Books:

Wuthering Heights (1847, Emily Brontë) – After seeing the controversy over the upcoming film adaptation, I recently realised I knew nothing about this book that Kate Bush didn’t teach me. In my ignorance, for some reason the name Brontë always held associations of boring, dated, upper class romance – not my cuppa tea. But this book is amazing! It’s incredibly rich in its storytelling, with so much psychological depth as to afford endless different readings into the characters’ relationships, and what (if anything) it all means in the end. Through several generations of the two main families, we observe the interplay between personal choice and the impositions wrought by society and heredity on each character’s ultimate fate, given just enough space to draw our own conclusions. And happily, the tone is anything but stuffy and posh. More than anything it reminded me at times of a John Waters movie, with the depraved misanthropy dialled up to the point of near absurdity. Yet the unreliable narration and moral uncertainty keeps your sympathy alive and constantly shifting, belying the heart beneath the cynicism. After so much relentless misery, that the story concludes on a glimmer of optimism truly moved me. It’s a melodrama of the best variety. I now totally understand the prejudice towards the new film, because it bears no clear resemblance to its source, and will probably be many people’s first encounter with the story. I’m sure it’ll make for an interesting hatewatch later this year, though, an activity which feels strangely in line with the spirit of this book.

Homer’s Odyssey (translation 1961, Robert Fitzgerald) – The fact I’m able to read anything first conceived well over 2,500 years ago is astonishing and humbling. The scale of human civilization really boggles my mind. As an actual book, I found this a surprisingly addictive experience and got through it quite fast, reading one whole chapter at a time to fully digest each episode. It felt like stepping into another world, very dreamy and fantastical, with the pace of an HBO show. After briefly surveying the dozen or so most popular English translations, I selected Fitzgerald’s because it seemed the most poetic, with a style properly evocative of the oral tradition which bore this text. This thing is absolutely gorgeously written. It makes me wish the epic poem was still a popular format, because it really does feel distinct from a novel, with strengths all its own. The aura of mystery around the entire story is endlessly fascinating to me too, like how little we know about Homer, and the myriad possible meanings and symbolism within the story’s events and characters, upon which we can only speculate. I immediately procured Fitzgerald’s Iliad after finishing this, and will get through that as soon as I can. On the somewhat boring-looking upcoming Christopher Nolan adaptation, I do sympathise with the critiques (especially after finding Oppenheimer unbearably dry). But I remain cautiously optimistic because the idea of combining the Odyssey with Batman does basically sounds like crack to me.

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991, Stephen King) – After loving The Gunslinger but not much caring for The Drawing of the Three at all, I hoped that by the end of this third volume, I’d know for sure whether or not I truly care about finishing this series. There are still four books left to go, and they only seem to get larger and larger. But instead, I think I’ve just lost the ability to critically evaluate a text altogether. My more scrutinising side remains sadly disappointed with the relative lack of complex characters, and character development, which King usually excels at, seemingly eschewed here in favour of ever-more-insane setpieces. Here are just a few of the things which happen in this book: 

• The heroes fight an enormous feral bear who turns out to be a cyborg
• An evil house comes alive, growing arms and a face, and tries to eat a little boy
• A woman has sex with an invisible succubus to distract it from killing her husband
• A schizophrenic, living train gasses a whole city to death
• A talking raccoon resolves a hostage situation 

It’s all extremely imaginative and cinematic – not to mention addictive – but I can’t help but notice we’re not getting a lot of actual story. The constant maximalism almost comes off like a distraction from some of the more obviously undercooked fundamentals (the whole character of Susannah, for example, remains generally baffling). Technically I suppose I’m still only about a third into the overarching narrative though, so we’ll see. I’m still not inclined to bet against King, and it’s all moot anyway since I’ve already begun reading the fourth one, which according to the internet is widely regarded as the best of the bunch. I guess I’m in it for the long haul. 

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997, Stephen King) –

Films:

Abigail (2024, Matt Bettinelli-Opin & Tyler Gillet) – This severely failed to keep my interest. It’s hard to understand how a script this low-effort even makes it to the big screen. Definitely avoid. The girl from the Matilda musical is very talented though! 

