Books:

Fear and Trembling (1842, Søren Kierkegaard) – I’m generally more inclined to discuss fiction here, but this little philosophical classic kind of blew my mind. I was raised fully atheistically, but have always been surrounded and fascinated by religion. Over the years I’ve come to see faith as a very important part of life, yet also something necessarily far too personal and mysterious to be fully shared or standardised in the way that organised religion purports to have achieved. As such I really appreciate Kierkegaard’s courage in pretty much disregarding all pretense of contemporary organised religion in order to grapple directly with theological problems in a way that is at once individual and universal. It was exciting and rare to relate so much to something so old. Yes it’s still full of the usual impenetrable enlightenment-era jargon, but in terms of the style and actual points he was making, I often felt the author could be talking from 2025. This is not a book about enforcing a bunch of dogma or poring over detailed biblical exegesis, or trying to get to some kind of rational or logical proof of the fundamentally unknowable. It’s about the timeless struggle to find comfort and understanding with your own place in the infinite flow of life. This book has helped me become more comfortable in saying that I have faith, and I think I’ll be exploring that conclusion for however much time I have left on this planet. 

She’s Always Hungry (2024, Eliza Clark) – I have mixed feelings on this collection, almost literally a fifty-fifty split as I liked/loved five of the eleven stories but was disappointed/annoyed with the other five. (The one remainder is just a few pages of pretend Just Eat reviews for a surreal takeaway restaurant, and I hesitate to actually call it a story at all. To me it really was just empty literary calories – perhaps that’s the point? I saw it as a waste). The five I really liked were Hollow Bones, Goth GF, Nightstalkers, Shake Well, and The King. I would especially recommend The King and Hollow Bones, which for my money contain the best writing and also best encapsulate the collection’s general themes of desire, manipulation, gender, and a sort of darkly comic social cynicism that can be quite disturbing. These stories also have great characters and at least try towards a plot – two things I found lacking from the other five, Build a Body Like Mine, The Problem Solver, She’s Always Hungry, Extinction Event, and Company Man. I did like aspects of each of these, particularly Company Man and She’s Always Hungry, but as actual stories, for me they fell somewhere between unrefined and unfinished. I think material this intense and topical needs more than the surface level and sometimes cliché treatment given here. Still, no anthology is ever free from duds, and the variety alone is definitely impressive. There’s something for everyone here, so I do recommend it.

The Master and Margarita (1967, Mikhail Bulgakov) – My only issue with this was that I really felt I needed notes to better appreciate the historical/biographical context. I recommend familiarising yourself with the author’s life and career in Stalinist Russia a little before reading – I only did so afterwards. As a result, much of my experience felt like an endless and meandering series of surreal episodes sharing no meaningful connection. It is extremely heavy on themes, satire, and symbolism. But even as the story tested the limits of my narrative preferences, I was never less than delighted by the imagination and creativity of what was happening. It is beautifully written (I had the Michael Glenny translation), very funny, and overall just vastly more joyous and flat-out entertaining than I ever presumed a piece of Soviet-era literature would or could be. I also loved how philosophical things got. There is a really amazing depiction of Jesus that I’ve been thinking about ever since reading it. And once I did learn a bit more of the context, I could better appreciate Bulkagov’s artistic brilliance in creating such a singular novel in the first place. Of all things, it reminded me in many ways of Twin Peaks in its seamless interweaving of melodrama, slapstick comedy, and dark spiritual abstraction. And I love Twin Peaks. I will certainly revisit this thing some day, and recommend it to anyone.

Based on a True Story (2016, Norm Macdonald) – God bless Norm Macdonald. This is an unapologetically idiotic book from an inimitably idiosyncratic man. Like him, it also hides a surprising depth of intelligence and sincerity. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Jazz (1992, Toni Morrison) – This is my first experience with Toni Morrison’s work, and I have clearly been missing out. The writing here is just sumptuous. A relatively simple story transcends itself in the telling, a kind of musical patchwork of characters and flashbacks, modulating regularly to new voices and histories, revealing more and more layers to the central tragedy. The unique style is a joy to read, and the story goes to some beautiful places. If anything I just wish there was more of it; it felt quite short and seemed to end a little arbitrarily. But I gather it’s part of a sort of spiritual trilogy with Beloved and Paradise, so I’ll be sure to try those soon.

The Maltese Falcon (1930, Dashiell Hammett) – I liked this way better than The Big Sleep; guess I’m more of a Hammett man than a Chandler man. It’s brilliantly written on all counts, from prose to plotting. There’s a total absence of inner monologue, with everything being told exclusively through either dialogue or this relentless, near-clinical description of the characters’ actions and body language. Yet the end result is that you, the reader, becomes totally immersed in the perspective of the hard-nosed investigator protagonist, scrutinising every detail and trusting nobody. What a cool story. I’d recommend this to anyone, especially if you’re looking for a more cinematic, straightforward time.

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1981, Stephen King) – After something like a decade of loving Stephen King, I’ve finally decided to begin his mammoth seven-book fantasy epic, The Dark Tower. Part of the reason I held off for so long is the tepid reputation of this first instalment. It seems like fans on the internet are always saying that The Gunslinger is an awkward beginning, written in an unforgiving style which is very difficult to get into, with its main virtue being that it’s mercifully short. Even King himself re-released the book in 2003 with various changes to retroactively make it fit better into the series, and has somewhat disparaged the original. But, as usual, everyone is wrong except me. I absolutely loved this book and in fact I think it’s one of the very best things King’s ever written. It suffers from none of what I see as his usual flaws, namely a tendency for bloat, a certain degree of crudeness, and, for lack of a better phrase, weird sex stuff (only sometimes, but if you know, you know). The language here is definitely a little different, but to me it honestly just felt more refined and poetic, more comfortable in letting the ambiguity and atmosphere of the story guide the proceedings rather than falling into that crudeness, almost plainness which can sometimes let King’s prose down. And that works perfectly here because this story is the rare King tragedy. I found it a punishingly sad read, the world of its story being an eerily plausible dystopian dream with shades of Cormac McCarthy (whose writing I have never been able to get into, for all the same reasons that people dislike this book!). At the same time, it’s all steeped in the kind of cosmic wonder and balls-to-the-wall action you want from a dark fantasy. It’s just a great combination, embodied by the character of the Gunslinger himself, Roland, at once a total bastard and an awe-inspiring hero. Overall, this is a real gem in the King saga, and I’d recommend it to anyone.

The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three (1987, Stephen King) – Well, this is awkward. The same fans who tend to put The Gunslinger at the bottom of their Dark Tower rankings often put this one near, if not at, the very top. But in keeping with my apparent contrarianism, I have to say this must be one of my least favourite King novels that I’ve read. (I personally enjoyed Revival less, but I do think that one is better-made). It hit especially hard coming straight off The Gunslinger, which impressed me so much more. They’re almost two different genres; the first is a dystopian Western thriller, the second basically an R-rated ’80s action sci-fi buddy comedy, sort of like if Back to the Future were directed by Paul Verhoeven – Serious King vs Silly King. I love both at the best of times, and I’m only human; I can’t stay mad for long at any book whose main antagonist is a horde of monstrous crustaceans named ‘lobstrosities’. I’m sure some of my reaction is just the disappointment and surprise at that difference in tone and style from the first book, and I do actually respect the willingness to make that left-turn, which bodes exciting chaos for the rest of the series. But I just found the story and characters pretty weak – major spoilers from here on out.

