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

Just got the Platinum trophy for Fallout 4, and it was my 50th Plat overall.

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

T-shirt in Abu Dhabi. Got my daughter one as well, so proud of her winning a 🥉(BJJ)

We played Ally's Issianapolis 500 at Two Bros. and were discussing how to force players to take the jump(s). I hopped into the creator and may have found the solution. Place any large flat prop down for the "elevated" checkpoints. It can be multiple or just a massive one. Place a primary and secondary checkpoint on the elevated prop(s). This will allow players to choose any ramp and still activate the checkpoint. Make sure your elevated checkpoints are the correct size, type, and placement. They won't be editable after the next step. Don't delete, just edit the placement of the elevated prop(s). Place it off to the side, far from any checkpoints. You can now delete the prop(s), and the elevated checkpoints will remain. Rockstar's added a "display" ability for checkpoints in the creator, but it's inaccurate. It shows as a ball shape, but is only a dome. The bottom half will not register the checkpoint. In testing, being even a pixel below where the checkpoint was placed will make it not register. No pressure to update Ally. We already enjoy it. Just wanted to share the idea for this or any race. I'll try to tag all the interested players here. @omarcomin71 @Skorpion @Crawford1872

Deadpool & Wolverine Drove to Tallahassee to celebrate our daughters 22nd Birthday and we went to see our favorite Marvel characters join forces. Great movie with humor, crazy action and lots of blood. The things missing from most any other superhero movie and what makes the antihero so great. Was not afraid to completely skewer all things MCU and inject some much needed life into the MCU at the same time. Worth watching for the cameos alone and especially a certain day walker that we all miss. 5 stars. Hopefully Disney is watching closely after this nearly half a billion dollar opening weekend and learning what they need to do to get their MCU back on track after a string of disappointments. Saw a trailer for the upcoming US take (that's something they haven't done in awhile, lol) on Speak No Evil. Bought a shudder subscription so we can watch the real one before seeing this one.

@Con may like this one. 😆

Hi Guys,Vishesh here. I'm 32 and from Calcutta,India. I was part of XDBX back in the day.I'm looking to rejoin the crew and have fun with GTAO. Would like to know how active the crew is nowadays. I'm free most days as I don't have a job/business and can play at any time as long as I'm not sleeping. Looking forward to the vetting process. Cheers!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023) dir Radu Jude From the director of Bad Luck Banging or Loon p*rn, another satire set in Bucharest, Romania. It's of a similar style; no unsimulated s*x in this one, but lots of sexually explicit language. It stars Ilinca Manolache as an overworked film production company PA, Angela. It's shot in a very unique way in 2 main parts. It's quite long, 2 hours 43 mins due to how the first part is presented. It all takes place in one day, starting with Angela getting up very early in the morning and finishing at night. The first part. Angela is auditioning people for health & safety film the company has been commissioned to make by the foreign owners of some Romanian factories. The client wants the film to feature someone who was badly injured telling the viewers how important it is to always wear the proper safety clothing (even though that clearly was not the reason they got injured). We follow Angela as she conducts four auditions and fits in other things she has to do that day. In between each audition or other activity there are sequences where we just watch Angela drive her car around Bucharest as if we were in the passenger seat looking at her. She gets lots of sexist abuse from various other drivers, because she's blonde and attractive. These two bits are shot in black and white. Also cut into this first section are two other types of scene, in colour. One of these follows a female taxi driver, also called Angela, in early the 1980s. The other is the modern-day film-PA Angela recording videos she later posts on Instagram using a filter that turns her face into that of man. In this alter-ego she gives out the sort of abuse she gets from some drivers but goes a lot, lot further, recounting various apparent s*xual conquests, one of which included a threes*me with King Charles III of Britain. If anyone is offended by swearing and sexually explicit language, you would not want to watch these bits. But they are very funny. The 1980s taxi-driving scenes are very cleverly done; according to the credits they took bits of an actual 1980s film and then added in more they shot for this film in authentic vehicles and locations, but you would not know which were which as they blend together seamlessly. We also get a sort of interlude about a road with a very high rate of fatal accidents – this could be a short film on it's own. The second part. Then comes the final scene, the shooting of the actual health & safety film. This scene, maybe almost an hour long (not 100% sure) was clearly shot in one take with the camera in the same fixed position all the time. The injured former employee and his family, also featured in the film, have to endure multiple re-takes of what should just be a few minutes of film as the director and the client keep making changes, moving things that were in the background, changing the dialogue etc etc. Again this very funny but not in a laugh-out-loud way, just the ridiculous nature of what is going on. It's not going to be for everyone, but I think this is truly brilliant film. 10 / 10

Really enjoyed The Penguin on Max

What I Watched This Week #149 (Nov 4-10) And Then There Were None dir. Rene Clair/1945/1h38m Adapted from the Agatha Christie novel – the world's best selling mystery book, which has a rather unfortunate original title that you'll have to Google for yourself – this tells the story of ten strangers invited to an island off the English coast by an unknown host. There they discover that they are all responsible for somebody's death, and soon they start dropping off one by one. This setup sounds clichéd now but you can't make that argument here as this story invented that cliché. What I like here is how playful and light the direction is, giving the film a macabre sense of humour. This is also true of the performances, particularly those of Barry Fitzgerald as Judge Quinncannon and Walter Huston as Dr. Armstrong. The mystery itself is a good one and had me guessing up to the reveal. I don't think this is as good as the Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple films of the 60s, or the Peter Ustinov's Poirot films from the 70s, but if you're a fan of a good murder mystery then you will enjoy this. 7.5/10 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon dir. Ang Lee/2000/2h This fantasy martial arts film stars Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-fat as two master warriors, Yu Shu Lien and Li Mu Bai, who must work together to track down a powerful sword that was stolen by a young thief, Jen (Zhang Ziyi), who is also the daughter of a nobleman. This is a gorgeous looking film full of vibrant colours that is famous for its spectacular wire work that sees the characters float and fly through the air. This makes for some unique fight sequences where they hop along rooftops or duel high up in a bamboo forest. The two leads are both great, especially in the scenes they share where they have to deal with their repressed feelings for each other. I did feel like there were some pacing issues early on, and the story becomes slightly convoluted just for the sake of creating more drama, but it does tie up quite nicely at the end where Jen is able to find some freedom and an identity of her own that isn't defined by anyone else, that is if you take it symbolically. 8/10 A Quiet Place dir. John Krasinski/2018/1h31m Emily Blunt and John Krasinski (who also directs) are the parents of three young children living in a world populated by blind creatures that hunt by sound, forcing them to live silently. Adding a ticking clock to proceedings is the fact that Blunt's character is pregnant. This film has a brilliantly tense atmosphere that is sustained through the entire runtime with a couple of standout set pieces that had me on the edge of my seat. I'm not a huge fan of the design of the creatures and I feel like we see them too much but the always feel like a threat. Blunt and Krasinski both do a good job and have a natural chemistry which is to be expected as they are married in real life, but the real star of the film is Millicent Simmonds as their daughter Regan who is deaf (as is Simmonds). This feeds nicely into the film as it allows them to communicate by sign language, something very useful in a world like this, and also has other ramifications later on. 8/10 Heroes Shed No Tears dir. John Woo/1986/1h33m Heroes Shed No Tears is John Woo's first proper action film and he cements his reputation for b*lls to the wall mayhem and org*es of explosions right out of the gate – although I didn't see any doves. Eddy Ko Hung stars as Chan Chung, leader of a group of Chinese mercenaries hired by the Thai government to kidnap a druglord. That's the easy part, getting out alive is the hard part, especially with an insane General (Bruce Jang Il-Sik) hunting them down. This film is relentless with hardly a few minutes passing before a shoot out or something blows up, with those gaps filled with an entertainingly dramatic narrative that veers into melodrama as Chung's wife and young son are caught up in the action. It does feel somewhat disjointed at times, with one particularly long gambling scene there just for comedic relief. Not as polished as his later works, that rough and ready vibe gives it charm, and a supporting cast of likeable characters make this a fun watch. 8/10 Firebrand dir. Karim Ainouz/2023/2h Firebrand is a historical drama about Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander), the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII (Jude Law). Anyone paying attention in history class will recall the method for remembering the fates of his wives – divorced beheaded died, divorced beheaded survived – so we know she doesn't meet a bloody end, so the film does an excellent job of building the tension and sense of threat in their relationship. At this point Henry is getting sicker and sicker from an infected wound in his leg and his increasing paranoia makes him a volatile character. Law does a brilliant job here, managing to go from a pathetic, weak figure to an imposing monster, often in the same scene. This may be the best performance he's ever given. Vikander is equally impressive. Her Parr is a powerful woman – she was made regent while Henry was abroad fighting – but aware that her life is always on the line. An excellent supporting cast including Eddie Marsan as Edward Seymour and Simon Russell Beale as the scheming Bishop Gardiner, and vivid period costumes and production design round out an enthralling film. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Respect dir. Benoit Forgeard/2011/14m This short film is about a man, Steph (Thibault Sauvaige) having an argument with his partner over breakfast, only that his partner is Flippy, an anthropomorphic bear mascot for a breakfast cereal. Flippy is a controlling *sshole who is physically and verbally abusive to Steph, who wants to leave to go to ninja school. There's a sense of absurdity and playfulness here that is let down by the blandness of the production. Everything about it feels flat, the direction, lighting and performances, with none of it matching the tone of the story. But there is something about the concept that piqued my interest enough to check out another of the director's films. 5/10 f*ck UK dir. Benoit Forgeard/2012/13m Another absurd short from Benoit Forgeard, f*ck UK follows the exploits of Michel (Gaspard Proust), leader of a fringe group that hates the UK and wants to wipe every trace of anything British from France. But it turns out that this is all because he's in love with an English woman, Jane (Julia Vandoorne), who he is angry at - “I am French, you are strange. I will never come to your country of sh*t”. The direction is much better here than in Respect with a nice use of montage, and this film is actually funny with some laugh out loud moments. More of a sketch than a film this also benefits from a solid performance from Proust as the surly and childishly petulant Brit hater. 7/10 10 Rillington Place dir. Richard Fleischer/1971/1h46m Based on a true story, 10 Rillington Place stars Richard Attenborough as John Christie, a softly spoken middle aged man who rents out flats at the titular address in which he also lives in late 40s London. He also happens to be a serial killer. When he rents out a flat to simple, trusting Timothy Evans (John Hurt) and his wife Beryl (Judy Geeson) he finds another target, and someone to take the blame. This is a thriller that is chilling in its restraint, building up the tension masterfully. This is all down to the performance from Attenborough who manages to channel the menace he showed in Brighton Rock as an angry young man and suppress it all internally as an older man who now knows how to focus his rage. A young Hurt is also good, giving a very sympathetic performance as an innocent man in way over his head and accused of a crime he didn't commit, though he does come across as a bit too naïve at times. The film also has a epilogue that isn't really needed. Sure, it's nice to know that Christie eventually went on to face justice, but there's a much better ending place, narratively speaking, a few minutes earlier. 8.5/10 Austin Powers in Goldmember dir. Jay Roach/2002/1h34m Mike Myers is back for the final time as the swinging 60s superspy, again battling Dr. Evil (also Myers), who this time has teamed up with 70s disco kingpin Goldmember (also also Myers) to hold the world hostage. Powers is assisted by former girlfriend Foxxy Cleopatra (Beyoncé) and his father Nigel Powers (Michael Caine). Also returning are Dr. Evil's henchmen Mini Me (Verne Troyer) and Fat b*stard (also also also Myers). Opening with a spoof of a spoof that sees Tom Cruise play Powers in a Mission Impossible rip off directed by Steven Spielberg, this is a film that knows what it is and will make any stupid joke to get a laugh, with most of them landing. The plot is basically pointless, with it being just a vehicle for Myers to play around and it's as much fun to watch as it must have been to make. Caine is hilarious as the elder Powers getting good use of his under utilised talent for comedy and Goldmember might be my favourite one dimensional character in any comedy. I also love that the ending of this comedy spoof of a Bond film was later used as an actual plot point for the actual Bond film Spectre. Not as good as the original, I'd say that this and the second film are about equal and are still a lot of fun to watch. 7/10