The Graduate (1967, Mike Nichols) – So entertaining, so interesting, so provocative, this is just an obvious classic slice of Hollywood fried gold, and I’ll leave it at that.

Licorice Pizza (2021, Paul Thomas Anderson) – I really enjoyed this film. It’s certainly an unusual one and I understand why it’s been pretty divisive, but I just found it so refreshing and surprising. For one thing, I really appreciated how normal-looking the cast is. Many of the narrative choices the movie makes are confusing, self-indulgent even, with an almost recklessly casual tone that hardly seems interested in telling a coherent story at all; it is very much doing its own thing. But I think that very same carefree spirit is the entire meaning of the film. It all felt dreamily lifelike to me. It’s not really trying to convince you of anything – like its characters, it sort of stands for nothing, other than the celebration of its own charm and enthusiasm and peculiarities. I also laughed more than I have at any PTA film. It goes without saying for this filmmaker, but the acting, visuals, and sound are all outstanding. You just do not see movies being made like this much at all anymore, which is a damn shame, but it lets the passion and mastery that went into this thing stand out even more. PTA’s unpredictability is so impressive; it’s hard to believe this same guy made There Will Be Blood. I am consciously putting off watching his latest film, because I tend to find that his work either hits me just right or leaves me totally cold, and for reasons I can’t explain, I suspect that One Battle After Another is gonna fall into the latter category. But I plan to find out later this year, anyway. 

My Cousin Vinny (1992, Jonathan Lynn) – Joe Pesci is so fucking good in this film. If you’ve never seen it before, I urge you to – it’s on Disney+ in the UK. I’d go as far as to say it’s probably a 10 out of 10 for what it is, though I admit I did find it ever so slightly slow to get going at the beginning. But the entire next two thirds is just perfect. I especially admired how it does the whole fish-out-of-water thing without really painting either side as the bad guys; they’re both just more confused by each other than anything. An impossible movie to dislike. 

Red Eye (2005, Wes Craven) – My hopes for this were not particularly high, and I mainly watched it because it’s freely available on BBC iPlayer and only 71 minutes long(!). Nonetheless, I found it both dumber and more boring than I wanted it to be. Still not bad exactly, but almost totally forgettable. Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams are both looking extremely good here though, so it’s got that going for it. Also, look at how Jayma Mays runs in this one scene:

I especially liked this moment because there’s not even any reason for her to enter the room. She tells the guys inside the room that everyone in the room is in danger, then she runs straight into the room, despite clearly having nowhere to go. Movie’s like a 4/10.

Wind River (2017, Taylor Sheridan) – This is very well made, but I can’t say I enjoyed it. I found it quite horrific. I didn’t really know anything about the subject matter going in and was expecting more action-adventure fun, so maybe that’s my fault. It’s grim and brutal and ever so slightly generic. I don’t know. If you’re looking for a very serious and depressing straightforward crime thriller, here you are.

Road House (1989, Rowdy Herrington) – This did not disappoint; it’s everything I expected it to be and more. Probably the most masculine work of cinema ever produced. Yet (perhaps fittingly) it’s somehow a little stupider than I wanted. I think the mistake it makes is taking itself too seriously in the second half, and consequently running a bit too long. But the first hour is a complete blast, a pure slapstick cartoon with gore and swears and a really cool blind guitar player.