The story’s structure is inherently repetitive, and by the end, far less has actually happened than took place in the first book (and in half the number of pages as this one), including precious little development for our hero, Roland. Eddie is a fine character, but he’s far less interesting to me, and on reflection he almost feels like a Poochy-esque addition self-consciously inserted to appeal to the slobs in the audience. I’m slightly saddened in general by the greater emphasis on the ‘real world’ which he represents, as opposed to Roland’s world; while it is fascinating to see the two collide in many ways, the action in Roland’s world literally grinds to a halt as a result, and the setting here feels very empty and lacklustre compared with the set pieces of the first book. But my biggest problem by far is the character of Odetta/Detta/ Susannah; she is just not well-written at all. She is at once far more convoluted and complex than Eddie, in terms of what we learn about her in her first few chapters alone, yet receives far less focus and interiority. It all comes down to her ‘schizophrenia’ which renders her two separate people, for all intents and purposes, each of whom is sort of a deliberate caricature, only for the whole thing to be resolved in a single act by Roland at the climax, in which I literally could not understand what was supposed to be happening. Then at some point she marries Eddie off-screen and is supposed to have morphed into a whole new character. And I have not even mentioned the fact that the ‘Detta’ persona is supposed to be a deliberately racist caricature of an evil black woman, some kind of expression of Odetta’s internalised racism, who is variously referred to as a ‘thing’ and a ‘monster’ and so on, speaks in endless cringe-worthy patois, and spends much of the book tied up by the two white guys. Some ideas are just BAD! The entire schizophrenia angle to Susannah adds absolutely nothing. If she’d just been an aggressive character who rebelled (understandably!) against Roland’s kidnapping – more of the Detta persona – then that’d be fine and the story could more or less be the same; I don’t dislike the plotting, and the climax is exciting. Or if she’d been more of the Odetta persona, a much more sophisticated and genteel type than Eddie and Roland, whom they had to simply accommodate, then that could have been fine too. Embarrassing politics of the racist aspects aside (the ’80s was forty years ago, at least) I just cannot understand for the life of me what the logic was here on a story level. I can’t even blame some insecurity on King’s part about writing a black person, since IT (my favourite of his) came out only a year prior to this and features Mike, one of the best characters in that or any of his stories, and its own themes of racism which are very well-executed. I am tempted to do as King fans often do when something awkward comes up, which is blame his ’80s drug habit. The Drawing of the Three did come at the tail-end of this problem (he sobered up the year of its release) so perhaps he was getting some of his worst tendencies out of the way. Whatever the case, it’s lucky for this book that it wasn’t the start of the series, because I honestly don’t think it could have held my interest. Still, we’ll always have the lobstrosities. As it stands, I have already begun the next book, which is off to a better start so far.

Films:

Chopping Mall (1986, Jim Wynorski) – This was only sporadically fun, but I admired its commitment to stupidity.

Carry-On (2024, Jaume Collet-Serra) – A script with some potential, hampered by super bland direction and widespread miscasting. I would have liked a much schlubbier protagonist and a much slimier villain, for example. 

Nosferatu (2024, Robert Eggers) – This didn’t disappoint. Completely sumptuous in its atmosphere and evocation of a specific time and place. Excellent performances across the board, with an honestly jaw-dropping turn from Bill Skarsgård, who is clearly an actual vampire posing as a human actor and not the other way around. I was also pleased with the depth of the themes of lust, gender, sexual assault, and repression; it actually moved me a fair bit. I also know I’m not alone in finding this a surprisingly erotic and romantic experience. All in all, a truly unique and memorable take on the Dracula story, which is no small feat given the hundreds already on record. I might even call it the best adaptation I’ve seen, though I guess it’s not quite as flat-out entertaining as the Coppola one. A strong recommendation, anyway. 

Smiley Face (2006, Gregg Araki) – There’s a YouTuber I like called Karsten Runquist who says this obscure stoner comedy is one of his all-time favourite films, and he’s not even a smoker. I’m no stranger to the devil’s lettuce myself, and I also like Anna Faris. If you like Anna Faris at all, watch this. There never was a film with more Anna Faris content. I certainly enjoyed it; a rather odd story, but likable and entertaining. 

Slither (2006, James Gunn) – Of the James Gunn films I’ve seen, I like but do not love them. This one is no exception. It was impressively disgusting and creepy but throughout it all I had the sense something was missing, though I couldn’t figure out exactly what. It may be to do with the protagonist’s mantle kind of shifting around between three different characters, none of whom are very developed. Or maybe it needed just one more twist or turn in the story to keep things interesting all the way to the end. I dunno. Worth a watch if you want some cheap thrills and cool monster makeup. 

Mission: Impossible (1996, Brian De Palma) – Another film that I would mildly recommend if you’re looking for a bit of excitement and nothing more. Like all the movies in this franchise, there is that one sequence that is really intense and well-executed and will guarantee to make you excited. I’ve seen most of the series, and sadly this first one failed the hardest to make me actually care about the mission itself. Tom Cruise is quite an asshole in this actually. I wanted him to get caught! 

Heretic (2024, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods) – Yeesh. Easily my least favourite watch of the year thus far. This one hurt even worse on account of it being the product of one of those evenings where we all spent ages trying to decide on something to watch, only to horribly regret our ultimate choice. Heretic has garnered good reviews all round, which I can only explain as some kind of anomaly in the space-time continuum. It’s not remotely scary, it’s interminably slow, the story is utterly incoherent, it’s not half as clever or compelling as it thinks it is, and I honestly have no clue at all what the point was ever supposed to be, other than to sell tickets via surface level similarity to other, vastly better A24 films. Hugh Grant is fun and all but even he is totally wasted by these filmmakers – who, it turns out, are the very same hack frauds behind 2023’s The Boogeyman, which is literally my go-to example of a 0/10 movie. It almost feels like my fault for not knowing that ahead of time and sparing myself this entire experience. Almost.

Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003, McG) – Genuinely incredible. 10 out of 10. 

Godzilla (1954, Ishirō Honda) – I had the pleasure of seeing this on a big screen and really liked it. Artful, never boring, and surprisingly haunting. You can see why it took off the way it did. I want more Godzilla in my life, hopefully I can get it soon. 

Alien: Romulus (2024, Fede Álvarez) – I’m not much of a gamer but I recently played through Alien: Isolation and completely loved its recreation and expansion of the original film’s indelible atmosphere. Clearly the series went off the rails over time, but that first one remains perfect. Romulus, on the other hand, I genuinely forgot I had even seen for some time before remembering I meant to write about it. Supposedly this instalment was intended to take things back to the original vision, and to that end, the filmmakers even took a lot of inspiration from the game. Plus it actually got a lot of good reviews from fans and critics alike. Going in, I knew about the unfortunate CGI reanimation of Ian Holm, and hated that on principle, but still, my hopes were high – only to be dashed almost instantly. The characters are insultingly low effort and uniformly unlikable. Everything is very heavy-handed and unconvincing, with none of the subtlety or psychology of the original whatsoever. And it is just chock-full of distractingly baffling decisions: the android swapping (terrible) accents without anyone seeming to notice, the nonsensically speeded up evolution of the creatures, the shamelessly forced inclusion of famous lines from the other films…. I hated it. Say what you want about Prometheus, but at least it was memorable in its own right. Soon I will go back to not thinking about this movie ever again. My sole compliment is that I did appreciate the effort to not rely entirely on CGI for the monster effects, but that almost makes it worse. Like that’s all they think matters. I imagine the superficial elements were all conceived and designed long before anyone had a halfway interesting script. This is all to say that I would not sincerely recommend Alien: Romulus to anyone.