I agree @djw180 The Fall of the House of Usher is worth a watch for Mark Hamill’s performance alone. Plus, I’ve been on the fence about watching Kaos. I will definitely give it a go now. Thanks!

What I Watched This Week #146 (Oct 14-20) Deadpool & Wolverine dir. Shawn Levy/2024/2h8m Ryan Reynolds returns for the third time (well fourth, but no one talks about that first attempt) as the merc with the mouth, the first entry to be part of the MCU after Disney's acquisition of Fox. He must traverse the multiverse (yawn) in order to find a new Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) after the death of Wolverine Prime in the excellent Logan. Deadpool is perhaps the most predictable character in the MCU and you get exactly what you expect here – constant snarky quips, s*xual innuendo and gratuitous violence. It feels like it was written by a fourteen year old boy who needs more parental guidance. Reynolds is good as this character and he's clearly invested in it beyond getting a big pay cheque but he actually feels less developed than he did in the first film. The thing that the fans are getting excited about are the cameos, which I won't spoil here, but to me they're less about the characters and more about saying goodbye to the Fox universe of Marvel films – one of my favourite things is a sweet little montage over the end credits – which is a detriment to the actual story being told. Far and away the best thing about this film is Jackman's performance. I still think he should have let Logan be his last Wolverine film but he really gives it his all here and acts Reynolds off the screen in a couple of genuinely emotional scenes. 6.5/10 Terrifier dir. Damien Leone/2016/1h25m Terrifier is a slasher film starring David Howard Thornton as Art the Clown, a mute commedia dell'arte style black and white clown who brutally butchers a bunch of people while terrorising a couple of young women on Halloween night. This is straight up gorenography with zero effort put into story and characterisation (with the exception of Art) and everything invested in the admittedly excellent practical effects which were done by the director himself. Seriously, if you're even the slightest bit squeamish then give this one a miss. What salvages this from being a totally forgettable slasher is the character of Art and Thornton's performance which is both scary and at times pretty funny, I mean, he is a clown after all. There's one moment late on where he's trying to grab one of the girls through a door but he can't quite reach and in frustration he thrusts his arm through but instead of a weapon he's brandishing a little clown horn which he squeaks menacingly at her. I actually laughed out loud at that part. He also has really expressive facial expressions and physicality that elevates his performance. I wouldn't be surprised if Thornton has actual experience as a clown or mime. Outside of Art and the gore there is nothing that makes this film stand out from all of the other bland slasher films out there, which is a shame because I really do like that funny little guy. 5/10 Nothing Like a Dame dir. Roger Michell/2018/1h20m Nothing Like a Dame is a documentary that records a conversation between four lifelong friends and some of the greatest acting talents Britain has ever produced, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Joan Plowright and Dame Eileen Atkins (hence the title). Spending time with these ladies is an absolute delight and their real friendship shines through in how open and comfortable they are with each other. Their conversation spans their careers, their relationships – particularly Plowright's marriage to Sir Laurence Olivier, who Smith didn't especially get on with – and growing old, though Dench's first reply to talking about that is hilarious, “oh f*ck off Roger”. There is a bitter sweetness to the film when they talk about growing older even if it is with humour “I think we have about three good eyes between us”, and since this was shot Dame Maggie Smith has passed on, but that just makes their enduring friendship even more beautiful. A funny, charming and cosy film. 9/10 Encanto dir. Byron Howard, Jared Bush/2021/1h42m The 60th animated feature film from Disney is all about the Madrigal family who lives in a magical house in the hills of Colombia, with each member of the family having their own unique magical ability, all except Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz). When the house's magic starts to fade and the family start to lose their powers it's up to Mirabel to save the day. I found this to be a step up from Raya and the Last Dragon with the humour fitting the story more and a return to having the characters sing the songs. The songs are written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and they are really good but none of them really stands out above the others. This is a gorgeously animated film with a great use of colour, and I really like the way the house is alive and has a character of its own. The story didn't really grab me and I found that the conflict was resolved a little too easily at the end but this is still an entertaining and well made film with an engaging lead performance from Beatriz. 7/10 Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me dir. Jay Roach/1999/1h35m Mike Myers returns as the titular swinging superspy, this time having to travel back to the 60s after arch nemesis Dr. Evil (also Myers) steals his mojo with the aid of new henchmen Mini Me (Verne Troyer) and Fat b*stard (also also Myers). He is aided by his American counterpart Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham). Like the first this is a loving, and totally ridiculous, spoof of the Bond series that never makes the mistake of taking itself too seriously. Where this film goes off the tracks somewhat is in its use of gross-out humour through the character of Fat b*stard. I find that it goes a bit too far for the type of film it is and it doesn't really mesh with the tone of the rest of the film. I also don't think that Graham gives a very good performance and doesn't have half the chemistry that Myers and Elizabeth Hurley did in the first film. The real star of this film is Troyer who is hilarious and gives a masterclass in physical comedy. Even his small reactions when other people are talking are funny. Next time you watch this keep your eyes on him even when he's just in the background, you won't be disappointed. 7/10 The Producers dir. Mel Brooks/1967/1h28m The first film from Mel Brooks, The Producers stars Zero Mostel as sleazy Broadway producer Max Bialystock who, with the assistance of timid accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), realises that you could make more money with a flop than a hit, as long as you don't mind a little creative accounting. They set about looking for the worst play they can find and think they hit gold when they discover Springtime for Hitler, surely nothing could go right, right? In my opinion this is Brooks' best and funniest film with two stellar performances from Mostel and Wilder. Mostel is such a force of nature here he almost bursts out of the screen and slaps you around the face. This is juxtaposed perfectly with Wilder's sadly sympathetic loser who finally finds that spark of life. The two are surrounded by a whole supporting cast of memorable characters who all leave an impression even if they're only in one scene. Kenneth Mars as Franz Liebkind, the author of the play, and Christopher Hewitt as the director Roger De Bris are some of my favourites. And then there's the play itself. If you've never seen this then just know that the musical opening to Springtime for Hitler is one of the most hilariously bad taste bits of satire ever committed to film - “we're marching to a faster pace, look out here comes the master race”, “don't be stupid be a smarty, come and join the n*zi party” - and is also a genuinely well written piece of musical theatre. One of my favourite films of all time. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week!

