What I Watched This Week #159 (Jan 13-19) The Incredibles dir. Brad Bird/2004/1h55m Pixar's take on the superhero film stars Craig T. Nelson as Bob Parr, formerly known as Mr. Incredible before superheroes were outlawed due to the massive damage they cause. Now a middle aged insurance adjuster, he lives with his wife Helen (Holly Hunter), fka Elastigirl, and their children. But he soon gets a mysterious invitation to pull his tights back on and he can't refuse. This isn't just one of the best superhero films ever made but also a quite emotionally heavy film about mid-life crises, marriage issues and the responsibilities of having a family. Nelson and Hunter have fantastic chemistry together, and there are some solid supporting turns from Samuel L. Jackson and Jason Lee, who plays the antagonist of the piece, Syndrome. While Lee gives a good performance I do think that the villain is the weakest aspect of this film. The retro-futuristic aesthetic looks fantastic, and the bold, brassy and bombastic score matches it perfectly. 9/10 O.C.D. (Obsessor Coercio Deus) dir. Luca Pizzoleo/2025/12m This comedy short stars Raz Fritz as Owen, a man trying to shop at a grocery store while on the phone with his girlfriend (Ariel Martin) planning an exposure therapy dinner date to try to cure his OCD. But it is his OCD that will end up averting the apocalypse. Throughout all of this he is antagonised by a fellow shopper played by Steven Ogg, who you will instantly recognise as Trevor from GTAV. A real fun and inventive little film, this really nails that feeling that if you don't observe all of the peculiar little rituals you have the world will actually end. Fritz is a solid lead, really nailing the escalating panic of his situation. However, it is Ogg who steals the show, just as he did in GTAV. He's basically playing the same type of character here, just a little less psychopathic and cannibalistic. He's just so good at delivering this type of violently aggressive yet unnervingly funny dialogue. 8/10 Romeo Must Die dir. Andrzej Bartkowiak/2000/1h55m Loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, this action thriller stars Jet Li and Aaliyah as Han Sing and Trish O'Day, two eventually star-crossed lovers who are on opposite sides of a gang war, each vying for control of Oakland's dockyards. Working together, they uncover a conspiracy that has been playing both sides for fools. Jet Li is an incredible martial artist and his talents in that regard are wasted for the most part here, with only a handful of fight scenes in a two hour film. He's not a bad actor, and he has charisma, but you really want to be seeing him kicking *ss for a much higher percentage of the runtime than you get here. Aaliyah is sweet as Trish who is outside of her families criminal activities, but I never felt any spark between her and Li. Delroy Lindo is, as usual, excellent as Isaak O'Day, her father. I always love seeing him pop up in films and he's a real threatening presence here as a crime lord. Cut out about twenty minutes and add some more fight scenes and you'd have a much better film. 6/10 Raffles dir. Sam Wood/1939/1h12m David Niven stars in the lead role of A.J. Raffles, first class cricket player and gentleman thief, in this light and breezy crime comedy. After reconnecting with an old flame, Gwen (Olivia de Havilland), he spends the weekend at her parents manor where a diamond necklace proves too tempting, especially when his friend is in need of some quick cash. But as well as her parents, also in attendance is Scotland Yard detective MacKenzie (Dudley Digges). The majority of the film plays out in the manor house with lots of running in and out of rooms, miscommunications and close calls, classic farce. Despite the short length this does become somewhat tiresome, with the whole thing being carried by Niven, whose trademark charm and raffish wit are on full display here. He just glides through this film effortlessly. de Havilland is good but she really has nothing to do here despite being a big star at the time, appearing in Gone With the Wind the same year. Fun but forgettable 6/10 The Straight Story dir. David Lynch/1999/1h52m David Lynch, my favourite filmmaker of all time, died on the 16th of January at 78. In his honour I watched one of only two feature length films of his I've yet to see, The Straight Story. Based on true events it tells the story of Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), a man in his 70s who drives a ride-on lawnmower over 300 hundred miles to visit his estranged brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton) who has recently had a stroke. This is unconventional for Lynch in that it's so conventional