers tensions are rising between the US and Russia. This lead up to the bombs dropping is incredibly well executed, the tension slowly being cranked up as these reports come to the foreground slowly but surely. It begins to invade the normal everyday lives of the people of Sheffield. The second half of the film details the bombings and the breakdown of society in the aftermath and it is the most grim, brutal, depressing, hopeless, scary, and sadly realistic (judging by the extensive list of doctors and professors in the special thanks section of the credits) depiction of the apocalypse I've ever seen. I nearly stopped watching at a couple of points because it's all just too much. That says nothing of the ending, a horrific series of events set over a decade after the end of the world which snaps into a freezeframe just as a character is about to scream and then the end credits roll in total silence. This is one of the best films I've ever seen and I urge you all to watch it, it's on the BBC iPlayer if you're in the UK or have a VPN. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Devil in a Convent dir. Georges Méliès/1899/3m Another short from Georges Méliès sees him continue his fascination with demons and religion. Here he plays a tricksy devil who appears in a convent, disguises himself as a priest and torments the nuns there before being banished back to hell. As well as his continued perfection of his special effects techniques what really stands out in his films are the gorgeously detailed sets that look like they're taken straight off of the stage. His films are also becoming longer and more intricate, three minutes was considered long for a film at the time, and his 12 minute Trip to the Moon a few years later was initially mocked for being too long to keep people's attention. A wonderful slice of magic from the dawn of the artform. 8/10 Monsters University dir. Dan Scanlon/2013/1h44m This totally unnecessary prequel tells the story of how Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sully (John Goodman) met at college, starting out as adversaries before having to work together to help their fraternity win the annual scare games and keep their place in school. Mostly a collection of tropes, cliches and stereotypes from every college film since Animal House this still does have some good jokes scattered throughout and, as usual, the animation is excellent. Crystal can get grating at times but Goodman is always a pleasure to listen to, and there's a good supporting turn from Helen Mirren as the dean of the college. In my opinion Monsters Inc is one of Pixar's best films with a perfect ending, so I'm glad they didn't try to do a sequel (and I hope they don't in the future), but that stuck them with doing a prequel, and the characters aren't really that different at the start of the film than at the end, so there's not even any growth or development. It's just more time to spend with them, which isn't a bad thing, but it's time spent doing nothing. 5.5/10

What I Watched This Week #170 (Mar 31 - Apr 6) The Fate of the Furious dir. F. Gary Gray/2017/2h16m The eighth film in the franchise sees Dominic (Vin Diesel) do the worst thing imaginable, betray his family. But he's only doing it because he's being coerced by cyberterrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron), with his gang, led by The Rock (The Rock) and newly turned good guy Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), having to hunt him down and stop him. This is a big, dumb, fun Bond film that ended up in the wrong franchise but somehow works and is my favourite so far. I think this is also the best directed film in the series, Gray's first in the franchise, with some excellent action set pieces and fight scenes that defy all logic. I also think it's impressive that a film this deep into its run can attract such a good cast. Theron is really good as the villain, and I also loved Kurt Russell as mysterious government agent Mr. Nobody and, in a really fun cameo, Helen Mirren as Shaw's aggressively Cockney mother Queenie. I never thought I'd say this, but I think I'm a fan of the Fast and Furious franchise. 7/10 Two short films by Georges Méliès: A Nightmare 1896/1m The Infernal Cauldron 1903/2m These two shorts are from the father of movie magic, Georges Méliès, a French stage magician who, while tinkering with a newly bought film camera, invented special effects by accident and was one of the first filmmakers who was able to show what this new medium was really capable of. The first film sees him playing a sleeping man who is tormented by various things he's scared of, including a giant moon with a menacing face - a recurring image in his films, most iconically in A Trip to the Moon - clowns and, unfortunately, Black people. The second film has him in the role of a green demon - a lot of his films were painted by hand frame by frame so they had colour before colour film was a thing - consigning some people to hell by throwing them into a giant cauldron. The sheer inventiveness and creativity in his films makes them still a joy to watch today - racism aside - and these shorter ones are just a taste of what he's able to do in his masterful longer films like The Kingdom of the Fairies and The Impossible Voyage. Respectively I'll give these a 6/10 and 8/10 Brave dir. Brenda Chapman, Mark Andrews/2012/1h33m Pixar takes us to the magical ancient Scottish Highlands where Merida (Kelly Macdonald) is the princess of a kingdom ruled by King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson). Elinor wants to prepare Merida for marriage, whereas Merida wants to be free to make her own decisions. Thanks to a visit to a local witch (Julie Walters), Merida gets a cursed wish and inadvertently turns her mother into a bear. I'm a big fan of the setting of this film, it feels unlike anything Pixar has done before, and some of the landscape shots are gorgeous, but the story really drags, with a lot of obvious filler thrown in to pad the runtime. I also didn't really like the main character even though I could sympathise with her not wanting to just do what she's supposed to do. What this film has in its favour is the legendary Billy Connolly who I love in anything he does, and he's great here. I just wish Disney had the b*lls to release the profanity riddled outtakes that I'm sure exists in their vault somewhere. I also appreciate that this is an original film in an era of Pixar sequels (this came between Cars 2 and Monsters University), but that's not enough to get it more than a 6.5/10 65 dir. Scott Beck, Bryan Woods/2023/1h32m Set 65 million years ago this is a sci-fi thriller that stars Adam Driver as a deep space explorer of an alien race who crash lands on prehistoric Earth where he and a young girl, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), are the only survivors. The two don't speak the same language, making it harder for them to work together to not get eaten by dinosaurs and make it to an escape pod before the giant extinction level asteroid hits the planet (spoilers: they don't have long). This is from the same directors of the recent Hugh Grant religious thriller Heretic, which I enjoyed quite a bit, but this is just bland bland bland. The premise is cool but they've managed to execute it in the most vanilla way possible. The two performances are good, with Driver really putting a lot of effort into basically nothing, but all of his dialogue was so hard to concentrate on because it was so dull. I also thought the dinosaurs just looked weird and never really felt like a threat. There was more tension from the ticking clock of the asteroid than from anything earthbound. 4/10 Law Abiding Citizen dir. F. Gary Gray/2009/1h49m My second F. Gary Gray film of the week, this one stars Gerard Butler as Clyde who, after his family are killed during a break in, decides to take revenge on not only the murderers but also the lawyer who got them a plea bargain that set them free, Nick (Jamie Foxx). I don't know what it is but there's something about this film that makes it feel like it should have come out in the mid 90's starring Nicolas Cage. It wants to be both a serious legal thriller and an overblown action film but it never really commits to either. The various traps and gadgets that Clyde creates to take his revenge are well executed but it becomes ridiculous in the third act, culminating in what was to me a pretty bad ending. Still, I enjoyed the scenes between Butler and Foxx, and I always like seeing Colm Meaney pop up in stuff, here with a sizeable supporting role as a detective trying to stop Clyde's murderous plans. 6/10 Come Drink with Me dir. King Hu/1966/1h31m This influential martial arts film stars Cheng Pei-Pei as daughter of the local governor who has a secret alias as Golden Swallow, a sword for hire. Her latest job is very personal as she has to rescue her brother who has been kidnapped by a gang led by Jade Faced Tiger (Chen Hung-Lieh). Helping her on her quest is Drunken Cat (Elliot Ngok Wah), who has a secret of his own. This is both graceful - Pei-Pei was a trained ballet dancer, not martial artist - and brutally bloody, and incredibly gorgeous to look at with some beautiful production and costume/make-up design. Pei-Pei is great in the lead, being both demure and deadly at the same time, with Ngok Wah having a lot of fun as her playfully drunk sidekick. I did find the plot to be a bit too convoluted for what it is, mostly with the plot about Drunken Cat's past, but it's worth it for the climactic mountainside showdown. 8/10 Lime's Films of the Week! Two short films by Phoebe Jane Hart: JamieSonShine 2020/5m Bug Diner 2024/7m I'm finishing off the week with two very different shorts from Phoebe Jane Hart. The first is a very personal experimental documentary about her older brother and how his schizophrenia has affected their relationship. A mixture of live action stop motion and animation, this feels like we're getting a small glimpse into their world, and it's able to convey so much love and empathy without every seeming trite or sentimental. The second film is a stop motion film set in a diner staffed and visited by a selection of different anthropomorphic animals and insects who all have very human problems with their relationships. There's a pair of grasshoppers having marital issues but the husband becomes aroused at the thought of his wife with another man, an anteater with the hots for a squirrel, and the fly waitress can't stop fantasising about the mole chef's hot *ss. Weird, crude but strangely very relatable. These are Hart's only two films so far, but I can't wait to see what she does next. I'll give these a combined 8/10

Went to see the Minecraft movie last Friday with my Tech and our son. Can't say no when my son offers IMAX tickets. As a Minecraft player I wasn't expecting much from this movie. Was surprised to actually enjoy it. Sure it's not some deep story or anything life changing but it made me laugh and was overall enjoyable. They stuck to how the game works in most ways while taking liberties with a few things. Has some annoyances that make it a watch once and be done type of movie though. 3 out of 5 stars.