Silver Bullet (1985, Dan Attias) – A pretty solid werewolf movie, which isn’t something you get to say very often. Poor werewolves, nobody cares about werewolves. It isn’t quite as good as the Stephen King thing it’s based on (which is something you get to say every ten minutes) but it was still good. Gary Busey is great. I was also very happy because my main man Big Ed Hurley from Twin Peaks is here and looking absolutely fabulous. I might have to make him the featured image for this page.

The Monkey (2025, Osgood Perkins) – I got quite little out of this experience overall. Theo James is quite good in one role and quite not good in another. There are some fairly memorable comedic beats. The opening scene is impressively disgusting. But I feel this is a film which has not got enough confidence in the simple brilliance of its premise (which is basically the only aspect unchanged from the source material, written by – you guessed it – Stephen King) and thus tries to overcompensate with a bunch of really plotty stuff that is way too convoluted to care about. I think if you’ve got such a specific central device as the monkey itself and what it represents, then your best course is to simply pursue that alone, as straightforwardly as you can, for ninety minutes. Like, just chronologically tell the story of these guy’s lives, punctuated by the episodic death sequences, all the thematic stuff is inherently woven in, and that’s enough. If you instead begin with the insane premise and then proceed to tell an increasingly absurd story in an increasingly confusing way, soon you, like Dean Pelton, are just doing random crap. So, I liked parts of this but it did not approach the heights of Longlegs for me and I remain fairly neutral about Perkins’s filmography so far.

Ju-On: The Curse (2000, Takashi Shimizu) – This is a really low-budget, direct-to-video horror movie that was technically the first instalment of the Japanese horror series The Grudge. I’ve always heard good things about the series so we decided to rent it, only to realise later that there was also a sequel which reuses 30 minutes of footage from the original and was released immediately after it, and that the third in the series, which was the first to be released theatrically, was also basically a higher budget remake of the first movie, and it’s that film which is actually called Ju-On: The Grudge (2003) and is what we were actually wanting to watch. I think. And even The Curse is an expansion of two short films that preceded it, Katasumi and 4444444444. Not to mention the American remake series which began the following year. It’s all very confusing. But there’s something extremely apt in this constant retelling of the same accursed story. I’ll watch the others at some point. In any case I thought this movie was shockingly good. Its super low-grain, digital look makes it a retroactive example of what the kids today are calling ‘analog horror’. There is something so creepy about the way early digital cameras render the world. Very Inland Empire. And speaking of Lynch, the sound design is nothing short of masterful. So few films make full use of sound, but it’s especially powerful in horror. When this was over it was very hard not to experience little auditory hallucinations. The whole aesthetic is perfectly uncanny. And I also loved its disregard for a conventional narrative. There’s just a real palpable hopelessness and confusion to everything, that sense of doom and tragedy. I love it when the supernatural really feels supernatural, and the emphasis is on the resistance to any attempt at human reasoning or explanation. The movie is also really short and really focused. For what it is, I’d call this nearly perfect.

The Love Witch (2016, Anna Biller) – I watched this when it came out but hardly remembered it – this time felt like seeing a new movie. And I very much liked what I saw! Maybe 19 was too young to appreciate the fairly deep and disturbing movie obscured under all the artifice. But what impressive artifice it is, flawlessly recreating its 70s aesthetic in beautiful colour, lighting, costuming, makeup, and cinematography. It’s just an absolute treat for the eyes. The casting is perfect too – I didn’t even know they made people who look like this anymore. The main actor’s performance is so alien. It keeps alternating between hilarious and horrifying. There are some great characters. I feel it’s maybe ever so slightly lacking something on a story level where the characters sort of lose momentum towards the end, but I can’t put my finger on it. Thematically there’s a lot to read into here about sex, power, and madness. A really singular work that I’d strongly recommend. 

Pulse (2001, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) – Sadly disappointed by this. While I was a big fan of the aesthetic – the visuals and the use of sound – that’s sort of all I got out of it. I was baffled by the way the story was told; it seemed wrong somehow. And unfortunately I just couldn’t get on board with the turns the plot was taking towards the end. Still worth a look if you’re big on J-horror, and the whole first third is undeniably very spooky.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970, Jaromil Jireš) – This is fucking mental. I felt at various points that I had actually been transported into someone else’s dream. It’s a Czech fantasy film about a girl whose grandmother turns into a vampire or something, and also her brother is in love with her, and another vampire man wants to marry her or something. Funny, creepy, and trippy in equal measure. A uniquely disorienting experience – the sort of thing I value implicitly. Seek it out if you dare. 

The Apprentice (2024, Ali Abbas) – I wasn’t expecting to like this so much. The filmmaking has a scummy and soulless quality that is intoxicating, like doom scrolling – perfect for the subject matter. I was not born until 1996 so had little experience of pre-presidency Trump. By the end of the movie I felt I understood him much better not only as a person but a whole cultural phenomenon. Somehow it makes him even more repulsive. The acting is fantastic – Jeremy Strong nails it of course, but Sebastian Stan stole the show for me. Rather than another rote imitation, he creates an incredibly distinct cinematic character while being nonetheless uncannily evocative of the real man. I was really really impressed by him. Overall, it’s naturally a very depressing film, but one that earns its inherent historical weight. I’m just glad they were able to make it at all.

Rope (1948, Alfred Hitchcock) – I really ought to do a full Hitchcock run-through sometime. Psycho and Rear Window are two of my favourite movies, but while I remember enjoying North by Northwest and Vertigo when I saw them many years ago, neither much stuck with me. My experience of Rope fell somewhere in between. Despite some admirably pulpy (and, pleasantly surprisingly for the time, queer) performances from the killers, I was finding myself slightly bored for the first few scenes. But as soon as Jimmy Stewart arrived I was totally hooked. Near the climax, I actually declared to my friends “I think this might be my favourite fictional character of all time”. I’ve never seen Stewart go quite as dark as he does here. His character is so thoroughly dripping with smug contempt that you can actually see the mischievous joy beneath it all. The script does a brilliant job of introducing him first by reputation, through the proselytising of his deluded students, so that when he actually does appear in person he manages to be simultaneously more and less slimy than you expected. And he is just so clever. Sometimes all you need is two clever assholes fighting it out. The cat-and-mouse game that develops is genuinely intense and takes some ingenious turns. In a way, I knew the ending probably couldn’t quite live up to that cleverness, but even so, it was a touch too contrived and phony for my liking. Oh yeah, and with regards to the whole one-take thing, it was fantastic for the most part but Lord, some of those ‘hidden’ cuts are ugly. Overall, not a perfect movie, but one I thoroughly enjoyed and am sure to revisit for Jimmy Stewart alone. 