yet is still unmistakeably one of his works. It's there in the camera movements, the slow dissolves between shots and the awkward and stilted humour. There are moments when he teases a movement towards something stranger and darker, but he never does, this is a film about light. The shots of Alvin slowly making his way through the countryside are beautifully lit with gorgeous golden sunlight that is full of life yet bittersweet as it's also the sun going down for Alvin, Lyle, Lynch and all of us. These moments are given time for Alvin to think about his life, his regrets, and for us to contemplate these things too. Farnsworth is amazing in the lead which was his last performance, one he gave while dying of cancer. A beautiful film that is the perfect way to send off one of the great artists of our time. The sky sure is full of stars tonight. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Big Boss dir. Lo Wei/1971/1h39m The Big Boss is a martial arts action film, the one that made Bruce Lee a worldwide star just a couple of years before his death. He plays Cheng Chiu On, a man who moves to Thailand with his cousins where they all get work at an ice factory. When factory workers start going missing he uncovers a heroin smuggling ring and he vows to take down the titular Big Boss (Han Ying-Chieh), breaking a promise to his mother never to fight again. This is a promise he takes seriously as it's nearly forty five minutes before he starts throwing fists, and it's worth the wait when he does. The fight scenes are the main attraction here and it's always incredible to see Lee at work. The plot is fairly simplistic, with most characters being rather one dimensional and is obviously a vehicle to showcase Lee's talents, but that's not that much of a negative considering how mesmerising he is whenever he's on screen. 7/10 Eastern Promises dir. David Cronenberg/2007/1h34m This London set crime thriller stars Naomi Watts as Anna, a nurse who delivers the baby of a brutally beaten and r*ped teenage girl who dies in childbirth. Finding her diary, which is written in Russian, she sets out to find out what happened to her, making her cross paths with a “driver” for the Russian mob, Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). This makes something of a double bill with the earlier Cronenberg/Mortensen film A History of Violence, with some facets inverted. I won't say any more as it would be very spoilery, but it is interesting. There's not really much of Cronenberg's trademark body horror here, but there are some shockingly violent scenes that feel right at home. Mortensen is brilliant in the lead, seemingly solidly stoic but with a lot more happening under the surface. Watts is also good, and I liked the surprise appearance of Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski – watch his film EO which follows the life of a donkey, it's incredible – as her Russian uncle. A lot of the smaller roles feel quite stereotypical and cliched, but the propulsive pace of the film makes that less of an issue. 8/10 Caught in the Rain dir. Charlie Chaplin/1914/11m This very early Chaplin – only his second film as director – sees the little tr*mp hit on a married woman in the park before following her and her husband to their hotel where he causes his usual havoc. This is very simplistic compared to his later shorts with most of the gags in isolation and not leading one into the other in a series of escalating events. Chaplin's performance is good, with his character feeling pretty fully formed even this early in his career. He also has a good handle on the fairly new medium of film with one moment standing out in that regard. He's drunkenly staggering around in the lobby before we cut away to an unrelated shot. When we cut back he's now arguing with the receptionist while wearing a ladie's hat. It's totally left up to our imagination how he got that hat and it's a joke you can only make on film. Using editing to get laughs is something that I doubt really happened before Chaplin, and that's why he's considered an all time comedic genius. Apart from that, this is fairly standard fare for the time. 6/10

Alexander warren Hernandez

Galactic War update. Day 339-345

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

David Lynch, my favourite filmmaker of all time, died yesterday aged 78. Not only did he make some of the best films I've ever seen - Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive - but was also, by all accounts, a wonderful person who was just as strange as his films. I think this video sums him up perfectly and, if you've never seen any of his work, will make you want to check them out (I'd start with The Elephant Man).