TDM, 30 players, 2 teams, 5 min rounds. One team with shotguns in the circle. One team in RC cars. Two shotgun blasts and the RC blows up (free-aim). Two proper hits from the RC and the pedestrian dies. If the RC goes up the ramp and lands on its roof, it blows up and take everyone nearby with him. No points lost for blowing yourself up like that. https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/job/gtav/W7SH5pK_vUuwHN7wGqaiUw Thank you Elias for all the testing!

Frida (2002) dir Julie Taymor Biopic of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, played by Salma Hayek. Alfred Molina plays her husband and fellow artist Diego Rivera. This is a film that I could easily have gone to see at the cinema when it was released but just never got round to and then never thought about much since. But I saw it was on Netflix at the moment so decided to finally watch it. I knew virtually nothing about Kahlo prior to watching this. It's a good film, but did not quite have as much drama and tension as I thought it would have – which I assume is simply being true to the facts. It could easily have had far more of those things. Kahlo agreed to an open marriage with Rivera, and they both slept with numerous other people. Rivera's ex wife Lupe (Valeria Golino) lived in the apartment above them to begin with. Later they had a home built with completely separate sections for husband and wife. Rivera was a prominent member of Mexico's Communist party and his friend Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush) stays with them when he flees Stalin's purges in the 1930s. Rivera was quite a pragmatist and happy to take a commission from Nelson Rockefeller (Edward Norten) to paint a mural in the lobby of his New York HQ. There are few other famous faces in small roles, most noticeably Antonio Banderas just in a single scene – and he was well established when this made, so I guess he just really wanted to be in a film about Frida Kahlo. All the acting was good and Hayek got an Oscar nomination. It also had some technical nominations. The one it was maybe most unlucky to miss out on the win for was Art Direction. I really liked the way her art was incorporated into some scenes, with some of her paintings coming to life or her subjects morphing into their portraits. Some of her work was quiet surreal and they have some scenes from her vivid imagination too, including one in which Rivera becomes King Kong climbing the Empire State building. The one weak point for me was it lacked a proper sense of time. It starts in the 1920s and ends in the 1950s. But Hayek barely seems to age. Molina does but only with quite a big jump in appearance where he goes from looking pretty much the same as he did from the start to being an old grey haired man. 7 / 10

If we can start a hour later than last week i can host. That would be regular time for those still on vinter-time. 21:00 UTC

Two Bros in need of a substitute host this weekend. 🙂 Will be back next week.

Runaway Jury (2003) dir Gary Fleder For obvious reasons, this week I decided to watch a Gene Hackman film that I had not seen before. This is A thriller based on a John Grisham novel. Following a mass shooting at a New Orleans office, the widow of one of the victims sues the company who made the killer's gun. As the title implies the story focusses on the jury, how they are selected, their interactions with each other and the various parties trying to influence them. Both side's lawyers try to ensure only jurors sympathetic to them get selected, something that can be done in US courts, unlike the UK where juries are completely randomly selected. There are obviously characters with strong opinions on both sides of the gun control debate, but that is not what this is about. The gun company are clearly the bad guys in this, having knowingly allowed their products to be sold illegally to people, such as the killer, who would not have been able to pass whatever background checks were supposed to be in place. Also they employ a team of lawyers, high-tech surveillance experts and thugs, lead by Gene Hackman's character, to blackmail, intimidate or bribe jurors into supporting their side and persuade witnesses to not testify. John Cussack is I guess the lead character as one of the jurors, but the main roles are fairly evenly balanced between those two, Rachel Weisz as his girlfriend and Dustin Hoffman as the widow's lawyer. They all do a good job, as does Bruce McGill as the judge and Gerry Bamman as the jury foreman. It's obviously got a twist in the tail that I won't reveal, but it's not just the two legal teams trying influence what the jury decide. That twist did seem a little predictable to me. The way the plot panned out it was hard to see how there could realistically be any other ending to the film. But it was definitely a decent and enjoyable watch. 7 / 10

What I Watched This Week #165 (Feb 24-March 2) Fast Five dir. Justin Lin/2011/2h10m Vin Diesel and the boys are back again, this time pulling off a huge heist in Rio after Dom gets busted out of prison. All the while they are being pursued by government bounty hunter The Rock (I forget his characters name, but it doesn't matter, he's The Rock). This feels like a watershed moment for the series as it seems to really let go of the fairly grounded in reality first film (where their big crime was stealing DVD players) to the utterly nonsensical action packed spectacle that it's now known as. I actually had a lot of fun with this one. The sunny, exotic location made it feel fresh - as it did in Tokyo Drift, honestly, LA is such an ugly and sh*tty city - and there are some inventive set pieces, like the scene where a giant bank vault is dragged through the streets by Dom and Brian (Paul Walker). None of the performances really stand out, but they are all sincere and I actually believe that these people care about one another, as two dimensional as they are. I think this is my favourite one so far. 6/10 Borderlands dir. Eli Roth/2024/1h41m Adapted from the popular video game series, Borderlands the film is sh*t. I will not waste any time or energy elaborating further, just trust me, even Cate Blanchett can't save this bucket of dog vomit. 1/10 Assault on Precinct 13 dir. John Carpenter/1976/1h31m This early film from John Carpenter - only his second - tells the story of a heavily armed gang laying siege to a decommissioned police station with a skeleton staff and a couple of prisoners left to transport out as revenge for a SWAT team ambush that killed several of their members. Austin Stoker is Ethan Bishop, the patrolman who takes lead in the situation alongside criminal Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Jostin), the two making for a pretty good duo. This has the feel of a cheap b-movie or exploitation film from the era, but is elevated by Carpenter's skill in ramping up the tension through his direction. Like he would later in Halloween, here he uses shots of empty rooms and hallways to great effect, suggesting that danger could be hiding anywhere just out of sight. 7/10 Up dir. Pete Docter/2009/1h36m Ed Asner plays Carl Fredrickson who, at 78, feels that he has missed out on the adventures that he and his late wife Ellie dreamed of going on but life always got in the way. Now that he is being forced to leave their home of decades to go into care he decides to take action and attaches thousands of balloons to his house so that he can fly it to South America, inadvertently bringing along a stowaway in young boy scout Russell (Jordan Nagai). This is a very good film but it peaks with the opening montage of Karl and Ellie growing up together, where we witness the joys and heartbreaks of their lives without need for dialogue. Pixar usually get me all teary eyed by the end of their films, but this is the first time they got me in the opening, it really is extraordinarily beautiful. Honestly, after that the rest of the film kind of feels like filler. Really good filler, but filler nonetheless. I find Russell to be rather annoying as a side character, but it is funny to see Karl's frustration at him, something I could relate to. It never regains the emotional highs of the first five minutes but this is still a fun watch. 8/10 The Rounders dir. Charlie Chaplin/1914/13m This early Chaplin sees him star alongside another famous comedian of the time, Rosco 'Fatty' Arbuckle (it's funny that a man who was considered so fat that his nickname was Fatty in 1914 wouldn't even turn heads today), as two drunken toffs staying at a hotel with their wives. They argue with their wives, sneak off, and get even more drunk, and that's about it. Very basic but Chaplin plays a very good drunk - see his later film One AM, which is a masterclass in physical comedy - so it's always funny to see his fall on his *ss. This is like all of his other film from this early, they would be forgettable without Chaplin but he's the magic ingredient. 5/10 The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf dir. Han Kwang-il/2021/1h23m Set in the same fantasy world as The Witcher videogames - all derived from a series of Polish fantasy novels - this animated film tells the story of Vesemir (Theo James), a Witcher - monster hunter. The film tells the story of his youth and a plot to do something about a king and to be honest I found it very convoluted and confusing. This feels like several books worth of plot stuffed into one film. The animation is nice and crisp, but at times that's to its detriment as this is a dark, dirty and dangerous world so something more ragged and raw would have been a better fit. There's some great creature design here, and some things I actually recognised from playing the games, but this feels like a film made for experts on this world. 6/10 All We Imagine as Light dir. Payal Kapadia/2024/1h58m The debut film from Payal Kapadia, this Mumbai set drama focuses on the life of nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) who is forced to re-evaluate her life after receiving a gift - a rice cooker - from her estranged husband working in Germany who she hasn't even spoken to in over a year. This relationship - an arranged marriage - is contrasted to that of her young housemate and fellow nurse Anu (Divya Prabha) who is in a relationship with a Muslim so she has to keep it hidden. Where Prabha was forced into a loveless relationship, Anu is forced out of a loving one. With the plot taking a backseat this is a film all about character, and the incredible performance from Kusruti had me hooked throughout. This is also a beautifully shot film, amazing since it's Kapadia's first, with a real soft texture to the light that bathes these women, especially in the beach set finale. This was named Sight and Sound's best film of 2024, a year with some really good films, but after watching it it's hard to argue with that. 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week!