Sinners (2025, Ryan Coogler) – Like many, I had next to no idea what this movie was actually about until I was watching it. And it’s about a hell of a lot! I think in fact it’s maybe about too many things, if one can say that. There is a lot going on, many characters, and many themes, some worn on the sleeve and some more ambiguous. It even has three or four different endings. I think perhaps a rewatch is in order for me to be able to get it all. But the main thing I enjoyed about this film (and I did enjoy it quite a bit) was what an honest-to-goodness movie it is. From top to bottom the whole thing is just brimming with passion and love. You can feel how much everyone involved actually cared. It actually tries to be entertaining, moving, shocking, thought-provoking – it’s even sexy hot at times! The acting is great, the photography is great, and the music is excellent. Nowadays such things are sadly a rarity in big-budget Hollywood. Here I could actually see where the budget had gone. It was so filling; nourishing. I would say the weak point is the screenplay, but even then I really liked a lot of it, particularly the character work. Like Rope, Sinners is not exactly perfect but I’d definitely recommend it to anyone. 

Son of Godzilla (1967, Jun Fukuda) – I may as well pack it in right here because you cannot show me a more enjoyable movie than Son of Godzilla in 2025 or in any year, for the rest of my life, or until time stops. 10 out of 10.

The Craft (1996, Andrew Fleming) – This just proves my point above. It was fine, I liked Fairuza Balk’s performance, and it had some cool moments, but there were zero giant mantises and not even one scene where Godzilla’s son Minilla did anything. Look at him! Why would anyone bother making a film where he was not the main character? At least put him in one scene. He could just be in the background farting around. Even if the witch girls had just been watching Son of Godzilla on TV or something it would have bumped the whole thing up to a 9 out of 10. I don’t know what the actual score would be, I don’t like scoring movies. I like giving movies tens or zeroes but that’s just for laughs. Scores annoy me. 

Persona (1966, Ingmar Bergman) – While this film also lacked any appearances from Godzilla’s son Minilla, we’ll let that slide seeing as it did predate his existence. Also, the movie was actually really good in spite of that obvious flaw. I’m finally back on some Bergman after my last encounter with his work in late 2024 (for reference I am writing this part in May 2025). That was Autumn Sonata, a horrifically depressing two-hander wherein two women (one of them Liv Ullman) sit in a house and go gradually mad together, tearing into each other’s souls, each one revealing themselves a kind of reflection of the other. Persona felt almost like a feverish recollection of Autumn Sonata even though the latter came out many years afterwards. I was completely unprepared for how abstract and surreal Bergman goes here. It is a straight-up art film, and beautifully done. My admiration for his filmmaking has gained an entirely new dimension. There were a great many things here I was unprepared for, actually. It’s violent, intense, and sexual in a way that is uncomfortable even by today’s standards. I can hardly believe it came out when it did. It’s also one of those cases where I’ve seen (and loved) a number of later movies without even realising they were referencing this one. Like most people, I haven’t much of a clue what Persona means but I was very effectively hypnotised and more than a little freaked out. I’m sure I’ll come back to it again and again. 

Slade in Flame (1975, Richard Loncraine) – This was an odd one. Apart from Merry Xmas Everybody, my main experience with Slade is from their amazing portrayal in the works of Vic and Bob, which I have since learned is even less accurate than I always assumed. I watched this with my dad, who actually saw it in the cinema when it came out but said he remembered nothing of it. It was fun as a time capsule, and the story did take an interestingly dark turn towards the end, but overall I didn’t get a whole lot out of it other than a slightly increased appreciation for Slade’s musical range. Tom Conti was good in it. 

Audition (1999, Takashi Miike) – I simply loved this movie. It was extremely well made in every single respect. There was just a style and a mood that made me crazy I liked it so much. And then it was completely and utterly fucked up and I actually got a bit angry at how horrific it becomes towards the end. But of course that was the whole point. A fantastic movie that is nonetheless wholeheartedly diabolical. I cannot in good conscience recommend this to anybody except my fellow depraved aesthetes. If you know, you know. 

Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025, Zach Lipovsky & Adam Stein) – I have no real love for this franchise, having only seen the second and third outings (though I remember the second has a few admirable moments). But I found this movie shockingly well made. The opening at the restaurant is genuinely captivating and tense for the most part. I straight-up loved the whole garden party sequence and the garbage truck scene. It has a lot of skilfully executed examples of playing with expectations and visual trickery that are just very fun to experience. And I did enjoy a few of the characters quite a bit; there’s some good acting here, which lends actual stakes to the preposterous story. Focusing it on a family was a good idea. In general there seemed to be a bit more empathy this time than I remember from the other movies, and I can’t praise that enough. Taking the time to create likable characters makes it far more impactful when they are inevitably crushed by piano or what have you. And the cameo from Tony Todd was so meaningful as to quite literally transcend the film it’s a part of. So yeah, I liked it a lot. The main flaws are the boring main character and the abundance of bad CGI. Why not just build some mannequins and fill them with jelly? It would look so much better. Overall I recommend it if you’re looking for a very silly time that nonetheless had a fair bit of care put into it.

The Birds (1963, Alfred Hitchcock) – Kicking off my recent endeavour to watch one classic movie every day, we have this pretty dumb creature feature about killer birds. To me this felt like Hitchcock slumming it a little. There is not a whole lot of character to anything, and it moves very slowly without much happening. Apparently the director was sort of torturing the main actress as well, and I do wonder if that was partly out of sheer boredom on his part. I will say that once the horror gets going it is mostly executed with all the style and skill you’d expect, and the bleakness of the ending was genuinely disturbing. But overall there isn’t a lot for me to recommend here. I am shocked it hasn’t been remade yet. It may just not be a workable premise, though I’m not quite sure why. I do find that certain birds in real life can often be intimidating and otherworldly, but somehow it didn’t fully translate here. Maybe they just need to make the shoebill stork the main bird. 

Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles) – Famously known as the greatest movie ever made, and y’know, I wish I had something more interesting to say about it. It’s so brimming with confidence and creativity and sheer-in-your face artistry, there’s nothing you can really do but let it have its way with you. It is an extremely rich movie, very dense and expansive, perhaps too much so to properly digest over a single viewing. To clarify, I liked it very much and was really impressed. But at the same time, pretty much all the art I love (and I myself) exist in a totally post-Kane world, making the film a little difficult to appreciate in its own right. The number of Simpsons references alone was distracting. What amazes me most is the unbelievable fact that Orson Welles was just 25 when he simultaneously directed, wrote most of the screenplay, and starred in it, not to mention portraying the character convincingly over many decades. Regardless of where you rank the movie, that is undeniably one of the most impressive achievements in the history of cinema. I cannot even imagine anything similar being done today. And it is a really wonderful performance. All the acting was fantastic, actually. The visuals were sublime, and the music too… eh, you get it. Just watch it if you haven’t already, and be inspired!

His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks) – I loooved this. Cary Grant’s performance is honestly hilarious, probably my favourite I’ve seen all year. Rosalind Russell is equally brilliant. It’s impossible not to like her character. I wasn’t expecting to laugh so much. The dialogue is just perfection – I want to own this script as a book. The plot is twisty and electric in that farcical way I love, yet it also goes to some surprisingly dark places, with real depth to its satire of how the news media operates alongside the police and local government. I wanted to watch it again right after it ended, and plan to show it to others soon. 