Phantom Thread (2017, Paul Thomas Anderson) – So begins my attempt to finish all the films on my MUBI watchlist before my 30-day free trial subscription runs out. I started with Phantom Thread because I tried to watch it online when it first came out, having been such a huge fan of its predecessor The Master (which remains by far my favourite PTA joint); as I recall, I found it so boring then that I quit after about 20 minutes, a rare thing for me. This time I did finish it, and certainly found a lot more to appreciate, while still sympathising with my own previous failure to care. I’ll start with the good: like most of PTA’s work, the acting in this film is simply on another level. It’s both overtly theatrical and absolutely convincing, the characters so completely realised and the world so fully lived-in that you just get hypnotised. The filmmaking is so in-your-face you can never forget it’s a movie, yet at the same time you feel practically as if you’re in the room, sharing the space with these characters. Here the sound design alone is doing so much to produce a constant sense of uncomfortable intimacy – in fact, if there’s any two-word phrase to sum up this whole thing, it’s ‘uncomfortable intimacy’. It’s a tactile, sensual, and almost oppressively rich experience. Which brings me to the bad, or at least, the unsatisfying: I really struggled to see the point of this story. Watching it, I often marveled at my own bafflement as to how and why anyone could conceived a film so simultaneously specific and opaque. A few times I thought it ought to be considered one of those ‘cryptid’ movies like INLAND EMPIRE or House, films you don’t watch so much as survive, let them have their way with you, like a passing storm. But where those examples achieve that feeling via impenetrable excess, this is a comparatively restrained and mannered presentation, unbearably so at times, just like the characters who inhabit it. It’s almost utterly lacking in likability, humanity even, yet often fascinating for that very reason. Hopelessly empty and sad, yet with a distinct kind of absurdist humour to it all. I suppose it’s all about the romance at the centre, which has some interesting comparisons with the relationship in Licorice Pizza, a film that hides its own subtle darkness in a much more palatable package. Overall, this is a remarkably strange watch which seems at least partly intended as a canvas onto which the viewer should project their own interpretations. I get the sense I’ll rewatch this one day and have an altogether different experience of it. You can’t be caught in the same storm twice, after all.

The Fall (2006, Tarsem Singh) – I loved this. More than anything it struck me as an incredibly kind film, exuding such a strong sense of warmth and humanity even as it takes the characters to some unexpected emotional depths. And yes I welled up several times. It reminded me a bit of It’s A Wonderful Life in terms of this balance of despair and joy, and shares that movie’s themes of how adulthood can break your spirit, and the quest for redemption after hitting rock bottom. Alexandria is a truly inspired protagonist, and Catinca Untaru gave one of my favourite child performances I’ve ever seen. She really carries the movie since we see so much through her eyes; the whole thing conveys both the cosiness and unease inherent to childhood perfectly. And I don’t even know what to say about the fantasy sequences – they have to be seen to be believed. Overall, it’s not that every single moment landed for me, but the movie as a package is just so creative and ambitious that even its flaws felt beautiful to me. I guess that’s true love!

The Mastermind (2025, Kelly Reichardt) – I was close to growing an extra thumb while this was on just so I could give it three thumbs down. It is shockingly slight. I don’t actually know how it got made, like how anyone involved actually mustered the enthusiasm to work on this for multiple months of their lives. I’m not afraid of subtlety or slowness by any means but my days, this is like the thinnest slice of plain white bread you could ever imagine. I was forgetting it even as I watched it.

Paris Is Burning (1990, Jennie Livingston) – A precious snapshot into a very particular time and place. As someone who’s watched a lot of RuPaul’s Drag Race over the years (and witnessed it slowly devolve into an ouroboric shell of its former self) this documentary was a sobering experience. Like peering behind the curtain into the revolutionary real life origins of a subculture which has become so thoroughly commercialised today. As a movie it’s really likable and engaging, disarming in its intimate style, and at turns equal parts lovely and devastating.

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976, Clint Eastwood) – My dad loves Clint Eastwood and often goes on about this, so we put this on in a rare moment of father-son quality time. It’s pretty dated in some of its more cliche aspects, but I can’t deny Clint is great in this role. If nothing else he’s just got one of the best faces of all time. There are a bunch of quirky side characters, some clever twists, and a bounty of excellent dialogue. Good stuff all round, but not great. 

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010, Apichatpong Weerasethakul) – This is another item from my Mubi list which I’m sure I would never have gotten around to otherwise; it’s certain to go down as one of the most unique watches of my year, and possibly my whole lifetime. It’s a deeply contemplative fantasy drama about… something. There’s a guy, Uncle Boonmee, and a ghost, and a talking catfish, and astral projection, and sasquatches, and while it is all telling a more-or-less coherent story, the presentation is uncompromisingly abstract. Definitely not for everyone, but I found it to be a gorgeous film with a positively hypnotising atmosphere and an awful lot on its mind. The final few seconds alone are doing so much; to be honest, they’re still haunting me.

Marty Supreme (2025, Josh Safdie) – I loved it! Exhilarating, funny, and immensely satisfying. Highly recommended.