What I Watched This Week #164 (Feb 17-23) The Artist dir. Michel Hazanavicius/2011/1h40m Jean Dujardin plays silent film star Georg Valentin, whose career hits the skids with the introduction of talkies. At the same time Peppy Miller's (Berenice Bejo) star is rising, with the two having a flirtatiously antagonistic relationship. What makes this film unique is that it is a modern day silent, filmed in the style of classic Hollywood films of the 20s. For the most part this works really well, with some nice physical comedy and a sparing use of intertitles so we don't spend half of the film reading. This is a very light and breezy film that's full of charm if rather forgettable (it had totally slipped my mind that this actually won the Best Picture Oscar). Dujardin and Bejo make for a great pairing, with the entire cast having a lot of fun acting in this style. The star of the show however is Uggie the dog, Valentin's faithful companion on screen and off. 8/10 The Masquerader dir. Charlie Chaplin/1914/12m This early Chaplin short sees him get kicked off of a film set before coming back disguised in drag, causing all his usual mayhem. This gives a look behind the scenes of the actual Keystone studios, so if you're interested in film history you'll get a bit more out of this. Chaplin makes for a pretty convincing woman and it's funny seeing the director trying to flirt with him, before realising who it really is. Nothing special, but it's always a delight seeing Chaplin at work. 5/10 Broken Rage dir. Takeshi Kitano/2024/1h6m The latest from Takeshi Kitano leans into his two trademarks - violent crime action and deadpan comedy - in a very distinct way and is also a brisk watch at just over an hour long. The story concerns an unassuming old hitman known as Mouse (played by Kitano) who is caught by the police and must go undercover in a drug ring in exchange for his freedom. What makes this film brilliant is that he tells this story twice. The first time it is a brutal crime thriller. The second time it's a slapstick comedy. Instead of combining the two as he usually does, here he's separated them, highlighting how different the same story can be if told in different ways. Kitano's performance is excellent. Just like the rest of the film he's split in two parts. For the first half an hour he's an intimidating presence who you know is capable of extreme violence at any moment. For the second half hour he's a total buffoon who can barely walk in a straight line without tripping over. Imagine if Mr. Bean was an assassin. It's a mad concept but it works. 9/10 Paddington in Peru dir. Dougal Wilson/2024/1h46m The third and final Paddington film sees the beloved bear travel to Peru to visit his Aunt Lucy at the home for retired bears. But when he gets there he finds that she has gone missing, so he and the Brown family head out into the jungle to find her. The first two Paddington films are near perfect, so it's a credit to the new director that this almost lives up to them. The character of Paddington is so adorable and pure, and I'm glad these films didn't try to make him cool by using modern slang or stuff like that. Ben Whishaw's performance as Paddington is pitch perfect. There's also some fun support from Antonio Banderas as a dashing riverboat captain and Olivia Colman as the nun in charge of the retirement home. This is honestly, unironically, one of the best trilogies ever made. 8/10 Daybreak dir. Marcel Carne/1939/1h33m This French proto-noir opens with Francois (Jean Gabin) shooting a man in his apartment before barricading himself inside. As the police arrive and lay siege we learn through flashbacks why he pulled the trigger. A fantastically constructed thriller, this is also full of some eye catching compositions that feel ahead of their time. I like how we are constantly bought back to the conversations of his neighbours as they gossip about what's happening, making us feel like we're there with them. Gabin gives a really good performance as we see his character change through the flashbacks, all thanks to the woman he fell in love with, Francoise (Jacqueline Laurent). I also really like the performance of Jules Berry as Monsieur Valentin, the man killed at the start of the film. He's a perfectly contemptable slimeball who, we come to realise, got everything he deserved. 9/10 Grand Theft Hamlet dir. Sam Crane, Pinny Grylls/2024/1h31m This is a documentary about two theatre actors, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, who find themselves out of work due to the COVID lockdowns in the UK at the time. Out of a need to do something, anything, they come up with the unique idea of staging a production of Hamlet entirely withing the world of Grand Theft Auto Online (you guys may be familiar with the game). Not only is the production of Hamlet in the world of GTA, so is the documentary. Every frame of this film was captured in game, the interviews, the auditions, the location scouting, the rehearsals, everything. Pretty quickly you get used to the gimmick and are soon invested in the very human story of these people looking for a connection during a difficult time. As something of an expert in GTA it was also fun seeing people new to it discover what you're able to do, and also what you're not. This is also a really funny film with the general situation being inherently absurd, but also due to the chaotic nature of randoms in an open lobby. A remarkable film that you should all check out (it's on MUBI at the moment). 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Magnificent Seven dir. John Sturges/1960/2h7m A remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (which was itself inspired by Hollywood westerns of the 40s), this stars Yul Brynner as Chris Adams, expert gunslinger, who must assemble a team to protect a small Mexican village from the ruthless bandit Clavera (Eli Wallach). Among his posse are the likes of Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn and Charles Bronson. Gorgeous widescreen vistas and a rousing, iconic theme make this feel like the quintessential western. It's also interesting in how it handles masculinity, with none of the seven really feeling like a John Wayne type, these are more complex characters. There's an amazing speech late in the film where Bronson's character tells some kids in the village how he's not brave because he carries a gun, how their fathers are the brave ones for carrying the responsibility of family and their land. 8.5/10

During last nights 2B.

Ran (1985) dir Akira Kurosawa This is the last of Kurosawa's films based / inspired by Shakespeare plays. This one is based on King Lear. The story is set in 16th Century Japan, a time of Warlords and Samurai. The title translates as Chaos. Tatsuta Nakadai stars as the elderly Lord Hidetora who has decided to abdicate, passing his title to his children. In this those are his sons, rather than the daughters Leer has. So in this and other respects much is changed from the original, but it is still unmistakeably the same basic story as King Leer. Hidetora intention is that his sons will work together to protect and further the family lands. But it all starts to the fall apart immediately, descending into the chaos the title implies, as the elder sons double cross their father and each other. Hidetora starts to lose his mind, is made an outcast, and wanders around the lands he used to rule accompanied by two loyal men, his fool and a warrior (Tango). In this respect it is very much following the original. It is, of course, very well made. There is some stunning cinematography, particularly some of the castle interiors. The acting is good, especially Pita as the Fool and Mieko Harada as Lady Kaede (wife of the eldest son). The battle scenes are good, and one in particular has a long period with no dialogue, because it doesn't need it. Some small aspects are a little dated, the fake blood in the battle scenes is particularly unrealistic. In some ways for me it doesn't look quite as good as Throne of Blood (based on Macbeth), but I think that is because that is in black and white whilst this is in colour and I think that can make it look dated faster. However colour is very well used for those castle interiors and other scenes. 9 / 10

LTS - The Reptiles needs to clear the drain of Proximity mines as they make their way towards revenge. The Cowboys need to hide as many mines as possible in the clogged drain to kill the monsters before the reach them. Reptiles have 10 Shotgun shells, and 2 pipe bombs to clear mines and any cowboy falling behind. Cowboys have limited amount of Proximity mines, but can pick up more as they move along. https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/job/gtav/QQ9_jJqi8E-94OZsXUg7nA The Cowboys have 2 proxies each, and can pick up one extra on each side for each ”cell” down the drain. These do respawn, but after 30 sec. The Cowboys can not go back, only forward down the drain. Lingering behind is risky as the Reptiles do have 2 pipebombs each, that can reach them.