The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton) – I saw this a long time ago but didn’t remember it too well. Back then, in my ignorance, I recall thinking that it was kind of clunky and simplistic, and assuming that all movies from this time period were like that. Like nobody ever acted like a real person and it was all kind of unnatural, theatrical and hammy. Today, in my wisdom, I understood just how intentional all that was, how it was actually sort of a throwback to the silent era. It’s going for a very stylised morality tale, leaning really deliberately into this fairy tale feeling. And it’s excellent! The art design is so beautiful, haunting and dreamy. Robert Mitchum makes for such a memorable and interesting villain, clearly serving as an inspiration behind many similar characters in today. And I was so pleasantly surprised by Lillian Gish’s character, Mrs Cooper. It’s strange to have a character appear in the third act, fully formed, and being the exact right person to defeat the villain without it seeming contrived. We spend just enough time getting to know her, and Gish gives her just enough depth (the scene where she comforts Ruby was such a lovely twist) that it all makes sense and feels right. For a movie that’s so fucked up at points, by the end you really feel like you’re finishing a soothing bedtime story. There’s also a funny character named Icey Spoon who runs a diner. Watch it!

The Apartment (1960, Billy Wilder) – One of my dad’s all-time favourite films, and another I’d seen long ago but appreciated little and remembered less. We watched it together this time, and yes, it’s another 10/10. The screenplay is perfect, just perfect! One of the tightest and most effective I’ve ever seen. And the performances more than live up to it. Every single actor knocks it out of the park (special mention to the neighbour’s wife, nearly stealing the show with just one scene). Simply put, this is the movie that every romantic comedy strives to recreate. It’s so heartfelt and human and moving. Shirley MacLaine is impossibly lovable, and what an unconventional leading man Jack Lemmon was. He reminded me often of Kyle MacLachlan as Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks, relentlessly cheerful and likable yet kind of a freak. I also don’t think I’ve ever loathed an antagonist so much. I yelled out loud on several occasions. Overall, it’s a slam dunk, recommendation-wise.

Laura (1944, Otto Preminger) – I saw this atop a list of the best noir movies ever made, and had to check it out. It was much more of a classic murder mystery than I was expecting, a relatively small plot revolving entirely around a handful of characters infatuated with the titular Laura, who at the start of the movie has taken a shotgun blast to the face. That darkness really persists throughout. It’s very Gothic, all lingering desire and repressed sexual obsession. And by God, I have to say Gene Tierney is one of the most beautiful women ever. She was very well cast, difficult to read, so your perception of her keeps changing. It was cool to see Vincent Price too, he was a good character. And I really enjoyed the dialogue. Clifton Webb as the incredibly snooty Waldo Lydecker pretty much dominates the proceedings, and gets some excellent lines: “In my case, self-absorption is completely justified.” And the main detective guy, Dana Andrews, was impressive in his ability to be interesting while having all the expressiveness of Leslie Nielsen in Airplane. His grimness really helped set the tone. When asked if he’s ever been in love: “There was a dame in Washington Heights once got a fox fur outta me.” Having said all that, I sort of felt the movie was missing some heart. I was intellectually intrigued, but with the exception of a couple of genuinely sexy parts and a pretty creepy ending, it never got that real for me. But I liked it. I want to watch more noir.

The Killing (1956, Stanley Kubrick) – I thought this was awesome. It’s a really nasty and tense heist movie featuring many great turns from character actors playing varieties of lowlife. My favourite has to be Kola Kwariani as a surprisingly affable Georgian chess-playing wrestler. Timothy Carey and Elisha Cook, Jr. are also top notch, and Sterling Hayden makes for a great anti-hero. I fully gasped at the ending – it felt pretty audacious, really straddling comedy and tragedy. I recommend this movie if you’re looking for a pretty twisted pulp thriller. It was clearly a big influence on Reservoir Dogs, which I was briefly obsessed with as a teenager – sadly Tarantino mainly makes me cringe now.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More (2024, Wes Anderson) – I watched these shorts in the following order: The Ratcatcher, The Swan, Henry Sugar, Poison. The only one I truly loved was The Swan. Rupert Friend does a great job and the filmmaking is just beautiful. I think the extreme stylisation and particularly the intense use of narration common to all these shorts is best suited to a one-man show like The Swan. But I also found it to be easily the best story. Henry Sugar is a good story too and was my second favourite film. It’s another visual treat, but the performances and particularly the narration just did not do it for me. That’s basically what I’d say for the other two shorts too. It all gets a bit self-indulgent. I was very willing to go along with the experiment, but at a certain point, this rapid, monotonous narration directly to the camera simply isn’t that compelling for the viewer. Still, as a huge fan of Roald Dahl, I’m quite glad this thing exists. The little cameos from Ralph Fiennes portraying the man himself are a treat. There’s certainly a lot of the right spirit on display, even if it doesn’t live up to the transcendent heights of Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox. 

The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed) – Another classic which surpassed my great expectations. A simply brilliant script, very well directed, visually stunning, with pitch perfect performances from literally everyone. The music is certainly unique – I found it a little distracting at first but soon found the wavelength. This movie is just pure cinematic adventure. It reminded me of Indiana Jones, of all things. There’s a refreshing ineptitude to Joseph Cotten’s protagonist which is key to the whole thing; he’s so likable and human. His character arc really sneaks up on you. And the character of Harry Lime is a sheer masterclass in the principle that less is more. I have zero notes at all, it is another big recommendation. 

Eyes Without a Face (1960, Georges Franju) – It’s hard to believe a film about scientists kidnapping people to steal their faces could ever be boring, but here we are. I loved Alida Valli in The Third Man and had no idea she was in this until her character appeared. She is skilful here in her limited role. There are some very creepy sequences, including a surgery scene which genuinely shocked me. Juliette Mayniel gives a good performance. But unfortunately this movie largely bored me senseless. It’s okay. It’s not bad. I think a lot could have been solved by rewriting and perhaps recasting the main part, the scientist played by Pierre Brasseur. His character is terminally uncompelling – he even chases his victims like he’s wandering off to take a nap.

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra) – One of the very best films I’ve ever seen, 10/10. I cried a lot. James Stewart is incredible.

The Phoenician Scheme (2025, Wes Anderson) – This movie kicks off with a shocking moment of violence and tension. It made me think I was in for a darker ride from Anderson this time, but while it has much to do with conflict and death, this film is his most straightforwardly farcical work so far. It’s extremely silly and lacking in the tender character drama which usually grounds his stories, seeming purposefully cold and distant. I struggled with it much more than I was expecting. Ultimately I found the story weak. It’s vitally devoid of stakes, I just couldn’t find a reason to care about any particular aspect, and every time I thought maybe I did, the movie opted to swerve again into silliness or spectacle. To me it undermined whatever depth they were striving for in the themes of family, legacy, etc. Anderson is still an artistic genius, so it practically goes without saying that the music, visuals, and performances are largely gorgeous (Cera’s and Mia Threapleton’s especially). Overall though, I wasn’t a fan. Maybe it’ll grow on me later.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004, Wes Anderson) – In an effort to console myself following the above, I immediately sought out this movie, which I had never seen in full before. I liked it more than Phoenician Scheme, but not a great deal more; in fact I was surprised at how many direct similarities the two films share. This is another very silly, nigh on fantastical story featuring a sprawling cast of characters and a meandering plot, which also focuses on a dysfunctional father figure, who is also a wealthy celebrity past his prime throwing limitless resources into the pursuit of a dubious and selfish quest. It’s an archetype Anderson often draws from, but I actually thought Bill Murray as Zissou was kind of the weak link here. While Murray is great at the aloof self-destructive thing, he lacks both the dazzle and the emotional range of Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums, for example, or even the fantastic Mr Fox. And you really miss it here because Steve Zissou is such a prick! It’s kind of bold in a way, but I’m not sure the movie actually realises just how unsympathetic he comes across. The story of his character is not super compelling and the whole thing ends up a little thin as a result. Still, basically everything else is so damn entertaining that it’s hard not to recommend. The soundtrack and the visuals are sublime and the supporting characters (Willem Dafoe) are largely very fun.