The Awakening (2011) dir Nick Murphy A mild horror / ghost story / thriller set in 1920s England. Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) is a relativity famous author and ghost hunter, but not what you might think. She does not believe in ghosts. She specialises in exposing false claims of hauntings and fake mediums scamming money from people grieving for sons and husbands killed in the First World War. She is asked by teacher Robert Mallory (Dominic West) to investigate claims of a ghost at the boys school he works at. The school's matron (Imelda Staunton) is a big fan of hers and the one who suggested she be employed to help put the pupils' minds at ease by showing there is no ghost. It's an interesting story with a twist in the plot and Florence's lack of belief in the supernatural is severely tested. It's not very scary nor gruesome, not that type of horror at all, and I don't think it was meant to be. It's does build up to it's scarier bits quite well and they did surprise me (as they are meant to), they just were not that scary. I quite liked the attention to detail in Florence's “ghost hunting” equipment, designed to catch people pretending to be ghosts. It all looked very authentic for that time; trip wires linked to bells and cameras also set to ignite packets of flash powder to illuminate photographs, devices with brass arrows swinging in the direction of changes in temperature etc etc. The cast is good and fortunately, for me, all but one of the school kids leave for their holidays early on, so no annoying child actors. Most of the film it is just the three characters already mentioned plus Tom, the only child who stays at school for the holidays, and a strange, suspicious handy man. The twist in the plot is good when it comes, in that it was unexpected but seemed plausible. 7 / 10

What I Watched This Week #145 (Oct 7-13) Bubba Ho-tep dir. Bruce Coscarelli/2002/1h32m The best chin in Hollywood Bruce Campbell stars as an elderly Elvis Presley wasting away in an East Texas retirement home in this horror comedy. When an ancient Egyptian mummy starts s*cking out the souls of his fellow residents Elvis and his best friend JFK (Ossie Davis) decide to do something about it. While the premise sounds ridiculous, this film is actually a nuanced and considered rumination on growing old. Whether or not these guys are really Elvis and JFK or a couple of crazy old coots isn't important at all because the themes are universal, the need to have a purpose, a reason to get out of bed in the morning, is something we can all relate to. The low budget is very obvious , especially a clearly plastic beetle that looks like something you'd buy in a cheap toy shop, but the director gets good use out of it, with the design of the mummy quite well done. What really carries this film are the two lead performances from Campbell and Davis which are both full of both dignity and pathos, particularly Campbell who really delivers in the emotional scenes. 8/10 The Boy and the Heron dir. Hayao Miyazaki/2023/2h4m The latest film from Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki is set during WWII and follows teenage boy Mahito (Soma Santoki) who relocates to the country from Tokyo with his father after his mother is killed in a bombing raid. While there he is stalked by a talking Gray Heron (Masaki Suda) who leads him into a magical otherworld that only he can save. Being a Studio Ghibli film it goes without saying that it is stunningly gorgeous in both the background art and the character design. The horror and devastation of the war is very evocative, bringing to mind the earlier Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies (amazing film, incredibly depressing), but I found that the story became overly convoluted once the Heron is introduced. The score from long-time Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi is excellent and I really enjoyed the performance of Suda as the Heron, malicious at first before being forced to work with Mahito. Not on the level of Miyazaki's greatest films – My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle – this is still a beautiful and heartfelt work of art. 8.5/10 The Da Vinci Code dir. Ron Howard/2006/2h29m When there is a murder in the Louvre – the corpse covered in mysterious symbols – symbology expert Robert Langdon (Ton Hanks) is called in and uncovers an ancient conspiracy concerning the bloodline of Jesus Christ. This is a load of old sh*te. Hanks gives the worst performance I've seen him give as he spouts nonsensical dialogue whilst wearing one of the worst hairpieces in film history. A supporting cast of really good actors – Audrey Tatou, Paul Bettany, Ian McKellen – can't help save this tripe. Alfred Molina plays a character called Bishop Aringarosa, which is Italian for red herring, that's the level we're working at here. There's also a car chase early on that is edited so badly that it gave me a headache. This must have been a tax write-off. 2/10 Queen Rock Montreal dir. Saul Swimmer/1982/1h35m This concert film, recorded in late 1981, sees Queen at the height of their powers doing exactly what the title says. You know they're not messing around when they open with the one two combo of We Will Rock You and Let Me Entertain You, a mission statement if ever there was one. The stage show is simple, but they get great use out of their lighting rig and some smoke. I loved the bit during Get Down, Make Love where it turned into a 50s sci-fi film. Of course the star of the show is Freddie Mercury, strutting around in a Superman vest like he is the man of steel, but every member gets a chance to shine. Brian May even gets more costume changes than Freddie does! This is one of the greatest concert films I've seen up there with Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace and Talking Heads Stop Making Sense. An hour and a half of the best rock you'll ever hear and the recent IMAX restoration makes it look as good as it sounds. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Menilmontant dir. Dimitri Kirsanoff/1926/38m This experimental silent film tells the story of two sisters who move to the city from the country after their parents are brutally killed by an axe murderer in a shockingly brutal opening scene. The story here is told totally visually as the film doesn't use any intertitles telling us what people are saying or giving exposition. This results in some brilliant editing, especially when the sisters arrive in the big city for the first time and we get to experience their shock and awe, overwhelmed by noise and movement from every side. The story is kept simple, one sister works hard one likes to party, but it's all in the telling. The two lead actors, Nadia Sibirskaia and Yolande Beaulieu, give very expressive performances with some wonderfully lit close ups showcasing them. 7/10 The Bond dir. Charlie Chaplin/1918/9m This short film is a piece of wartime propaganda encouraging US citizens to buy Liberty Bonds and help the war effort. We see several sketches highlighting different bonds – friendship, marriage etc – before the most important bond, Liberty Bonds. He then beats up The Kaiser (Syd Chaplin, Charlie's older brother). This isn't an entertaining film but rather an interesting historical document. It's very minimalist in design, all shot on a bare black stage, maybe because they want to keep the focus on the message. Chaplin would have a bigger impact during WWII with the release of The Great Dictator which you should all watch. This, you can take it or leave it. 5/10

It's What's Inside (2024) dir Greg Jardin A low-budget, very mild horror / fantasy (not sci-fi, no science in this) / mystery drama. 8 mid-20s friends from college, 4 male, 4 female, get together for a party. I won't bother naming the actors; I didn't recognise any of them and all 8 are pretty much equally in the main roles. The party is hosted by brothers Reuben and Denis at the country house, somewhere in the USA, left to them by their wealthy artist-mother, full of her weird art-works. Last to arrive is Forbes, who some have not seen since college. We learn he got expelled following a party where his high-school sister got drunk, did some crazy stuff and ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Forbes now runs a gaming company. But it's not video games or board games. These are very strange types of game where the players basically plug their minds into a machine. He gives them a very quick “game” to start with, to demonstrate what it does. We don't see exactly what the characters experience during this, but it's clear they have some sort of hallucinations. After that all, eventually, agree to a longer game, where they experience even stranger things. I can't say more on that without major spoilers, just that we start to learn more about things that went on at college, something goes very wrong and the police end up involved. If it had just been this sort of thing I might have given it a higher score, but then they add on a bit at the end with a number of plot twists that just seemed unnecessary to me. I did find it confusing at times, again can't say exactly why without spoilers, and the plot twists at the end were confusing too. It tended to have the feel of something more like a high-school story about relationships; e.g. A wanted to date B, but B was more into C, so A ended up with D, and now D has found out, etc etc. The music was good, a mix of original (I think) and some Beethoven. Acting was nothing special, but it didn't require anything special. Some of the camera work and editing was fairly original, split screen with sometimes different filters on each part of the screen. I also quite liked one line about one of them who is a social-media influencer, I cannot remember the exact quote, but it was something like “No you do not work, you just take selfies and post them on Instagram. That's not a job!” 5 / 10