Take your Sandking down the river, over rocks, water and sand. If you dont already own a classic like this, now is the time to get one. A lap is about 3 min 30 sec. https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/job/gtav/8gFvD-1UXEOD_I-DxxcBEA

Build intended as a random transform race, but with the modes shortcomings i changed it into a classic race. Locked to the Sport Classic. A lap is about 1:30, too tight for contact. https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/job/gtav/ojxLKVukw0Oyt8ho-V1ZWA

The Dominator GT The Castigator (SUV) The Yosemite 1500 The Uranus LozSpeed (Sport Classic)

Babylon (2022) dir Damien Chazelle This is a lavish, epic story (3hr + run time) with a great ensemble cast set in late 20s - early 30s Holywood. Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie get top billing as silent movie mega-star Jack Conrad and new comer Nellie LaRoy respectively. But the star is really Diego Calva as Manny Torres, a Mexican immigrant who just wants to work in the film industry in any type of job can get for a production company, and turns out to have a real feel for what people want to see. The supporting characters also include Jovan Adepo as Jazz trumpeter Sydney Palmer, Li Jin Li as cabaret artist and screenwriter “Lady” Fay Zhu and Jean Smart as movie journalist Elinor St John. There is also cameo late on from Toby Maguire as a very sinister LA gangster who thinks he has some great ideas for new films. It has some great, big. colourful scenes set to music, such as where it starts at a lavish party being thrown by Manny's studio executive boss, complete with drugs, booze, strippers and a performing elephant. It charts the change from silent films to talkies and beyond, showing how some thrive on this whilst for others it ends their careers. It also shows how certain attitudes were at that time, in particular with respect to Sydney, who plays in a black-only Jazz band, because mixed race performances and films were not allowed. It has similarities to a number of other films set at a similar time; Cabaret, The Cotton Club, The Artist, and even Cinema Paradiso in a way. The acting is good all round but Calva and Robbie stand out. Some of the sets and cinematography are stunning. It's maybe a little too long and maybe tries to include too many characters, some of which just disappear from the story later on. But it is still a very good film. 9 / 10

Wifelike (2022) dir James Bird There have been quite a few films in the last few years about life-like, AI, android companions, and they are nothing new, think of Ridely Scott's' Bladerunner (1982) and Steven Spielberg's AI (2001). This is another, and it's a really badly made film. I was almost tempted to turn it off and find something else, but I haven't given a film a really bad rating for a while, so I thought I would persevere. Set in not that distant future a company, Wifelike, is making artificial wives for those very wealthy men able to afford them. These are basically very expensive s*x toys and, not surprisingly, there is a vocal protest movement campaigning against them. Some of the protestors steal and “liberate” the artificial wives, others have found a way to hack into them and turn them into weapons to use against their owners and the company. So there is a special police squad who's job it is to find and return the missing ones. The main character, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, is one of these agents and the best there is. So following the death of this human wife the company has provided him with an artificial version of her played by Eleanor Kampouris, who also plays the human wife in flash back scenes. She then starts to have strange dreams and appears to be getting contacted by a group of the protestors, who her husband then tracks down. Rhys Meyers's acting is truly awful in this, as is that of most of the rest of cast. Kampouris is OK, but the way she plays the artificial wife, I assumed instructed to do so by the director, is very silly. They over accentuate the artificialness of her movements and speech at first before she learns how to do those things properly. This made no sense to me. If the company has the technology to design and build these things then surely they can train them to walk and talk in the factory. There are other plot elements that are similarly nonsensical or highly implausible too. I cannot work out what sort of film this was meant to be. Maybe it was a terribly executed attempt at a serious film looking at the ethics of this sort of thing if / when it ever becomes possible, i.e. when does a machine become so intelligent and aware of it's own existence that it should be granted human-like rights and be allowed to decide who it lives and sleeps with? Or maybe it was just meant to be a cheap thriller, an excuse to show lots of scantily clad, sometimes naked, women and have a few fight scenes for some action? Either way it's a bad film. If you think you might like this, watch Bladerunner instead, 3/10

My document with my reviews on it got corrupted and I can't be bothered to re-write them, so this one will be a bite-sized special. Normal service will resume next week. What I Watched This Week 157 (Dec 30-Jan 5 2025) Sweet Smell of Success dir. Alexander Mackendrick/1957/1h37m Burt Lancaster plays a ruthless, influential New York columnist who manipulates sleazy publicist Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) into breaking up his sister's relationship with a jazz guitarist by any means necessary. They both give amazing performances as totally contemptable *ssholes, with a moody jazz score matching the tone perfectly. 9/10 Two Adam Elliot shorts: Harvie Krumpet 2003/23m Ernie Biscuit 2015/21m Less autobiographical than his other work, these two claymation shorts are character studies of two foreigners who inadvertently end up in Australia, a Polish man with Tourette's and a deaf French taxidermist. Celebrating the beauty of life even when it's at its most bleak these are two very life-affirming films may lack the personal touch of his other films but are still very good. A combined score of 8/10 Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars dir. Jean-Luc Godard/2023/20m A posthumous work by the legendary French director who passed away in 2022, this is an avant-garde collage essay film where he is in discussion with the very act of filmmaking. Handmade and tactile, this is sometimes incomprehensible to a moron like me, but I love how this goes beyond experimental and shows how innovative JLG was right into his nineties. 7/10 I Saw the TV Glow dir. Jane Schoenbrun/2024/1h40m Teenager Owen (Justice Smith) and his friend Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) are obsessed with an old TV show, The Pink Opaque. Soon his reality starts to fracture and he believes that he is one of the characters trapped in another dimension. A real soft burn of a sci-fi film, much like the recent The Vast of Night, this acts as an allegory for the trans experience that is never preachy. A fantastic synth score adds to the nostalgic feel of the film. 8.5/10 Werckmeister Harmonies dir. Bela Tarr/2000/2h19m Lars Rudolph plays a postman in a small Hungarian village that is one day visited by a circus where the main attraction is a stuffed whale. Soon after, the village sees an escalation in violence as society starts to break down. Grimly beautiful and hypnotic, this is made up of very long shots with the camera roving and exploring the space, as is Tarr's trademark, some going for over ten minutes before cutting. Ever since I watched Satantango and it became my favourite film of all time I've been scared to watch any more of his work because it couldn't possibly compare. I was wrong. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Knock at the Cabin dir. M. Night Shyamalan/2023/1h40m Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge play a couple with a young daughter who are visited at their cabin in the woods by Dave Bautista's Leonard and his crew, who have an improbable and impossible task for them. Very Twilight Zone and pulpy, this is elevated by the lead performance from Bautista. Being a Shyamalan film I was waiting for a huge shock twist at the end, and was left somewhat disappointed by the lack thereof, with the payoff not living up to the set up much like the recent Heretic. Still a fun watch though. 7/10 A Countess from Hong Kong dir. Charlie Chaplin/1967/1h47m Chaplin's final film (though he only has a cameo appearance here) stars Marlon Brando as a US diplomat in Hong Kong who is traveling back to America, but a Russian countess played by Sophia Loren, has stowed away in his cabin. This feels cheap, with most of the action taking place in a couple of sets, and Marlon Brando, as talented an actor as he is, is just not funny. Loren was fun, and Chaplin's son Sydney is very good as Brando's assistant, but this is a long way from his best work. 6.5/10 Finding Nemo dir. Andrew Stanton/2003/1h40m Clownfish Marlin (Albert Brooks) has to go on an epic journey across the ocean after his son Nemo (Alexander Gould) is captured by a diver. Pixar's streak of bangers continues here as this is one of their very best films. It still looks amazing, with the underwater world looking bright and full of life, and their human characters no longer induce nightmares. The script is funny and touching with not a second of wasted time. 10/10 Two Radu Jude shorts: The Tube with a Hat 2006/25m Shadow of a Cloud 2013/30m Two films from the Romanian filmmaker here, including his very first, which is about a father and his son taking their broken TV to the local village to get repaired. Shadow of a Cloud follows a priest who is asked to pray over a dying woman, but not all of her relatives are happy about it. These films don't really feel like Jude films, as we know them now. There's no sense of surreal absurdity but the style comes close at points, particularly Shadow of a Cloud. Following the priest around feels like a prelude to the recent Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World. A combined 7/10 Ostinato dir. Sonia Furier/2024/7m (no trailer for this) This animated short is about a composer trying to write a piece on the piano, but her tinnitus keeps getting in her way, until she finds a way to make the discordant noise a part of her composition. This is a very vibrant film, though the animation does feel a little cheap at times. Decent enough but it feels insubstantial. 5.5/10