Asteroid City (2023, Wes Anderson) – Now this is more like it! I absolutely loved this film. One of my favourites I’ve seen in a while. I can’t believe it was so divisive among critics and audiences. Okay, I guess I can believe it because it’s metatextual and weird and artsy, even more so than French Dispatch or Grand Budapest. Neurodiversity, weird little communities, and UFOs are also more my bag subject matter-wise, but that may not be so for everyone. (In many ways this really is Anderson’s Twin Peaks!) The reason everything here works so well is because each of the many threads is built around an emotional core; even the wackiest side characters and running jokes get meaningful payoffs. (That moment with the “do you dare me?” kid for example is so unexpected, hilarious, and moving all at once.) Anderson is so good with children. I genuinely loved every performance, but Jason Schwartzman especially is fantastic. I’d have thrown him an Oscar nomination at least. This whole movie just so beautiful and sweet, not to mention funny. There’s a very indulgent musical number that is one of the most purely joyous moments I’ve seen all year. The more surreal aspects are confounding, yes, but I was only ever gripped, never frustrated. I really can’t wait to revisit this.

The Thing From Another World (1951, Christian Nyby) – The film which inspired one of the best movies of all time, John Carpenter’s The Thing. I liked it! Howard Hawks produced, and I was pleasantly surprised at how similar it felt to His Girl Friday at points, with the camaraderie and fast-paced dialogue of the ensemble cast. There’s a lot of great little character moments. Stuff like that is so important to make the scares land, which they largely do. There are some excellent horror/action sequences. It’s schlock, but well made.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992, James Foley) – If you are remotely a fan of people saying ‘fuck’ and calling each other ‘cunts’, you owe it to yourself to get this movie in your brain. I know David Mamet is famous for his dialogue, and this more than satisfied me. But there is also some really great character work from a stacked cast, particularly Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon. It all gets a little hokey at points, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025, Gareth Edwards) – The boat and t-rex sequences were quite scary and well done. And when that one guy gets swallowed alive by Quetzalcoatlus I was shocked and amazed. But yeah overall this is a turd. Some of the lamest attempts at characterisation and humour I’ve seen in recent memory. Possibly worth it in a so-bad-it’s-good way, if ya nasty.

Punch Drunk Love (2002, Paul Thomas Anderson) – What an unusual protagonist we have in Barry Egan, especially for what is ostensibly a rom-com(?). I thought Adam Sandler was very good in the role. All the actors were great, it’s a PTA film. But I don’t really know what to make of this movie overall. It sort of failed to move me in any real way. It’s not that I don’t relate to Barry (on the contrary, sadly) but the actual style of the movie is so artificial I couldn’t really feel any of it. I think what works so well about e.g. The Master (easily my favourite PTA, and one of my favourites ever) is that the performances are so richly, even outrageously emotive that it balances the comparatively mannered, sometimes clinical filmmaking. Whereas Sandler as Barry is so unbearably repressed that there is no release; the whole thing is tense and distant. There is a lot to like here though, and it has a good heart. I imagine I’ll revisit some day.

Lake Mungo (2008, Joel Anderson) – God. This is haunting. It’s been like two weeks and I’m still spooked by this movie. Very subtle, skilfully made, but more than a little depressing. It’s one of those ‘horror’ films that’s really more of a drama or tragedy, so keep that in mind if you check it out.

Premium Rush (2012, David Koepp) – Good old-fashioned fun which is periodically elevated to all-time schlock glory whenever Michael Shannon is on screen. I don’t know why that guy isn’t making MCU money playing Doctor Bong or something, he is fantastically villainous. Oh yeah, I guess he was in Man of Steel and that probably bummed him out too much. I watched this film out of curiosity because David Koepp has written some really good films (Jurassic Park) and some quite bad ones (Jurassic World: Rebirth) so was wondering how he fared as a director. The answer is, eh, it zips along, it’s okay.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984, Hayao Miyazaki) – I’m so grateful for Hayao Miyazaki. Whenever I see one of his films, whether for the first time or not, I am unfailingly struck by the commitment to morality, peace, and empathy underpinning every scene. This is a true anti-war story. Rather than good guys versus bad guys, we witness various confused and conditioned people all struggling for control in a frightening and unconquerable world. It seems there is no solution but war. Of course the truth, embodied by the titular hero, is that only by overcoming the fear of nature and embracing its harmony can peace be found. That the designs and animation are exquisite and awe-inspiring also goes without saying. Watch it!

Superman (2025, James Gunn) – One of my most anticipated new films in a while. I liked it fine. It’s weird as fuck. The cast is uniformly perfect. The visuals are so cartoonish, the camera so busy and so many aspects are so wildly messy that it truly does feel like a comic book come to life. That sort of says it all. I mean I like comic books but I want my movies to be movies. There’s a cheapness to a lot of this, and the generally childish sensibility is only part of what I mean. There is far too much CGI and spectacle, far too little actual reality in front of the camera – e.g. Rachel Brosnahan and David Corenswet have real sexy chemistry, but are given almost no time to show it. The characters are all well realised, but none truly shine because there are way too many. I can’t quite understand where Gunn’s priorities were, and the movie genuinely suffers from some of these choices. On the positive side, I am pleasantly shocked by the bluntness of the politics: this is essentially ‘Superman saves Gaza’. Given that some random punk band at Glastonbury can’t voice disdain for the IDF without the UK government taking it upon themselves to rain media hell down over them, it is actually quite crazy what Gunn/Warner Bros have managed to do. Not to mention the movie’s depiction of tech mogul billionaires, political corruption, and the general optimism it has for immigrants, the press, etc. (“Maybe that’s the real punk rock” is perfect.) But the script is flabby. It is so boring when characters get imprisoned in the middle act of a film and everything has to stop so we can watch them inevitably escape, but it’s outright painful when the entire sequence also looks and feels like something out of Wreck-it Ralph. The most egregious oversight is never actually showing Superman decide to intervene in the war – the decision which the entire plot hinges on – and instead tossing it away in a clumsy text-based introduction. This is basic screenwriting stuff. Still, it’s a lot better than the last iteration, and I can’t say it didn’t leave me smiling.

The End of Evangelion (1997, Hideaki Anno & Kazuya Tsurumaki) – I don’t know where to begin with this. I might have to try to write something longer about the Evangelion series as a whole, as I watched the whole show over the past two weeks (June 2025) and liked it a lot. Suffice to say for now, this film blew my mind. An easy 10 out of 10.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Don Siegel) – Surprisingly thrilling and scary, nightmarish even. It’s really tight with an excellent sense of pace. I correctly guessed that the little prologue and epilogue were forced in by the studio, simply because they are so disposable; the true ending is perfect. Kevin McCarthy knocks it out of the park. The central concept is brilliantly universal, it all felt very much like an extended Twilight Zone episode, a.k.a the best TV show ever made. I definitely recommend this and am looking forward to watching the 70s remake everybody seems to prefer over this one. 