Lola (2022) dir Andrew Legge In the early 1940s, English sisters Thomasina (Emma Appleton) and Martha (Stefani Martini) invent a machine they name Lola, after their late mother. Lola can play bits of TV and Radio from the future. So with Britain at war, they begin to use Lola to find out where the next bombing raid is going to hit and send out anonymous warnings. The government naturally want to find out where these warnings are coming from and a Lt. Holloway (Rory Fleck Byrne) tracks them down. Army intelligence now takes over, but Thom and Mart (as they call each other) are allowed to carry on operating Lola, from their home, with Holloway assisting them and, at first, dealing with any confidential information that helps verify Lola's predictions. I won't much say more, unlike the brief description Film-4 gave that spoiled the main plot element. It's probably needless to say that some strange things might happen when you start messing with time and events start to deviate from what we know actually took place in WWII. It's cleverly made, mixing 1940s news-reel footage with the modern day actors, and cutting bits of different speeches made by historical figures together to have them seeming to be talking about the alternative history that emerges. (That in itself is an interesting lesson in how fake news can easily be created). It's all shot in the style of a 1940's film made on a small hand held camera, as you can see from the trailer. The way it's set up is that in 2021 someone discovers a reel of film 1940s and this is what we are watching. It's a film Mart put together from bits footage she, Thom and Lt Holloway had made. So it is intentionally quite low quality. Early on this was starting to get annoying and I was hoping it would switch to a modern-day wide-screen film. But it didn't, and I did get used to it. So it worked in the end. The acting is fine, but nothing special was really required. The plot is a bit implausible at times. I can't believe that army intelligence would have let Mart and Thom continue working on Lola from their own home, they would have taken it to somewhere very top secret. Also they would not have allowed the sisters to make the decisions about where military resources get deployed based on what they find with Lola, as happens in the film. But it's a low budget film, they clearly wanted to keep a lot of it in one set (the sister's house) and limit the number of other actors required. Overall an interesting story, made in a unusual way, and at only 1 hr 20mins worth a watch. 7 / 10

What I Watched This Week #143 (Sep 23-29) Calvary dir. John Michael McDonagh/2014/1h42m Brendon Gleeson stars as Father James Lavelle, a priest who is told during confession that he will be murdered in one week by an unseen person who was abused by a priest when he was a child. He will be killed because murdering a good, innocent priest will cause more outrage than killing a r*pist. We then follow him over the following week as he prepares for death. This is a very dark comedy that treats very serious subjects in an offhand manner that is quite disarming and cynical, but also at times very funny. I think it's interesting that a film about s*xual abuse in the Catholic church has a priest as the only good character in a town full of *ssholes. It does get tiresome just how obnoxiously bleak everyone's outlook is, but some fine performances from the likes of Aidan Gillen and Dylan Moran stop it from getting too grating. Gleeson really carries the film with his thoughtful, nuanced performance. 7/10 Ring dir. Hideo Nakata/1998/1h36m This influential Japanese horror film stars Nanako Matsushima as journalist Reiko Asakawa, investigating an urban legend about a videotape that sees anyone who watches it die one week later. This simple premise is utilised excellently to craft a genuinely creepy story with twists coming right to the final scene. The actual footage on the videotape is also very well done with it feeling like something you shouldn't be watching. Outside of the cursed tape the direction and style of the film is quite flat and simple and not as atmospheric as I remember from last watching it as a teenager, but that normalcy makes the supernatural elements more effective. Matsushima is a good lead, especially after her child's life is put in danger and she becomes more and more frantic in trying to solve the mystery. The structure of the film, split into the seven days Reiko has to save her life, builds up the tension nice and slowly. 8.5/10 The New Janitor dir. Charlie Chaplin/1914/12m An early Chaplin short made while he was still under his first film contract with the legendary Keystone company sees him in guise as the little tr*mp who has found employment as the janitor of a bank. There, he becomes smitten with the secretary (Peggy Page) and stops one of the managers from robbing the place to pay off his gambling debts. While not yet fully formed all of the pieces of what made him a genius are here, maybe excepting his sweetly sentimental humanism – something that all came together in perfect harmony for the first time in The Kid from 1921. This is a very typical film full of slapstick and charm that will put a smile on your face. Compared to other films of the time this is top tier stuff, but knowing what Chaplin is capable of it falls a bit flat. 6/10 Billy Connolly: Big Banana Feet dir. Murray Grigor/1977/1h17m This documentary follows comedian Billy Connolly at the end of his 1975 tour, which culminated in him playing shows in Dublin, Ireland followed by Belfast in the north of Ireland which was a very dangerous place at that time. Shot in a purely observational, fly-on-the-wall style, the film makes you feel like you are part of the tour and the lack of interviews or even any acknowledgement of the camera at all makes it feel raw and real. Connolly is a wonderful subject and here his natural wit and charm shine through even in the most mundane moments. It never feels like he's putting on an act. I've always been a huge fan of his, but was never really familiar with this early part of his career where he was still more of a folk musician who told jokes between songs, and I have to say that I loved it. His whole stage presence and way of telling a story is so engaging that I could've watched another couple of hours of this. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Born of Fire dir. Jamil Dehlavi/1987/1h24m This surreal art-house horror film follows an astronomer (Suzan Crowley) and a classical musician (Peter Firth) drawn to each other through strange visions of the Earth burning and something about his father and he has a flute battle for the future of humanity with a strange naked god who can shoot fire from his eyes and plays the flute like a demon. This is a weird one with an elusive plot but incredible atmosphere and imagery, with some gorgeous locations in Turkey being used to full effect. The performances are pretty flat but that kind of adds to the ethereal otherworldliness of the piece. The music is great and works really well with the psychedelic, surreal mood. I'm still not sure what the scene where a woman gives birth to a giant moth means though. 7/10 Three Pixar Shorts: Geri's Game dir. Jan Pinkava/1997/4m For the Birds dir. Ralph Eggleston/2000/3m Boundin' dir. Bud Luckey/2003/5m These three Pixar shorts were all made after the release of Toy Story and their main focus became feature length films, but they all still show an evolution of the artform and the way it is used to tell stories and convey emotion. Geri's Game is about an old man having a game of chess against himself and shows the progress they were making in the animation of human characters and facial expressions. Although it looks dated now this was a huge leap at the time in making human CGI characters feel real and alive. For the Birds is about a goofy, gangly bird trying to fit in with a group of smaller birds and to me is Pixar experimenting with feather and fur textures, which would culminate with the release of Monsters Inc the following year. Boundin' is a musical short about a sheep who makes friends with a jackalope and to me is the weakest of the three. I just wasn't a fan of the character design, but the narration, by director Luckey, is well done. What has made Pixar so successful over the years is all evident in these short films, no matter how impressive the technical achievements are the focus is always on telling a story, no matter how simple it is. I'll give these a combined rating of 7/10

The Abyss - Avgrunden (2023) – dir Richard Holm Not the 1989 James Cameron deep-sea film, but a more recent Swedish disaster movie. A mining town in northern Sweden is at risk of sinking into a massive cave inadvertently opened up by the mine. The main character is Frigga (Tuva Novotny) the mine's head of security. I think her title may be mistranslation by Netflix's subtitle writers as her job seems more Head of Safety than Security to me. But anyway, she monitors the relatively mild, but frequent, earth tremors that the mining triggers and it is her job to make the call on if / when particular operations should be halted. Some parts of the town are already being relocated to a safer nearby site as there are cracks in the ground starting to appear. Some areas are fenced off, but, of course, the local high school kids go into those areas anyway. Shortly after the film begins it all starts to get worse, much worse. Novotny is good in the lead role and the support includes Peter Frantzen, probably most well known as King Harald Finehair in Vikings. It's not like a big Holywood disaster movie. There's much less of the special effects and more about the acting and plot. But the special effects it does have are impressive. They make massive cracks appear in the road and have cars slowly sinking into the ground. There's some good, scary underground scenes too and early on this is probably not a film for anyone who is claustrophobic. Rather than the usual one big disaster with a ever diminishing group of survivors eventually escaping, it's more a series of mini-disasters that Frigga and her colleagues / family have to deal with. 8 / 10