Inglorious Basterds (2009) dir Quentin Tarantino When putting together my list of favourite films from each year of my life I picked this for 2009, but until now I had never seen the whole film, all the way through in one sitting, just watched parts when it has been on TV. It's a WWII film, mainly, about a group of Jewish-American soldiers (name as in the film's title) operating behind enemy lines in occupied France, terrorising the Germans, and ultimately taking part in a mission to try and assassinate the entire n*zi leadership. But there is much more to the story than that with other plot lines. It is presented in chapters, each of which is almost like a short film in it's own right, that connects to the others, but they don't all feature the same characters, and some characters never meet each other. It has a great ensemble cast, too many to mention all in detail. I guess you can just about say Brad Pitt plays the main character, Lt Aldo Raine, leader of the Basterds. Christopher Walz won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Col Hans Landa. Often the bad guy roles stand out, and this is no exception to that. Landa is a truly evil, virulently anti-Semitic n*zi, assigned by Hitler to find all remaining Jews France. Melanie Laurent is also worth a mention as Shosanna Dreyfus, the lone survivor of a Jewish family that Landa had found and killed, now running the cinema in Paris where different plot elements come together. The others in the supporting roles include Eli Roth, Daniel Bruhl, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger and August Diehl. There's also a couple of cameo roles from Mike Myers (almost unrecognisable as a British General, who refers to distances in kilometres not miles! - I think that must have been deliberate) and Harvey Keitel (voice on other end of a radio conversation). The soundtrack is great, from a variety of composers and performers, featuring quite a few Ennio Morricone pieces, from other films he worked on, such as The Battle of Algiers and various westerns. It's a very well written script, as you would expect from Tarantino. It's not a comedy but not that serious at times, like most of his films. Similarly can be quite violent, not hard given the genre, but there are rather more graphic scenes than your average war film includes. There are a couple of scenes of intense drama. One that stands out is when Shosanna is forced to meets Landa, she knows who he is but he does not remember her. The meeting is just about a film the Germans want her to screen for them. She just about manages to keep her composure before breaking down after he leaves. 9/10

Bad Tidings (2024) dir Tim Kirkby A Christmas, comedy, TV-film made by Sky, staring comedians Lee Mack and Chris McCausland as two feuding neighbours who get left to guard their street over Christmas when a power cut leads to everyone else re-locating for the festive season. A local gang of thieves hear about this and, assuming no one at all is at home, decide this is the perfect time burgle all the houses. So it's clearly inspired at least partly by Home Alone, with similar slap-stick sscenes of the incompetent thieves falling into traps, etc. But this obviously has two adults rather than one child left at home. McCausland is completely blind, so his character was too, and that part of the plot is done well, as in they don't really make too much of it, he has adapted to his disability and just gets on with things his own way. I don't expect too much from a TV film and it was fine for what it is. 6/10 L.A. Confidential (1997) dir Curtis Hanson This was my Christmas film this year, although it's not really Christmassy. It just happens to start on Christmas Eve but goes well into January and ends months later. It's a police thriller set in early 1950s Los Angeles. 3 quite different detectives come together to eventually uncover who has taken control of LA's organised crime scene. The main character is Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), a young officer following in the footsteps of his hero father who was killed on the job, trying to stay honest and follow the rules. One of the others is Bud White (Russel Crowe) a tough cop, prepared to fight dirty, especially with men who beat up their wives and girlfriends. The final one is Jack Vincennes (played by an actor I don't think deserves any credit due to what sort of person we now know he is in real life) who supplements his police salary by being an advisor on a Hollywood cop show and also by tipping off a celebrity magazine editor (Danny De Vito) about famous people about to be arrested for drugs offences. It also features James Cromwell as the police captain, Kim Bassinger as a high class prostitute working for a business man / pimp played by David Strathairn. It's a great cast all round, Bassinger won an Oscar, as did the fantastic script adapted from a James Ellroy novel. 9 / 10

What I Watched This Week #155 (Dec 16-22) The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special dir. James Gunn/2022/45m I'm counting down the ten days till Christmas with nothing but festive films, starting off with this short Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. In order to cheer up Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Mantis and Drax (Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista) decide to get him an extra special present for Christmas, so decide to head to Earth and kidnap Kevin Bacon (Kevin Bacon). Klementieff and Bautista make for a very funny duo so it was nice to spend an extended period of time with them here. Bacon is also great, getting some big laughs from me, especially in his interactions with Drax. Where this film falls somewhat flat is that it focuses a bit too much on the comedy, undercutting the impact of the more emotional scenes. This is something that Gunn handles well in the full length Guardians films but there's just not enough time here to develop those moments fully. That said, this is still an entertaining short that manages to capture the spirit of the season, though we didn't really need to have Kevin Bacon sing a naff song at the end. 7/10 Miracle on 34th Street dir. Les Mayfield/1994/1h54m This remake of the 1947 classic stars Richard Attenborough as Kris Kringle, a jolly old chap who is hired to be a department store Santa for the holidays, and who insists that he's the real deal. This calls his sanity into doubt and a trial ensues where he must prove that he is indeed Santa. Attenborough is magical in this role, equalling Edmund Gwenn's delightful performance in the original. He is warm and playful, exuding a warmth whenever he's on screen and I swear to god he has an actual twinkle in his eye. This is a testament to his skills as an actor as it's a world away from the psychopathic gangster in Brighton Rock or the cold blooded serial killer in 10 Rillington Place. This seemed to be a very faithful remake that kept to the spirit of the original and I was enjoying it greatly, but then we came to the end and it kind of fell apart somewhat. The conclusion to the court case has been totally changed, and totally for the worse. I won't give any details as I think you should definitely watch the 1947 version, but the changes just make it feel smaller, less impactful and not at all magical. A film that could almost be great but falls at the final hurdle. 7/10 Holiday Affair dir. Don Hartman/1949/1h27m This Christmastime romance stars Robert Micthum as Steve, a salesman in a department store who is fired thanks to comparison shopper Connie (Janet Leigh). The two spend the day together and form a connection, even her young son Timmy (Gordon Gebert) is an instant fan. The only problem is her long term beau Carl (Wendell Corey). This is a sweet film with some charm, but I just couldn't buy Mitchum as a romantic lead. He has a dangerous face. After seeing him in films like Cape Fear and The Night of the Hunter I was just expecting him to pull out a switch knife and threaten to cut someone's throat. Leigh is fantastic, and absolutely gorgeous, and I really like how maturely the love triangle is handled. Everyone acts like adults, which I really appreciated. Gebert does well for a child actor, considering his character has a lot to do here. Corey gives a solid performance but his character is a bit bland. A meandering final third leads to a rushed ending but I think there's still enough good stuff here to recommend it. 6.5/10 Red One dir. Jake Kasdan/2024/2h4m When Santa (J.K. Simmons) is kidnapped his head of security, Callum Drift (The Rock), enlists the world's best tracker, Jack O'Malley (Chris Evans), to help find him. This is f*cking awful in every possible aspect. Firstly, I couldn't tell who the target audience is for this film. It's takes itself way too seriously and is too adult for it to be a family film, but it's too simple and basic and boring for any adults to enjoy it. There's no magic about Santa here, he's just the head of some technological corporate entity, and as a character himself he's just boring. He's a buff guy who works out with The Rock at the start of the film then spends the rest of it passed out in a chair. He has no twinkle. The Rock is just The Rock, but the most boring version of The Rock who always has to come across as too cool for any of this. Chris Evans is so bad that I thought he was Ryan Reynolds for a lot of this. It looks awful, with it being so desaturated that it may as well have been in black and white. A bland, soulless piece of content that Amazon shat out just to have something to put on Pirme for the holiday season, this is the polar opposite of a Christmas film. 1/10 Carry-On dir. Jaume Collet-Serra/2024/1h59m Carry-On is not a new entry in the long running British comedy series but rather a Christmas set action thriller that is basically Die Hard in an airport (yes, I know Die Hard 2: Die Harder is already Die Hard in an airport, but you know what I mean). Taran Egerton stars as a low level security officer at LAX on Christmas Eve who is being coerced into letting a man with a very dangerous piece of carry-on luggage onto a plane. He is being watched at all times and being given commands via earpiece by a man known only as Traveler (Jason Bateman). This really feels like a 90s action thriller, if you can go along with the kinda silly premise you'll have fun. Egerton is a good lead, really coming across as an everyman in a crazy situation, and he has a good back and forth with Bateman, who's always one step ahead. This is a film that relies on the tension it builds rather than the action set pieces, of which there are only a handful, and it does a very good job. It also has a few twists that I think were handled nicely. 7/10 The Star Wars Holiday Special dir. Steve Binder, David Acomba/1978/1h37m The infamous Star Wars Holiday Special sees Han Solo (Harrison Ford) help get Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) get back home to his family – wife Malla (Mickey Morton), father in law Itchy (Paul Gale), and son Lumpy (Patty Maloney) – in time for Life Day. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) also appear, as do guest stars Bea Arthur, Art Carney and Harvey Korman, all the kid's favourites. A cheap, made for TV film just to cash in on the success of Star Wars, this is just pure sh*t. Most of it is spent with Chewie's family and we get no subtitles so f*ck knows what's going on. It's also a sort of variety show, so they have to find ways to shoehorn in musical performances, comedy skits and a cartoon. None of the main Star Wars cast put any effort in, with Ford's performance being particularly contractually obliged. Even Star Wars fans don't like this, and I'm not a Star Wars fan. 1/10 Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit short film collection: A Grand Day Out 1989/23m The Wrong Trousers 1993/29m A Close Shave 1995/30m A Matter of Loaf and Death 2008/29m These four films make up the Wallace and Gromit short collection from Nick Park and while they don't have anything specifically to do with Christmas, they were all originally aired on BBC1 on Christmas day, and make up a large part of my childhood memories of the season. A Grand Day Out sees crackpot inventor Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his long suffering dog Gromit head to the moon after running out of cheese. This stands apart from the other films in terms of tone, as this is a whimsical, silent comedy inspired affair, while the other three are very much inspired by noir films from the 40s and see the duo caught up in various criminal schemes. The Wrong Trousers introduces the penguin jewel thief Feathers McGraw, A Close Shave is about a sheep rustling scheme, while A Matter of Loaf and Death sees a serial killer targeting bakers. My immediate reaction to these films is how wonderfully tactile they are, with the animator's fingerprints visible in the clay models. The style of the films is charming and cosy, which really makes the darker elements stand out when they happen. There's a brilliant use of lighting that hearkens to those older films and can change the whole tone of a scene in an instant. These are also hilarious films packed full of verbal and visual comedy. I love how Gromit is basically eyes and a nose on a lump of clay and he's one of the most expressive animated characters I've ever seen, with his reaction shots of Wallace's antics getting some of the biggest laughs from me. These all live up to their reputations as some of the best British animated films ever, with them all being nominated for Oscars - The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave both winning (and A Grand Day Out losing to another Nick Park film, Creature Comforts). If you've never seen these take a couple of hours and treat yourself. On it's own The Wrong Trousers is a 10/10, but I'll give the whole collection 9/10