Wings of Desire (1987, Wim Wenders) – Pure magic. I cried on three separate occasions, which I think is a personal record, certainly since The Elephant Man at least. This is an utterly beautiful art film about angels watching over humanity in 1980s Berlin and you should watch it. Gorgeous acting, cinematography, and a very unique take on dialogue and narration. It also confirmed my suspicion that I must purchase an overcoat at once. The film takes a left turn in the final quarter which made me a little sad, but more because the stuff I loved was changing. It’s still a good ending. In fact I actually felt that the movie was intentionally flawed and imperfect, just like the beings who inhabit it; it believes that this is where their beauty lies. This movie is also a must-watch for any fans of Columbo – I’ll say no more. 

A Fistful of Dollars (1964, Sergio Leone) – It’s no Yojimbo, but Clint Eastwood is the coolest guy. Ever notice his name is an anagram of I WANT DI COOLEST? I believe I’ll rest my case. 

Perfect Days (2023, Wim Wenders) – I had the pleasure of seeing this in the cinema (shout out to The Prince Charles) and after just one viewing I can confidently say it’s one of my favourite films of all time. I urge every conscious being alive to experience this film at once. To me it is so, so, so beautiful, and its message nothing less than essential. 10 out of 10. God, this Wim Wenders guy, somebody stop him!

Multiple Maniacs (1970, John Waters) – Hilariously, we also saw this at The Prince Charles right after Perfect Days. It’s practically unwatchable. There were one or two laughs, and the unhinged climax did revive part of my attention, but, yeah… Apparently John Waters was off his face on acid directing this one, and it really shows. Looks like it was fun to be there, at least. 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978, Philip Kaufman) – This felt like a perfect movie from top to bottom, flawlessly executed, and probably the best remake I’ve ever seen. I guess you’ve got The Fly and The Thing, but those are such drastic reinventions, and their extreme gore is an acquired taste; in terms of actually just doing every single thing the original movie did, but much better, this surely takes the cake. And the original was already great! This one is scarily realistic, and overall pretty devastating. I suppose if I had just one note, it would be to remove the jump scare banjo musical sting (if you know, you know). I could have done without that on the soundtrack, it seems to cheapen what is actually a profoundly disturbing moment. In any case this is a heck of a film and I strongly recommend it.

Piranha (1978, Joe Dante) – We watched this straight after Body Snatchers as a completely spontaneous decision, clueless that it also featured Kevin McCarthy, who starred in the original Body Snatchers and has a very memorable cameo in the remake – which hit theatres just a couple months after this total piece of schlock shamelessly capitalising on the success of Jaws in ’75. That coincidence is the most interesting thing I can tell you about Piranha.

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982, Amy Jones) – I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a couple of fun moments in this, and some hot babes to boot. Meh, it does what it says on the tin. 

Desperate Living (1977, John Waters) – After my joyless experience with Multiple Maniacs, I’m pleased to report this is a far better movie. It is also nonetheless an utter fever dream. There’s something I truly love about the performing style here; every actor speaks in ALL CAPS at all times and it’s really fun. Mink Stole and Edith Massey are gems. The plot is complete nonsense, very much just a string of gags which drastically vary in quality; some I liked, some fell flat, and quite a few were horrifically disgusting. I’m pretty sure that was the point, but I can’t really say it kept my interest enough to recommend it.

Dirty Work (1998, Bob Saget) – This movie sucked! Norm Macdonald lied to me!

Love and Mercy (2014, Bill Pohlad) – I love Brian Wilson. I did not love this movie, but do think it’s worth watching for fans of his. It’s unexpectedly disturbing (I had no idea some of the shit that man went through) and in my opinion would have actually benefitted from leaning further into the surreal and psychological horror elements. The score was awesome when it was there, and Paul Dano is fantastic as usual; John Cusack was very good too, but his performance is marred by the kind of ick I always get when watching actors portray a disability. I think there are ways to depict something like what Brian Wilson had via the filmmaking itself more than relying so much on the performance. Weirdly, that’s exactly what this movie does with the Paul Dano/60s sequences, and it works superbly. I get that they were trying to show Wilson’s deterioration over time, but I would have preferred they maintained that style between the two eras. To that point, he should have been the point of view character in the 80s scenes too, rather than Elizabeth Banks’s Melinda. Banks is a real weak link in general. I don’t know if it’s the acting or the writing or what, but her character and performance is just so flat and did not sell me on the emotion of the story whatsoever. It makes the 80s scenes feel so lifeless next to the 60s ones. There is also no excuse for some of the wigs in this movie. So you know, a mixed bag. But its heart is in the right place.

Popcorn (1991, Alan Ormsby) – We loooved this! It’s like one long, R-rated episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark. This movie knows exactly what it is and plays out with gleeful abandon. Great characters and some great performances, particularly the villain. Big recommendation if you’re looking for some fun.

I’m Not There (2007, Todd Haynes) – I have great respect for the creativity and effort behind this experiment, wherein different aspects of Bob Dylan’s life and career are portrayed via a collage of parallel actors, characters, and stories. Sadly I enjoyed it far less than I wanted to. This felt like a serious case of the sum total being weaker than its parts. About half the movie made me cringe in the exact same way any bog standard music biopic/jukebox musical does, basically serving up a lame imitation meant to celebrate the beloved original (a uniquely self-defeating viewing experience). The other half is really well made and compelling, but the constant cutting back and forth between everything leaves too little to get your teeth into. There are excellent performances from Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, and Richard Gere (plus two equally chameleonic turns from Bruce Greenwood) which are worth seeing. And again, I can’t overstate how much I love the idea of the film. But by the halfway point, I was simply checked out. 

Aftersun (2022, Charlotte Hall) – Deliberately sparse in characterisation and storytelling, this is more of a vibe than anything. I imagine your tolerance for and experience with art films will dictate how effective you find this. The two central performances are good, the cinematography is good, and I liked aspects of the writing. But the overall lack of specificity to any of it kept me at a bit of an emotional distance. The daughter especially seemed a fairly generic character without a strong perspective or personality, which is odd considering we’re supposed to be seeing through her eyes. Similarly, I found there to be a detrimental lack of proper ‘scenes’ which, while adding to the realism, came off a little boring to me. The ending leans more stylised and was my favourite part, but for a film about memory, I wish that style had been more constant from the beginning. It’s an interesting comparison with Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, which for me better succeeds at many of the same things this movie is going for. Still, I do admire the passion and honesty that clearly went into this, and I see why many people would connect with it.

Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953, Jacques Tati) – This is worth your time just to meet Monsieur Hulot himself, such a lovable character and so well performed by Tati. He’s a lot better than Mr Bean. At nearly two hours it did run a touch too long to me, considering its plotless structure, but it’s impossible to really dislike.