Watcher (2022) dir Chloe Okuno American Julia (Maika Monroe) moves to Bucharest with her Romanian-American husband for him to take up a promotion. She is only just starting to learn the language, has no job or friends of her own there at first, and her husband often has to work late, so she is quite lonely. She notices a figure in an apartment opposite theirs frequently watching her from behind a net curtain and a man, she assumes the same person, follows her to the cinema and shops. When she sees on the news there is a serial killer targeting young women on the loose with the latest victim nearby, she fears that is who is stalking her. It's a thriller that I guess you could just about class as horror and there are a couple of slightly gory scenes later on. But it's mainly about building up the tension, Julia hearing noises from a neighbours apartment, the police not taking her complaints of being stalked seriously, her being left on her own too often etc. Until almost the end you are left unsure if the man she thinks is stalking her is really doing so, if so is he also the killer, is it all just paranoia or perhaps even it is her stalking him? It's very good and well acted by the leads with Burn Gorman, who I am sure I have seen in another film or TV series, playing the “Watcher”. He does a very good job of portraying someone who comes across exactly as you would expect the stalker / killer to but also could just be an innocent social miss-fit easily mistaken for a criminal. It has some very nice cinematography, particularly some scenes on the underground trains at night. I also like the way that none of the Romanian dialogue has subtitles, so, unless you speak that language, you don't understand, just like Julia does not. There are some similarities to other films, I suspect intentional, an obvious one is Rear Window, but there's others too that I can't really say more on without spoilers. 8 / 10

Stick your barrel through the Glory Hole and prepare to be blown away. Grenade Launcher TDM modeled after Skorpion-AH's classic LTS, Glory Holes. [RSC Link] The idea came from players lamenting their sometimes very short lives in Skorp's original. Rockstar added the ability to create spawn points locked to a specific team, making this type of deathmatch possible. Teams spawn in separate towers, facing each other, with Grenade Launcher pickups in each room. Players cannot travel between levels of their towers, you're stuck on the level you spawn. Unfortunately, it's possible players to be blown up shortly after respawning. I tried several designs to limit the chance, but it's still possible. Sorry, Joe. Feedback very welcome.

What I Watched This Week #134 (July 22-28) The Son of Kong dir. Ernest B. Schoedsack/1933/1h10m Released less than a year after the original film, Son of Kong could have been a cheap cash in but surprisingly isn't just a carbon copy of King Kong and has some quite interesting ideas. Set a few weeks after the events of the original, quick talking filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) is in hiding and broke from being sued by everyone in New York. He and Captain Englehorn (Frank Reicher), also persona non grata for his part in bringing over the giant ape, head back to Skull Island searching for treasure, but instead find the smaller, but still very large, Son of Kong. The film doesn't get to the island until the last half hour, but I didn't find the first part dragging too much. This is because I found the characterisation of Denham to be quite well developed from the original. Here he actually feels remorse for what he did to Kong, and his interactions with its son is in stark contrast to his actions in the original film, saving it from quicksand and making friends with it. The whole tone of the film is very different from the original, which was a straight forward monster movie. There's somewhat of a conservationist message here with Denham realising maybe just leave wild animals where they are, and there are more comedic moments, even some involving the son of Kong. The special effects are really good for their time, and still look good today in my opinion. 7/10 L'Atalante dir. Jean Vigo/1934/1h29m This highly influential film tells the story of newlyweds Juliette (Dita Parlo), a small-town girl yearning for freedom, and Jean (Michel Simon), a barge captain. I was expecting this to be more romantic than it is, but it's really not and is more about being together out of not wanting to be alone. They don't make a very good couple, their natures seeming to be in opposition to each other, but neither can imagine a future without each other. Maybe that just seemed more romantic in the 1930's. Jean Daste adds some comic relief in the form of Jean's first mate, a drunken, selfish lout who ends up being the voice of reason. I can see why this was so influential to the directors of the French New Wave in the 60's as it's beautifully shot with an eye for social realism but with a poetic flair, a not quite magical realism, like Miracle in Milan without the miracle. Parlo gives a decent performance as a conflicted woman pulled between two desires but I thought Simon was a bit flat and the two have no chemistry together. There are scenes when I could believe them as a couple, and I did like the ending and Jean's moment of realisation but it still feels like we've missed out on a lot of their relationship. 7/10 La Chimera dir. Alice Rohrwacher/2023/2h11m Josh O'Connor plays Arthur, an Englishman in Italy, recently released from prison for selling artefacts stolen from tombs. He soon gets back together with his gang of tombaroli – tomb raiders – and gets back to business, using his special powers of divination to find the tombs. It's often remarked that he's good at finding things that are lost, but he still can't find his missing love, Beniamina (Yle Vianello), whose mother, Flora (Isabella Rossellini), he is still close to. It is while visiting Flora that he meets Italia (Carol Duarte) and forms a relationship with her. This is an absolutely gorgeous film suffused with an autumnal melancholy that is personified in the character of Arthur, lost and lovesick, his crumpled linen suit getting dirtier and dirtier over time as if he were recently unearthed himself. His readiness to delve deep into the earth is both a desperate search for Beniamina and a way to escape and isolate himself. It is through Italia that he is able to hold on, for a short while at least, to the world of the living. This film reveals itself like an archaeological discovery, gentle strokes of a brush revealing more and more of the whole picture to us until we're left with an aching portrait of love. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Dammi dir. Yann Demange/2023/16m This autobiographical short stars Riz Ahmed as Mounir, a man returning to Paris to confront his past, his estranged father (Yousfi Henine), and his own identity – an Englishman born in France to an Algerian father. While there he meets Hafzia (Souhelia Yacoub), a French-Algerian woman who is comfortable with her identity and the two form a relationship. A lot of this film is told through narration from Ahmed. This would be a problem usually but Ahmed has such an intense delivery that it really works. It's like spoken word poetry at times, which really reminded me of the Oscar winning short The Long Goodbye in which he stars. There's also some great imagery here, particularly of Mounir submerged in water, that reinforces the themes of the film. I first saw Ahmed in the hilarious terrorist comedy Four Lions, but his recent performances in the likes of Mogul Mowgli, The Sound of Metal and short films like this have cemented him in my watch-everything-they're-in list. 8/10 Deadpool 2 dir. David Leitch/2018/2h Ryan Reynolds returns as the merc with the mouth, this time battling time-travelling hard *ss Cable (Josh Brolin) who has come from the future to kill teenage boy Russell (Julian Dennison) aka Firefist. Reynolds is a very charismatic and likeable lead, and I do like the whole gimmick of Deadpool with the constant fourth-wall breaking and foul mouthed humour, but stretching that out over two hours is frankly tiresome. I also find it hard to take any of the emotionally heavy scenes seriously just because of the tone of the character and the film. It's like if the film Airplane! made the romantic subplot serious and expected you to treat it as such. You just can't. There are some well choreographed fight scenes, with this film coming from the stunt coordinator of John Wick and the director of this year's fun The Fall Guy, but they are occasionally peppered with some dodgy looking CGI. Also, it's so desaturated with all of the colours looking so dull. Not a bad movie but it's way too long and doesn't have the breath of fresh air advantage that the first one did. 6/10 Frozen dir. Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee/2013/1h42m Disney's take on The Snow Queen tells the story of sisters Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell), princesses in the kingdom of Arendelle. Close when they were young, after Elsa's ice powers almost accidentally kill Anna her parents separate them. When they're older a confrontation at Elsa's coronation causes them to argue and she causes an eternal winter. The sisters must reconcile to save the kingdom, helped by ice cutter Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and sentient snowman Olaf (Josh Gad). This feels more like a classic Disney film than anything they've made in years which ironically makes it feel fresh and new. They are unabashedly going back to their roots and it really works. The two main characters are both interesting and compelling, especially Elsa who has a surprising emotional depth to her, the songs are great, even the overplayed Let It Go which, in context, is an absolute banger, and the animation looks beautiful. I feel like they only made this film because they cracked the secret to animating snow and ice and just wanted to show off. My only negative is Josh Gad who has such a punchable voice. I've not liked him in anything else I've seen him in and I don't like him here. 8.5/10