So I just got this. If anyone is running missions, let me know. I'm low level, but this needs friends to be fun.

What I Watched This Week #154 (Dec 9-15) The Hound of the Baskervilles dir. Terence Fisher/1959/1h27m The winning Hammer trio of director Terence Fisher and actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, who had previous success with Dracula and The Mummy, team up once again for this adaptation of the most famous, and spookiest, Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Cushing plays Holmes with Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville, under threat from a family curse. Cushing makes for a wonderful Holmes, fitting into the role perfectly, and he has a capable Watson played by Andre Morell, but I did find Lee's role lacking in screen time, though he makes the most of what he gets. I think I would have much preferred to see him play Moriarty in a different story as The Hound of the Baskervilles isn't one of my favourites. What this film does well is atmosphere, particularly in the more supernatural scenes, with some wonderfully otherworldly lighting that feels like a precursor to the Italian giallo horror films of the 70s. 7/10 Memoir of a Snail dir. Adam Elliot/2024/1h34m This Australian stop-motion animation sees Grace (Sarah Snook) tell her sad life story, which starts with her mother dying whilst giving birth to her and her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee). When their father dies while they are still young they are sent to separate foster homes. From there Grace grows into a lonely, depressed woman whose only friend is an eccentric old lady called Pinky (Jacki Weaver). Like Elliot's previous feature from 2009, Mary and Max – the story of a pen pal friendship between a lonely, bullied, little Australian girl and a lonely, autistic middle-aged New York man - this is a brutally open and emotionally raw film that still finds beauty in the ugliness of life. This extends to the character design, as these characters all border on the grotesque looking but are still endearing and beautiful in their own way. Going further, this applies to Elliot's own life. After watching his much more autobiographical shorts (see next review) I can see how much of this film is based on experience, and the fact that he's been able to make such a profoundly moving film out of his pain (this also applies to Mary and Max) is deeply touching. As far as feature films go he's two for two in my books and I can't wait to see his next film, even if it takes another 15 years. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Four shorts by Adam Elliot: Human Behavioural Case Studies. Series One. 1996/1m Uncle 1996/6m Cousin 1999/4m Brother 2000/8m These four shorts make up Elliot's filmography prior to the release of his first feature, Mary and Max, and offer up bite-sized samples of his signature style and deeply personal storytelling. That is, with one outlier – his very first film, Human Behavioural Case Studies. Series One. This is a simply animated film, drawn with pencil rather than his usual Claymation stop-motion, where we hear three stories about weird hobbies that some children have. While probably based on reality this lacks the emotional heft that really makes his films hit hard. But this is more than present in his other three shorts that make up a trilogy, Uncle, Cousin, and Brother. These are all autobiographical and relate Elliot's feelings and relationships with each of the named family members, his eccentric, hardware store owning uncle, his cousin with cerebral palsy, and his wild and free older brother. These films are all tinged with sadness and melancholy but there is always humour present, something to make life bearable. If you don't laugh you'll cry. Like I said in the previous review, it's incredible that Elliot has taken so much pain and sadness and transformed that into these works of art. Not as refined as his feature films, these are still very much worth watching and I'll give the whole collection a score of 8.5/10 Mandibles dir. Quentin Dupieux/2020/1h17m Quentin Dupieux is a very unique director who has previously made films about a killer tyre (Rubber), a possessed jacket that wants to be the only jacket in the world (Deerskin), and a man who takes a play, and its audience, hostage because he thinks it's bad (Yannick), so I wasn't that surprised to find that this film is about a couple of idiotic chancers, Manu and Jean-Gab (Gregoire Ludig, David Marsais), who find a giant fly in the boot of their car and see it as a way to make some money. Deadpan Kafkaesque absurdity is the name of the game here, with the two main characters just going with the flow, seeing where their moronic scheme will take them. It's like if Dumb and Dumber was a surreal, European arthouse film. The two leads do a good job of making what could be very unlikeable characters – they're not only stupid, they're also selfish, manipulative, and deceitful – quite charming, and their almost childlike friendship I found to be quite sweet, they even have a special best friends fist bump. I also found it hilarious that at the end, just when we think that they are going to learn a lesson and grow as people, their idiocy is rewarded and reinforced. The more films of his I watch, the more I like the weird world of Quentin Dupieux. 9/10 Women Talking dir. Sarah Polley/2022/1h35m A group of women in an isolated, deeply religious community meet to discuss what they are to do after several of their men are arrested for sexually assaulting them. They decide they have three options, stay and fight for equality in the community, stay and do nothing, or leave. This is a true ensemble piece with many characters, but led by the brilliant trio of Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, and Claire Foy each delivering amazing performances. Ben Whishaw is also excellent as August, a kind and gentle man who has recently been let back into the community after previously being excommunicated due to his mother. He is at the meeting to take minutes because of course none of the women were ever taught to read or write. This is a film that is made by the dialogue, with the Oscar winning screenplay really making each discussion totally enthralling as the women struggle to reconcile their faith with the massively traumatic experience they've all been through. 9/10 Seven Chances dir. Buster Keaton/1925/56m This silent comedy stars Buster Keaton as Jimmie Shannon who discovers he's been left seven million dollars in a distant relative's will. The only catch is that he has to be married by seven pm on the evening of his twenty seventh birthday, which happens to be today. This film builds up the comedy over the runtime, starting off with quite subtle slapstick and culminating with a ridiculously over the top chase where he is pursued through the city streets by hundreds of would-be brides. Buster gives a very typical performance of his here, his stony expression exuding a slight air of sadness. While this is very well crafted I do find it to be less imaginative than his best films like Sherlock Jr. or The General. The chase scene is fun but there are no real big set pieces that stand out. But this is still a funny and charming film and well worth watching. 7/10 Toy Story 2 dir. John Lasseter/1999/1h32m Pixar's third film started out as a direct to video project, but when they exceeded all expectations when it came to quality and story it was pushed to full release. Woody (Tom Hanks) is kidnapped by toy store owner Al (Wayne Knight) who's going to sell him to a museum in Tokyo because it turns out he's a rare collectable piece of merchandise from an old TV show. This is how we meet the rest of the Woody's Roundup gang, exuberant cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack) and Stinky Pete the Prospector (Kelsey Grammer). This is one of those rare sequels that is almost, if not as good as the original. Woody having to face the prospect of a life where Andy grows up and doesn't need him anymore is really well handled, with the song where Jessie recounts her own owner abandoning her being genuinely heart-breaking. This is also just as funny as the original, with most of that coming from Buzz (Tim Allen), leading a rescue party out looking for Woody. There's also a marked improvement in the animation from the first film here, especially with the human characters who are no longer nightmare inducing. The textures of the fabrics and plastics that make up the toys also look much more detailed. 9.5/10 Wasp dir. Andrea Arnold/2003/26m (no trailer for this) This Oscar winning short film from Andrea Arnold stars Natalie Press as Zoe, a single mother to four young children living in poverty on a council estate. She is asked out to the pub by an old flame Dave (Danny Dyer) but can't get a babysitter, so she makes her kids wait outside for her. This is an honest and non-judgemental look at what it's like for the poorest people in this country. Zoe, as a character is someone who you sympathise with, pity, are outraged by and can feel disgusted by how she treats her children. Her love for them is never called into question, it's a case of a desperate person not making the best decisions. Press gives an amazing performance that feels real and lived in. I'm also amazed that Dyer gave a good performance as I've hated him in everything else I've seen him in. Bleak and raw, there's still a spirit of hope here, small as it may be. 10/10