The Zone of Interest (2023, Jonathan Glazer) – Glazer’s last movie, Under the Skin, made a great impact on me in 2013 and has since held a comfortable spot among my all-time favourites. After a full ten years of being pretty jazzed to see what (if anything) he would do next, I confess I was strangely disappointed to learn about this film’s subject matter, and took a while to actually find the desire to sit down and watch it. The problem as I see it is that historical narratives and biopics share a kind of conceptual issue: since real life is not structured like a story, some amount of contrivance is always necessary, and thus the movie has to tow the line between respecting the true events on the one hand, and justifying itself as an artistic depiction on the other. There is an added question of why the given topic needed to be turned into a film at all when we have documentaries, history books, and museums (apart from the fact that it will make someone a ton of money, which is the actual reason why any film exists 99% of the time). In other words, the artistic value is judged in terms of what new insight it can afford to our historical understanding, its perceived accuracy to real life, or even simply its educational merit; what does it teach us about its subject? Conversely, period pieces and historical fiction tend to make for much better movies because this aspect is flipped around – the history is ultimately in service of the art, just a backdrop for the story. This is all extremely true of The Zone of Interest‘s subject. Movies which attempt to tell fictional stories in the context of the Holocaust tend to run very serious risk of ending up among the most notorious failures in cinema precisely because of this tonal problem. I never doubted that Glazer is a brilliant filmmaker, but that guarantees nothing. So part of my disinterest in this film was a simple lack of curiosity, a sense that both the movie itself and my reaction to it were a foregone conclusion. How ‘good’ could it really be? What does a ‘good’ Holocaust film even do? Having finally watched it, I still don’t know. They clearly tried to avoid the usual pitfalls by eschewing anything more than the barebones of a plot, taking a kind of fly-on-the-wall (‘vibes-based’?) approach of passive, clinical observation. You feel almost ghostly watching these scenes. It’s eerie and revolting and very skilfully executed. And the emphasis on the callous mundanity of life on the literal border of Auschwitz is a pretty unique angle with clear contemporary relevance. But I remain confused about the ultimate purpose of movies like this and would argue that the film itself is also palpably self-conscious about its place in the world. It is so restrained that it almost begins to fade away in the shadow of its own subject. The sequence showing the Auschwitz museum tips the scales fully towards documentary, and then the film just sort of ends. This seems to be presented as a horrific vision of the future had by the main Nazi man, who otherwise acts totally loyal to the cause, and these kinds of glimpses into the characters’ psychologies were the most fascinating aspects of the film for me (especially the parts with the grandmother). But all we get are tiny hints; I wish there had been more. I sort of wish there had been more of everything, that the movie had been either even longer and bigger in scope, or even more specific and narrowed its focus in interrogating the minutiae of its human subjects. Instead, the deep sense of reticence to go too far with anything left me mainly cold and empty. Maybe that was the whole point, but if so, I’m just not sure how useful that experience is considering the breadth of other media on this inherently overwhelming topic. If I was going to recommend a Holocaust movie, I guess I could see it being this one, but, well, see above.

Weapons (2025, Zach Cregger) – I admired the storytelling in Zach Cregger’s Barbarian but hated its actual story, particularly the handling of the monster lady character. Happily, Weapons improves upon its predecessor better in every single way. This one was so fun in the cinema. I will not forget that ending any time soon. The whole thing felt like reading the best book Stephen King never wrote, which is high praise from me. We get so many crappy King adaptations every year, why can’t Zach Cregger make a good one? He’d be perfect! I must be one of the only people excited for him to do Resident Evil next, because I’ve just recently played through most of those games and totally see how that material fits Cregger’s style too.

The American Friend (1977, Wim Wenders) – Wim Wenders + Patricia Highsmith + Dennis Hopper seemed like such an easy pathway to my heart. Not to mention Bruno Ganz (who I loved so much in Wings of Desire) looking his most adorable. But I think I’ll need to watch this movie again sometime because I found it weirdly boring. Some aspects were certainly cool; I don’t think Wenders could make a ‘normal’ film if he tried, and I am so in love with his perspective that seeing him tackle the crime thriller genre is entertaining in itself. But plot-wise it drags, and the characters were too hazy for me to really feel much for.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover (1989, Peter Greenaway) – This is a 10 out of 10. I’ve never seen anything like it before and would recommend it to anyone. Apart from all the amazing costumes, acting, music, visuals, and dialogue, more than anything this struck me as such a beautiful representation of life in the underclass, labouring beneath tyrannical rulers. It’s not for the faint of heart, being a sort of operatic erotic horror with some very dark comedy, but you need to see it if you haven’t before. Certainly one of the most memorable viewing experiences I’ve had this year.

Dawn of the Dead (1978, George A. Romero) – This disappointed me a bit. I respect the hell out of the creativity that went into making it, and all the satire and general cynicism is really on-point. So much of this film’s DNA remains absolutely integral to every piece of zombie-related media that followed it; its influence can’t be overstated. I can only imagine what it was like to see it upon release. But alas, despite good performances, I just did not care one iota about any of these characters, and at two hours the movie really dragged for me.

Secretary (2002, Steven Shainberg) – One of the best-acted and best-written films I’ve seen in ages. A romantic comedy about two complete freaks which is as nuanced and challenging as it sweet and hilarious. I don’t know why this isn’t more beloved today. For what it is, I thought it was completely perfect.

Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz) – As smooth and rich as butter. I cried. It really is as good as people say.

Hard Truths (2024, Mike Leigh) – One of my favourite films is Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, which tells the largely plotless story of a relentlessly cheerful woman going about her life, and disproving all the cynics surrounding her by virtue of her simple existence. I am convinced that Hard Truths is a deliberate spiritual sequel to that film, its Jungian shadow if you will, because it’s basically the same thing, only this woman is a relentlessly angry neurotic whose personality is a constant burden to herself and everyone around her. It’s an exploration of the kind of utter misery which is so common in real life but rarely depicted in drama, precisely because it is so mundane and meaningless. All in all, a devastating watch with acting guaranteed to drop your jaw. As the title implies, it’s a hard movie to recommend, but its pain feels important to acknowledge, like having a really big cry.

The Naked Gun (2025, Akiva Schaffer) – A stupid good time. Didn’t need to be a sequel.

Freddy vs. Jason (2003, Ronny Yu) – I was pleasantly surprised by some of the characters and acting in this, particularly from this one guy called Brendan Fletcher. Brendan Fletcher, if you’re reading this, you did a great job in Freddy vs. Jason.

Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero) – For some reason I always assumed I’d prefer Dawn of the Dead to this, but that was very wrong. This film is absolutely perfect! It’s so tight and full of urgency. The characters are great, the acting is just right, and the visuals are killer. It plays its satire much closer to the chest, but the comedy is there, woven seamlessly into the inherent madness of the situation. It’s thrilling, and that ending is an absolute kick in the balls, a stroke of evil storytelling genius. Another 10 out of 10 from me.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986, Tobe Hooper) – Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh???

Zombie Town (2023, Peter Lepeniotis) – A big fat goose egg.

Rankings:

Please shame me, for I failed to read enough new fiction this year to bother with a proper book ranking. However, I did watch seventy-six new movies. Picking the top ten is hard. You can see above that I actually declared eight films to be 10 out of 10s right off the bat, meaning I thought they were perfect for what they were (including two which earned it purely for being absolutely ridiculous). But these weren’t all necessarily my enduring favourites of the year. So this list is just in order of my most memorable and meaningful viewing experiences, the ones which have stuck with me the most, rather than any sense of objective merit.

1. Perfect Days (2023, Wim Wenders) 
2. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra) 
3. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover (1989, Peter Greenaway) 
4. His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks) 
5. The Apartment (1960, Billy Wilder) 
6. Secretary (2002, Steven Shainberg) 
7. Asteroid City (2023, Wes Anderson) 
8. Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero) 
9. The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed) 
10. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978, Philip Kaufman)

And to make up for the lack of a book list, here are the five worst films I saw, and this ranking is NOT subjective.

1. Heretic (2024, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods)
2. Zombie Town (2023, Peter Lepeniotis)
3. Alien: Romulus (2024, Fede Álvarez)
4. Multiple Maniacs (1970, John Waters) 
5. Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025, Gareth Edwards)

To my dedicated readers, I offer my deepest gratitude, and the hope that 2026 give us all yet more to be thankful for.

Lots of love,

g. neale