What I Watched This Week #133 (July 15-21) Wreck-It Ralph dir. Rich Moore/2012/1h41m Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) is the bad guy in the game Fix-It Felix, but all he wants is to be the good guy and have people like him instead of fear him, so he goes rogue which puts the future of all the games in his arcade at risk. To help him on his quest is a glitched racer from the game Sugar Rush, Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman). A fun film with a good message about being yourself and full of nice little ideas like the support group for video game baddies that also includes Zangief from Street Fighter and a ghost from Pac Man, what really makes this worth watching is Reilly's performance. The dude is able to do it all, drama, comedy, musicals, and his distinctive voice is perfect for the character of Ralph, a big, loveable lug who you can't help but warm to. I can't say the same about Silverman or her character who just comes across as an annoying brat. There are some good emotional moments later on between her and Ralph, but it's Reilly doing all of the heavy lifting there. I much preferred the relationship between Ralph and Felix (Jack McBrayer), and would have liked to see them team up for the adventure. That said this is still full of charm and is probably one of the best video game movie to date. 7/10 Manhunter dir. Michael Mann/1986/2h Based on the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, Manhunter stars William Peterson as FBI agent Will Graham who is on the hunt of a serial killer (Tom Noonan). He is aided in his game of cat and mouse by the biggest arrest of his career, Dr. Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox) in his first screen appearance – though I don't know why they spelled his name that way. This is a slick and glossy crime thriller, which is no surprise coming from the director of Heat and the creator of Miami Vice. This is dated but I don't mean that in a bad way, just that it is very of its time, especially the soundtrack and score. I had the same feeling about Beverly Hills Cop in that it's such a time capsule of the 80's. The weakest aspect of the film to me is the performance from Peterson which is very cold and detached, and in the moments where he's supposed to be heated I just don't buy it. Noonan is a perfect creep as the film's antagonist and Cox makes a huge impression as Dr. Lecktor in the three scenes he has. There's a physicality to him, a brutishness, that doesn't come across in performances from Anthony Hopkins and Mads Mikkleson in Silence of the Lambs and the TV show Hannibal. All of the elements here don't come together in the same special way they did for Silence of the Lambs but this is still an excellent thriller. 8.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Magician dir. Ingmar Bergman/1958/1h41m Max von Sydow stars as Albert Vogler, mute mesmerist and leader of a troop of healers and mystics travelling through 19th century Europe. Entering a new town they are told they're not allowed to perform unless they prove the authenticity of their magical claims to the town's leaders. Despite being a very dark and brooding film, bordering on horror at points, this is also quite playful with Bergman always making us question whether they are authentic magicians or fraudsters. Even Vogler's appearance is part of this trickery, with his obviously fake beard and shock of long black hair, very uncharacteristic of von Sydow. His performance is excellent and mostly done through his eyes as he has no dialogue. Heavily shadowed to make them really stand out, he has one of the most intense stares I've ever seen and he could probably actually hypnotise someone if he wanted to. There's also a link between his silence and the silence (or absence) of god, a theme in many of his other films, and the frustrations and existential crises that that can cause. While I don't think that the ideas here are as fully formed as they could be, this is still an excellently crafted and thought provoking film. 8/10 Lemon Tree dir. Rachel Walden/2023/17m A young boy (Gordon Rocks) and his father (Charlie Chaspooley Robinson) are at a carnival. After failing to win a rabbit at one of the attractions the father steals it. The two then travel home, stopping off for food along the way. Drenched in nostalgic Americana, largely helped by the warm, grainy 16mm film, this is an assured debut that is brimming with energy. Handheld camerawork, frenetic editing, lots of close ups and the deranged carnival music score give it a sense of threat at the start, giving way to a mini road trip where the son realises that his father may not be so great of a guy. The way this is shot from the son's perspective is very well done with the camera always looking up to his father, both literally and in a role model sense, something that is challenged in little ways by glimpses of things he does beyond the theft of the rabbit. I can't wait to see what this filmmaker does next. 8/10 Beverly Hills Cop II dir. Tony Scott/1987/1h43m Eddie Murphy returns as Detroit cop Axel Foley, back in LA after the near fatal shooting of a friend, which he finds is linked to a bigger criminal conspiracy, which is exactly the same plot as the original. Still shot with that artificial, glossy 80's sheen, this is a better directed film because Tony Scott (True Romance, Top Gun) knows his way around an action scene. In the original I was pleasantly surprised by how relatively restrained Murphy's performance was, despite still being very much an Eddie Murphy performance, but here he's started to turn the dial up a bit to the detriment of the film. I feel that films like this lose some of their impact when they lean too heavily on the comedy over the action. That said he is still incredibly charismatic and entertaining. The same can't be said for the antagonists, played by Jurgen Prochnow and Brigitte Nielsen who are both one dimensional, totally forgettable, and in the case of Nielsen, not very good at acting. Thankfully the supporting cast is solid with the likes of Dean Stockwell and a funny cameo by Gilbert Gottfried, and Murphy still has great rapport with Judge Reinhold and John Ashton as his LAPD buddies Rosewood and Taggert. 7/10 The One dir. James Wong/2001/1h27m Jet Li stars as both Gabriel Yulaw, a man hopping into every parallel universe in order to kill every other version of himself, absorb their power and ultimately become The One, the most powerful entity in the multiverse, and Gabe Law, an everyday cop who must stop him to save the multiverse. Assisting him are two time agents played by Delroy Lindo and Jason Statham with hair and an awful American accent. This is absolute straight-to-video trash and the most 2001 film ever made down to the blue filter over every shot and the dated yet awesome nu metal soundtrack and I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. Li is a brilliant martial arts star but not a very good actor, so having a film where a lot of it is just him fighting himself was a good call. The plot, despite being total nonsense, does loop back on itself in a pretty clever way and has a pretty f*cking badass final scene, “I am Yulaw! I am nobody's b*tch! You are mine!”. It's so stupid that it's awesome. 6.5/10 Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes dir. Wes Ball/2024/2h25m Set several generations after the events of the Andy Serkis trilogy, the latest entry in the rebooted Planet of the Apes series stars Owen Teague as Noa, a young ape whose village is burned and family captured by tyrannical ruler Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand). Setting out on a quest to rescue them he eventually teams up with orangutan Raka (Peter Macon) and human Nova (Freya Allan) who holds a secret that will change his world. Visually stunning with incredible CGI, this film does a great job of world building without force feeding it to us. In many ways it's like the latest Mad Max film with mythology being an important part of the plot, here it's the teachings and actions of Serkis's Caesar from the last three films. I also like the design of the film and how it feels like it's naturally turning into the Planet of the Apes from the 1968 original with some more obvious references like the creepy scarecrows and use of the original score in a very tense bridge crossing scene. Teague is an okay lead but he just doesn't measure up to Serkis who was genuinely incredible in the previous films and still casts a long shadow over this one. The ending is also kind of anticlimactic but does set up some potentially interesting developments for the inevitable sequel. 7/10

The K--.ller (2023) dir David Fincher Michael Fassbender stars as the un-named title character, a professional assassin, and the entire film is focussed on him. It starts with him on a job, narrating as he waits for his opportunity to take his shot. It doesn't go as planned and the rest of the film is him dealing with the aftermath, basically taking on a new target in each scene. Each of the other actors appear in one scene only, apart from one who we hear on the phone in an earlier scene. So if you don't like Michael Fassbender, this is probably one to give a miss. It's technically well made. It looks good. But there is nothing that outstanding. The acting is OK, because that is all that is required. Tilda Swinton stands out in the scene she is in though. I found it hard to really enjoy since the main character is so unlikeable. He kills for a living, and not just his targets, but anyone else who might get in the way or be a risk of exposing him. And he tells us he just does it for the money. So he is an utterly immoral character. It's not one of those films where you find yourself rooting for the criminal, he has no endearing qualities. I'm not really sure if there was meant to be anything more to the story than just a killer killing people. It's certainly not an action film because there is just not enough action in it; one decent fight scene, one car chase and that's all I remember. The music is reasonably good, but there's a lot of The Smiths, which we hear because The Killer has them almost constantly on his i-pod. 5 / 10