Let The Sunshine In (2017) dir Claire Denis Juliette Binoche plays Parisian artist Isabelle, looking for her ideal man after a divorce. That makes it sound like a romantic comedy, but it isn't. There's no real romance and although not to be taken too seriously it's not exactly full of jokes either. Isabelle basically tries out various lovers who all fail to live up to expectation on some level; such as the wealthy married man who only calls when it suits him or the younger man who decides he just wants to be friends. Interwoven between these scenes we learn a bit more about who Isabelle is, what she does for a job, meet a few of her friends etc. Binoche is very good, as always, most of the rest of the cast are OK. I did start to get a little bored after about halfway through. There was very little chemistry between the actors, which I guess was deliberate since she was never finding the right man. But right at the end it did step up. The very final scene is great. Isabelle goes to see a psychic, played by Gerard Depadieu. There follows a dialogue as they discuss her various lovers, with him kind of reviewing them. It's almost like she was seeing a therapist, until he brought out a “magic” pendulum type of thing and started making predictions of which ones might turn out to be the right man for her. The film actually ends at this scene plays out with the credits beginning whilst their conversation continues. I'm not sure if the intention of this was to make you watch the credits or maybe it was saying “you can stop watching now, there's nothing important left to see”. But whatever, it was an original bit of film making for me. 6 / 10

Here's my list of favourite films for each year since I was born. https://letterboxd.com/djw180/list/my-favourite-film-from-every-year-ive-been Nothing for this year yet, hardly seen any of the decent 2024 films.

What I Watched This Week #153 (Dec 2-8) The Blood on Satan's Claw dir. Piers Haggard/1971/1h37m In a small English village in the 17th century farmer Ralph Gower (Barry Andrews) digs up the remains of Satan, and slowly the residents, led by the children and young people, turn into devil worshipping cultists. This is somewhat of a cult classic when it comes to folk horror so I went into this with pretty high expectations but I was slightly disappointed. There are some moments of chilling atmosphere, especially when we get a short glimpse of the devil in a shadowy cave and the performance of Linda Hayden as the lead Satanist Angel Blake, a seductively scheming young woman who'll do anything for her dark master, is pretty good. I did find the story very disjointed with no real main character who we can follow and root for, and a lot of the plot threads just seem to end with no real resolution, or what there is being very rushed. There's a lot of good stuff here but I don't think this film really deserves the reputation it has. 6.5/10 Two short films from Thomas Hardiman: Pitch Black Panacea 2020/8m Radical Hardcore 2015/5m These two shorts from Thomas Hardiman have very different subjects and styles but both showcase his originality and love for experimentation. Pitch Black Panacea sees two strangers, Amy and Carl (Martha Plimpton, Gbenga Akinnagbe), undergo a radical new treatment to fix their lazy eyes, being locked together in a pitch black room for ten days. Their experience and hallucinations are visualised by old-school style cartoons, all rubbery movement and slightly grotesque in appearance. Being shot in black and white adds to the vintage feel of the animation. Radical Hardcore follows a woman (Natalie Gavin) as she looks to buy a new carpet. She and the salesman (Shahid Ahmed), have an intimate, almost er*tic discussion about carpets, while we also get facts about the history of carpet making in England from 1685 to the present. All of the dialogue is in subtitles, their voices unheard, the whole thing set to thumping dance beats. Both of these films are playful while also having an edge to them, almost sinister. It put me in mind of the work of Peter Strickland. Hardiman followed these shorts with the feature film Medusa Deluxe in 2022, a film about a murder at a hairdressing competition all shot in one take, and that style and experimental nature carried over to amazing effect. This is a filmmaker worth keeping an eye on, I can't wait for his next film. Both of these shorts get an 8/10 Josie and the p*ssycats dir. Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont/2001/1h38m Josie, Val, and Melody (Rachael Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson, Tara Reid) are small-town wanna be rock stars The p*ssycats who soon find themselves rocketing to the top of the Billboard charts thanks to record executive Wyatt (Alan c*mming). But they soon realise that they are pawns in a plot to brainwash the youth of America, turning them into mindless consumers. This is a deliciously campy satire on consumerism and the soulless, manufactured pop music of the time, and a very stupid – and I say that as a compliment – comedy that's a lot funnier than I remember from first watching this twenty plus years ago. What's also better than I remember is the music, The p*ssycats have a few genuine pop rock bangers, with 3 Small Words and Pretend To Be Nice still stuck in my head. I did find the romantic subplot between Josie and Alan M. (Gabriel Mann) to be totally superfluous, adding nothing to either the story or Josie's character development, and it really drags the film down whenever any time is spent on it. 8.5/10 World of Glory dir. Roy Andersson/1991/16m This short from idiosyncratic Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson anticipates the style, tone and subject matter of his subsequent feature films, starting with Songs From The Second Floor in 2000. In World of Glory we view through a static, locked off camera the bleakly desaturated day to day life of an unnamed middle aged bureaucrat (Klas-Gosta Olsson). Addressing the camera directly in a droning monotone and stood stock still himself – this lack of movement in both the camera and subject suggests a world in stasis where there is no chance for a change for the better – this would be very boring if it weren't for the opening scene giving a sense of dread to everything. In that scene we see him at work, overseeing the execution of a group of naked people who are gassed to death in the back of a truck. This gives a new context to everything that follows, showing us how horrifically banal real evil is, and it reminded me of Jonathan Glazer's amazing holocaust movie The Zone of Interest. 9/10 A Different Man dir. Aaron Schimberg/2024/1h52m Edward (Sebastian Stan) is an aspiring actor with neurofibromatosis – benign tumours covering his face – who undergoes radical treatment to cure his condition. Assuming a new identity, he is annoyed to find that his neighbour Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), who believes he committed suicide, has written a play based on his life. To make matters worse, enter Oswald (Adam Pearson), another man with neurofibromatosis – as does Pearson, who was amazing in Jonathan Glazer's bleakly brilliant sci-fi film Under The Skin - who is charming and witty and loved by everyone, living the life that Edward wishes he had, driving him insane with jealousy. This reminded me thematically of The Substance, also from this year, in that it deals with issues of self image and resenting someone who represents the “better” parts of yourself, but where that film went down the road of shocking body-horror this is a hilarious dark comedy. The first hour is played as a pretty straight drama, but the introduction of Oswald turns things into an almost absurdist film, with Stan really selling Edward's perplexion and frustration. But it is Pearson who steals the show, with his character needling Edward with his perfect life. It's like he's weaponising his toxic positivity and aiming it all at Edward. This extends all the way to the last scene, with its biting final line. An incredible film and easily one of the best of the year. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Public Enemy dir. William A. Wellman/1931/1h24m This classic gangster film stars James Cagney in his breakout role of Tom Powers who, along with best friend Matt (Edward Woods), rises up from a poverty stricken childhood to become a feared bootlegger in 30s Chicago. This film is carried by Cagney's charisma, and he has great chemistry with Woods. This could almost be a love story between these two guys, with the actual romantic plot with Jean Harlow's Gwen Allen feeling superfluous and tacked on. I also found that the violence here is rather quaint and tame, even compared to contemporary gangster films like the original Scarface. But the fact that the violence is mostly implied or happens off screen really helps a couple of scenes feel even more impactful. Firstly the scene where Tom and Matt execute a horse (really), and the fatal climactic shootout between Tom and a whole gang of rival hoods. We're on the other side of the door for the entire scene and I was holding my breath the whole time. 7.5/10 Tavern Man dir. Aki Kaurismaki/2012/14m (no videos of this) This short from Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki condenses his typical style and themes into a brisk and bittersweet fifteen minutes. We follow a middle aged, hangdog tavern owner (Ilkka Koivula) through his daily routine; working on his prized soup recipie, checking out the competition, and hoping for romance. The air of bittersweet melancholy lies heavy over this film, as it does with all of his work, but there's always a glimmer of hope and the chance for a better tomorrow. 7/10 A Bug's Life dir. John Lasseter/1998/1h35m Seven Samurai meets Galaxy Quest when ant Flik (Dave Foley) is sent off to find some warrior bugs to protect his colony from a gang of rampaging grasshoppers led by Kevin Spacey's Hopper. Through a case of mistaken identity he hires a band of circus performers who are none too happy themselves when they realise what they've gotten into. The animators at Pixar must have felt a lot of pressure to follow up a genuinely revolutionary film like Toy Story, but they've done an excellent job here and I respect that they didn't go the easy route of just doing a sequel (that happens next year). The plot here isn't as original as Toy Story, but like that film this is stuffed with memorable characters, none of whom are one dimensional, and they all get a moment to be the star. Unfortunately the weakest character is the main one. I just find him to be annoying and would rather spend more time with any of the supporting cast. But, with a great script full of hilarious jokes, a charming and relaxed jazzy score from Randy Newman and solid perfomances all round this is still an excellent film, and one sadly overlooked in Pixar's catalogue. It also gets extra points for taking the effort to animate bloopers to play over the credits. 8/10

What I Watched This Week #152 (Nov 25-Dec 1) Radiohead: In Rainbows - From the Basement dir. David Barnard/2008/1h3m This concert film sees Radiohead play most of their In Rainbows album, plus a few select other songs, in Maida Vale Studios in London. The setting, and the fact that there is no audience, makes for an incredibly intimate experience and allows you to fully focus on the musicianship of each of the band members. Thom Yorke is an entrancing frontman – and excellent dancer if you've seen Paul Thomas Anderson's short film Anima – with his idiosyncratic twitching and distinctive wailing voice. I also liked how, thanks to the close proximity this films gives us, I was able to see the chord choices he makes when playing guitar. It's not something that the casual viewer would catch, but as a dabbler in guitar myself I really appreciated it. It was also fascinating to see lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood at work, his corner of the studio like a lab as he not only plays guitar but also keyboards and synths and at one point he's programming beats on a laptop. An up close and personal look at one of the best bands ever at work. 10/10 Harakiri dir. Masaki Kobayashi/1962/2h15m A depressed ronin – a samurai without a master – Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai) comes to the house of Iyi looking for a place to commit honourable seppuku – ritual suicide – and a worthy swordsman to act as his assistant. The lord's chief counsellor Kageyu Saito (Rentaro Mikuni) questions him, as not long before a young man came to their house with a similar request. The film is made up of two stories that collide, that of the young man, Motome Chijiwa (Akira Ishihama), and Tsugumo's life story. This is an incredibly crafted film with some absolutely gorgeous cinematography and a perfectly paced plot that always keeps you hooked. It explores the samurai codes of honour and whether they are actually worth anything when challenged, and the differences between honour and respect as you can act with honour but no respect, as is the case in this film. What really drives this film forwards is the amazing performance by Nakadai in the lead role. He is the picture of absolute resolve, his one goal left in life to expose the hypocrisies of his fellow samurai. Even though this is made up of mostly conversations between Tsugumo and Saito I was still on the edge of my seat, with this story being one of the most enthralling I've ever seen. This is an absolute masterpiece in every way. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Toy Story dir. John Lasseter/1995/1h21m Pixar's first feature length film is a genuine landmark in the history of cinema as it is the first fully computer animated film, ushering in a new age for animation like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs did nearly sixty years earlier. Expanding on their short film Tin Toy, Toy Story imagines a world where toys come to life when no one is watching. Tom Hanks stars as cowboy Woody, the favourite toy of young Andy (John Morris). Life is good until Andy's birthday when he gets the brand new flashy toy, Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), and feels like he's being replaced. Apart from the textures looking very flat, though at the time they set the high bar in the industry, and the human characters looking frankly grotesque – though nowhere near as nightmare inducing as the baby from Tin Toy – this is as close to perfect as you can get. The script is hilarious and also hits some big emotional beats, the characters all have real depth and personality, and the songs by Randy Newman capture the charm and whimsy of the film perfectly. In my opinion this is the defining role of Hanks' career, and he makes an iconic duo with Allen's egotistical space ranger. The supporting cast is also full of instantly iconic characters with performances that all match their personalities, with John Ratzenberger as Hamm the know-it-all piggy bank being my favourite. Arguably the best, and most revolutionary, animated film ever made. 10/10 Killer's Kiss dir. Stanley Kubrick/1955/1h8m This early Kubrick stars Jamie Smith as Davey Gordon, a boxer at the tail end of his career who falls in love with dancer Gloria (Irene Kane). But their relationship is threatened by Gloria's boss, club owner and violent criminal Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera). The best thing about this film is the moody, almost noir-like, black and white photography. The New York City locations all feel seedy and lived-in, giving the film tons of atmosphere. The boxing scenes are also very well shot, echoing his earlier documentary short Day of the Fight. Sadly the rest of the film is distinctly average. Apart from Silvera who gives a good turn as a sleazy gangster the performances are pretty flat and the story is predictable and drags even though it's barely an hour long. This is an improvement on his debut feature film, Fear and Desire, but it won't be until his next two films, The Killing and Paths of Glory, that he really hits his stride as a filmmaker. This isn't a bad film, but it's really only worth seeking out if you're aiming to watch all of Kubrick's rather slim filmography. 5/10 Dark Star dir. John Carpenter/1974/1h23m John Carpenter's debut feature length film tells the story of four working class astronauts on a decades long mission travelling through the galaxy destroying unstable planets, readying the universe for colonisation. One of the astronauts is played by Dan O'Bannon who also co-wrote the script with Carpenter and would go on to write Alien, another sci-fi film about blue collar workers in deep space, but unlike that film this is full of humour, at times it's almost a full blown comedy. One protracted scene sees O'Bannon's character chase the ships alien mascot around, the alien being what looks like a beach ball with feet. They also get into a philosophical argument with one of their thermonuclear bombs, which honestly put me in mind of Talkie Toaster from the British sitcom Red Dwarf. Actually, a lot of this reminded me of Red Dwarf, low ranking technicians stuck on a space ship bored out of their minds and looking for something to pass the time. Because it started out as a student film the budget is practically non-existent and none of the performances really stand out, but I really like the concept and there are lots of interesting ideas here. Not what I was expecting from a John Carpenter sci-fi film, but worth watching all the same. 7/10 Emilia Perez dir. Jacques Audiard/2024/2h12m Zoe Saldana stars as Mexico City lawyer Rita who is kidnapped by a the leader of a cartel, Manitas (Karla Sofia Gascon), who asks for her help in transitioning to a woman, becoming the titular Emilia Perez (Sofia Gascon is a trans woman herself). What sounds like a heavy drama is given the melodramatic treatment of a soap opera, and is also a musical (the vaginoplasty song being a highlight). Sadly this only undercuts the seriousness of the subject matter and at points comes off like a joke. I've read reviews that say this does nothing to help trans representation and having no lived experience of that I couldn't say, but Perez as a character does come off as a selfish *sshole who I couldn't sympathise with at all, and none of it has anything to do with her gender identity. The performances from the two leads are good, and they really invest themselves in their characters, as does Selena Gomez as Perez's ex-wife Jessi, and they really help sell the more sincere moments here. Well intentioned but off target, there are some decent moments here but the wildly inconsistent tone throws it all off. 5/10 First Man dir. Damien Chazelle/2018/2h21m First Man is a biopic of astronaut Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) covering his life from his time as a test pilot in the early 60s up to the moment he became the First Man on the moon in July 1969. As well as his professional life we also see his personal life with wife Janet (Claire Foy). The film presents Armstrong's stoic, isolated, obsessive personality as his way of dealing with grief, and makes his time on the moon imbued with even more meaning than it already has thanks to this. Gosling's performance is all under the surface but you can always feel his sadness, motivating him or maybe he's trying to run away from it. All of the launches and scenes in space make it feel suitably terrifying, with lots of close ups of all the bolts and rivets holding their ship together as they creak and groan. It's also mostly filmed from inside the ships during these scenes, no glossy shots of rockets gliding through space, so you feel like you're there with them. More of an emotional than informative biopic, if you're looking for a Wikipedia entry then you'll be disappointed, this is a very humane take on humanities greatest achievement. 8.5/10