What I Watched This Week #132 (July 8-14) Escape Room dir. Adam Robitel/2019/1h40m Six strangers are mysteriously invited to experience an escape room with a prize of ten grand on offer, but it turns out to be a bit too real and they're soon fighting to survive. Our protagonist is Zoey (Taylor Russell), who is still traumatised from being the only survivor of a plane crash that killed her mother. What could've been a fun thriller is lost by being totally predictable and surprisingly tame with bland, shallow characters. It's like they were trying to make a Saw film without the gore, rendering the kills pretty unsatisfying and thus pointless because if you're not going to make the characters likeable then at least make their deaths fun to watch (as f*cked up as that sounds) which these just aren't. Russell isn't a bad lead, she just doesn't have anything to do with what she's given. Nik Dodani is fun as the stereotypical nerd, but again he's so one-dimensional he could give you a paper cut. This is torture p*rn for the squeamish. 4/10 Escape Room: Tournament of Champions dir. Adam Robitel/2021/1h28m Taylor Russell is back as Zoey, this time in New York to uncover the evil secret society of rich psychopaths who set up these fatal escape rooms when she gets trapped in another one with other escape room survivors. Still as boringly bloodless as the original, this is also more incredulous as now the New York subway system is part of the game. I know it's a film, suspension of disbelief and all that, but this is just stupid. The ending has a big reveal that's supposed to blow our minds but it has no impact because you can see it coming a mile away. The biggest puzzle this film presents us is how it took four people to write this. 3/10 Beverly Hills Cop dir. Martin Brest/1984/1h45m Fast talking Detroit cop Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) heads to Beverly Hills in order to investigate the murder of a friend which ends up being linked to drug smuggling art dealer Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff). A glossy action comedy that feels like an extended music video for much of the run-time, this has been crafted to show off the talents of Murphy, giving him space to really let loose. So what really surprised me watching this for the first time in over twenty years is how restrained his performance is with him coming across really naturally and making Foley feel like a real person rather than a character. He's only twenty three here, already a global superstar, and he carries that without a burden. He also has great chemistry with Rosewood and Taggart (Judge Reinhold, John Ashton), two local LA cops helping Foley out. That can't be said for his scenes with love interest Jenny (Lisa Eilbacher) who is not a very good actor and seems lost a lot of the time. It also feels a little too shallow with maybe a too thick layer of gloss slapped on top and a villain that never felt like a threat to me, despite Berkoff's good performance. This is the definition of a star vehicle, but that's not a bad thing when that star has as much charisma as Murphy. 8/10 White Man dir. b*ng Joon-ho/1994/19m Another early short from b*ng Joon-ho, White Man is a basically plotless film about a man who finds a severed finger outside his office building and decides to keep it, using it for things like dialling a phone or strumming a guitar. Like Incoherence, which he made around the same time, this is rough around the edges and clearly limited by buget and time restraints but still very well made, with the young b*ng clearly knowing his way around a camera. The way this film is edited shows his skill at building up narrative through montage, something he mastered by the time he made Parasite which contains one of the best montages ever. This just didn't grab me in the way his other films have however, and feels more like a segment of a bigger story. 6/10 Petite Maman dir. Celine Sciamma/2021/1h12m While staying in her recently deceased grandmother's house while her parents clear it out eight year old Nelly (Josephine Sanz) goes to play in the woods where she meets Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), a little girl who looks exactly like her and has the same name as her mother, because she is. This is a time travel film without the sci-fi and where no explanations are needed. A child's viewpoint on grief and loss with an excellent lead performance from Josephine, who has a lot more to do than twin sister Gabrielle. The scenes between her and her parents, particularly her mother (Nina Meurisse) are beautiful and adds real depth to the friendship between Nelly and Marion which then feeds back into the relationship between Nelly and her mother. Josephine and Gabrielle naturally have amazing chemistry together, with that almost telepathic link that twins seem to have. Scenes of them playing together or baking a cake aren't acting, it's just them being and it's wonderful to see. Made with such tender love and care, even during the emotionally heavy moments there's a warmth that's reassuring, like a hug from your mother. The best time-travel film ever made, and it doesn't even need a DeLorean to do it. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Bring It On dir. Peyton Reed/2000/1h38m When new cheerleader captain Torrance (Kirsten Dunst) discovers that her predecessor stole their award winning routines from a poor, inner-city school she has to come up with a new routine to retain their title while facing off against the squad they stole from, who are competing for the first time. I have vague memories of watching this when it came out and having a massive crush on Dunst, but thirteen year old Lime didn't realise that this is a film about cultural appropriation in a very simple way. But that kinda gets obfuscated by the regular homophobic slurs and pretty creepy male gaze that this was shot with, the camera lingering on the bodies of what are supposed to be schoolgirls, and at one point making a bl*wjob joke about a pre-pubescent child. That detracts from what is, at heart, a fun goofy comedy. Dunst is charming in the lead as the naïve new captain who wants to do everything the right way, and I really liked Eliza Dushku as Missy, the bad girl transfer student who joins the cheerleading team because the school doesn't have a gymnastics team. These performances and a few very funny jokes, as well as some pretty impressive cheer routines, save this from being just another late 90's/early 00's teen comedy that has aged as well as milk. 6/10 Good Thanks, You? dir. Molly Manning Walker/2020/13m This short film from the director of last year's excellent How To Have s*x – her debut full length film – stars Jasmine Jobson as Amy, a woman suffering the aftermath of a s*xual assault. The film shows her being interviewed by several different people, a doctor, a police officer etc, and how overwhelming reliving the experience can be. At one point the police officer (T'Nia Miller) asks about clothing, with Amy starting to give a description of what her r*pist was wearing before being corrected and asked what she was wearing. Manning Walker uses silence to great effect here, really symbolising the isolation that Amy is feeling. There are also scenes that show how the attack has affected her relationship with her boyfriend (Michael Ward) which are handled in a very grounded way. The themes of this film are expanded on in How To Have s*x, making this feel a little underdeveloped, though the performance by Jobson is very good. 7/10 Nosebleed dir. Luna Carmoon/2018/9m (no trailer, so here's a very good short video about the director) Nosebleed, the first work by Luna Carmoon, is a short about the toxic friendship (maybe more) between two teenage girls, the sweetly compliant Lilah (Ruby Stokes) and the coldly manipulative Coby (Lily Newmark). Bookended by scenes in a swimming pool, both with bloody endings, this doesn't really have a plot but is more interested in tone and atmosphere, which it has in spades. There's a precision to the threat and presentation here that feels like a Peter Strickland or Yorgos Lanthimos film. The two performances are solid, with Newmark really coming across as a psychopath in the way that only teenage girls can be. Equally enigmatic and provocative with an ending that really hits hard, this is easily worth ten minutes of your time. 8.5/10 Shagbands dir. Luna Carmoon/2020/18m Set in London in the mid 00's, Shagbands is centred around a group of four teenage girls and the coloured bands on their wrists indicating how far they're willing to go, and how their burgeoning sexuality is exploited by older men. Very different from Nosebleed, here Carmoon shoots with a neorealist's eye presenting a very authentic portrait of a friend group who mean more to each other than family. The lighter scenes where they are just hanging out and joking with each other are delightful. The performances, dialogue and interplay between the four leads is totally authentic, making the ambiguously bloody ending feel real and not just something out of a revenge thriller. 8/10

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What I Watched This Week #131 (July 1-7) Vivacious Lady dir. George Stevens/1938/1h30m Strait-laced botany professor Peter Morgan Jr. (James Stewart) scandalises his hometown and his family when he impulsively marries wild nightclub singer Francey Brent (Ginger Rogers). His father (Charles Coburn) is outraged that his son would put a woman before his job, but his mother (Beulah Bondi) starts to appreciate Francey's wild ways and follows her lead when it comes to her own marriage. This is a very light romantic comedy that almost strays into screwball territory but never feels like it goes all the way. Stewart, still early in his career, is a good lead but a little understated here and is totally dominated on screen by Rogers, but that fits the film pretty well as it matches their characters. My favourite part of the film is the final act where Peter's mother and Francey join forces against their uncaring husbands, a situation that is resolved all too quickly and easily. 7/10 Incoherence dir. b*ng Joon-ho/1994/31m This early short film from South Korea's biggest director, made as his graduation piece for film school, is made up of three seemingly unconnected stories about middle aged men behaving badly – a teacher who's into p*rnography, a mischievous jogger and a drunk who desperately needs to take a sh*t. An epilogue brings them all together and adds a stinger of some pretty biting social commentary, something he would perfect in his Oscar winning Parasite. While this is cheap and a bit rough around the edges you can still feel the precision with which b*ng directs and his focus on storytelling in a unique and engaging way. I think this is particularly true of the second segment featuring the jogger which has the feel of a silent comedy, the story being told almost totally visually. 8/10 Free Fire dir. Ben Wheatley/2016/1h30m In 70's Boston Michael Smiley and Cillian Murphy play Frank and Chris, two IRA members over from Ireland in order to buy some guns from South African arms dealer Vernon (Sharlto Copley) in an abandoned warehouse. Things quickly go wrong and a protracted gunfight ensues, one which makes up the majority of the film. This starts out really strong with some funny lines and great performances from those already mentioned as well as Brie Larson as Justine, a woman there to help Frank and Chris, and actual cannibal (really!) Armie Hammer as Ord, a kind of facilitator between the two parties. The first half of the gun fight is very good too, with Wheatley really making the most of his single location, but it does start to lose steam by the start of the final act with the rest of the film really being carried by the performances. Copley is the standout throughout the entire film, his character is hilarious and I could watch a whole series about his exploits. I don't know why this guy isn't a bigger star because he's brilliant in everything I've seen him in and is just as adept at drama as he is at comedy, which you can see in District 9. This film is worth watching just for him alone. 7/10 Bernie dir. Richard Linklater/2011/1h39m This true story stars Jack Black as Bernie Tiede, a friendly, God loving funeral director in a small Texas town where everyone likes him. He strikes up a friendship with rich widow Marjorie (Shirley MacLaine), who is the opposite of Bernie in that everyone in town hates her (except Bernie), so when he kills her after she pushes him too far no one really gives a sh*t, perplexing district attorny Danny Davidson (Matthew McConaughey). Black is one of those actors who doesn't really act, and mostly plays themselves, relying on their charisma to do all of the heavy lifting – Keanu Reeves and The Rock are also like this – but he really gives a great performance here, and though he is still clearly Jack Black that just seems to fit the character of Bernie. I also really like the way Linklater presents this film as a quasi documentary with lots of talking heads interviews with real people who knew Bernie and Marjorie, reinforcing the fact that this actually happened. An underappreciated gem. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Winnie the Pooh dir. Stephen J. Anderson, Don Hall/2011/1h3m Disney's second theatrical Winnie the Pooh film, the first being 1977's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, is also their last traditionally animated film to date. The plot sees Pooh (Jim Cummings) on the hunt for honey, helping Eeyore (Bud Luckey) find his tail and setting a trap for a mysterious creature who he suspects has kidnapped Christopher Robin (Jack Boulter). Warm and cosy, this is also imaginitive in its presentation, with the film taking place in a book, the illustrations coming to life and interacting with it in a very meta way, just like the 70's film. However, I did find this dragging at points despite its short length. The characterisations seem a little simple too, with the characters just not feeling the same as they did in the earlier film. That was an anthology of three different stories, whereas this is one story with too many plot threads, feeling occasionally jumbled. But this still has its charms and some gorgeous hand drawn animation that I made sure to really drink in as I won't be seeing any more of that from Disney. 6/10 She Fell Among Thieves dir. Clive Donner/1978/1h18m (no trailer so here's the full film instead) This 20's set made for TV film stars Malcolm McDowell as Richard Chandos, an Englishman on holiday in the south of France who is drawn into the world of the evil Vanity Fair (Eileen Atkins), criminal mastermind running her empire from a lavish Chateau. She is set to inherit millions if she marries off her stepdaughter Jenny (Karen Dotrice), and decides to use Richard as part of her plot. Very camp and over the top at points, very dry and boring at others, this feels cheaper than it looks and always feels like it's struggling against its budget. McDowell is decent but I never really bought him as a wide eyed innocent caught in a spider's web. Atkins is having a lot of fun as the stereotypical wicked stepmother, like something straight out of a Disney film but with an edge. Very inconsistent both in terms of the filmmaking and the performances, the most excited I got watching this film is when I realised that Dotrice played the little girl in Mary Poppins. 5/10 Monsieur Hulot's Holiday dir. Jacques Tati/1953/1h27m This French comedy marks the first appearance of the highly influential character Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati, also the writer and director), a bumbling, clumsy man who leaves chaos in his wake everywhere he goes. This film sees him take a trip to the seaside, arriving in his clapped out old car and instantly causing trouble just by opening a door. Clearly influenced by the silent era, this is a film that you could watch without subtitles and still enjoy. Tati is pretty tall and really knows how to use his entire body to full comedic effect, reminding me of John Cleese. I also like how straight faced and oblivious he is to the disasters unfolding around him, much like Mr. Bean. There's not much of a plot here, but just watching the meticulously choreographed sight gags and slapstick nonsense unfold is a pleasure in itself. 8/10

The Insider (1999) dir Michael Mann Based on the true story of how two men fought to expose lies told in public by the CEOs of various tobacco companies. It stars Al Pacino as journalist Lowell Bergman, producer of CBS's news show “60 Minutes”, and Russel Crowe as scientist Jeffrey Wigand, who had worked in the tobacco industry for Brown and Williamson. In 1996, whilst investigating fires apparently started by cigarettes, Bergman is anonymously sent a box of highly technical documents. Needing someone to help him understand this he ends up being put in contact with Wigand, who had then just left his job. Wigand is incredibly nervous and is very clear he can't say anything about the work he did due to a gagging order he had to sign to keep his and his families medical and pension benefits. But Bergman's journalistic instincts tell him Wigand has something he really wants to tell, unrelated to the fire story. So the film is about how Bergman comes up with a way that Wigand can legally speak openly, in a filmed interview, about the work his former employer wanted him to do and what they really knew about the health risks of smoking and had known for many years. Of course the tobacco company does everything it can to stop the truth coming out. Bergman is the main character really, it's more a journalism story than a scientist-whistle blower story. I wouldn't say it is anti-smoking. It's more about the ethics of gagging orders that ought to have exemptions for things like public health issues or when those imposing the orders are hypocrites and have even lied under oath. It's well acted by the two leads. It is a somewhat untypical role for Crowe, he is definitely not a tough guy in this. Al Pacino is Al Pacino. It also features Christopher Plummer as 60 Minutes host Mike Wallace and Michael Gambon as the Brown and Williamson CEO. I've seen it before, and had not remembered all the details. The plot does get a bit confusing towards the end as Bergman pulls strings and manipulates various situations to contrive something that forces CBS to air the interview and it does seem a little implausible, but “they” do say truth can be stranger than fiction sometimes. The music is a bit strange too, nothing wrong about it, but at times it sounds incredibly similar to Hans Zimmer's score from Gladiator, but that was released after this. 7 / 10

It's halfway through the year and I've seen a lot of good films in 2024, but only 9 good enough to give a perfect score, so here are the best films I've watched this year (so far) in chronological order. The Kingdom of the Fairies - Georges Melies, 1903 Brief Encounter - David Lean, 1945 The Red Shoes - Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948 Let It Be - Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 1970 Sleuth - Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1972 Monty Python's Life of Brian - Terry Jones, 1979 All of Us Strangers - Andrew Haigh, 2023 The Zone of Interest - Jonathan Glazer, 2023 Poor Things - Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023 Needless to say I highly recommend any and all of these films and would love to hear your thoughts if you watch any of them.

What I Watched This Week #128 (June 10-16) La Belle et La Bête dir. Jean Cocteau/1946/1h36m This lavish production of the Beauty and the Beast story from French poet Jean Cocteau stars Josette Day as Belle, a young woman devoted to her father and mistreated by her sisters in a very Cinderella like way. When her father plucks a rose from a garden deep in the forest he is sentenced to death by the Beast (Jean Marais, who also plays Avenant, a friend of Belle's brother and the Gaston-type character of this film, to compare it to the Disney version). Belle offers to take her father's place, and slowly she and the Beast start to fall in love with each other. This is a film with incredible production design that makes it truly feel like a fantasy come to life. I love the Beast's castle with faces in the walls and disembodied hands holding candelabras always making you feel slightly unsafe and ill at ease. The costuming is just as impressive and full of detail, but what really steals the show is the make up of the Beast himself. It is both animalistic and human, with Marais's performance, full of snarling and prowling, really selling it. I do prefer the Disney version because I'm a sucker for a musical, but this is still a magical experience. 9/10 Shaft dir. Gordon Parks/1971/1h40m Richard Roundtree stars as the black private d*ck that's a s*x machine to all the chicks, Shaft (you're daaamn right), in perhaps the most iconic blaxploitation film ever. The plot sees Shaft hired by gang lord Bumpy Jonas (Moses Gunn) to find his kidnapped daughter, something that could lead to an all out war with the mafia. But the plot really takes a back seat to the vibe and atmosphere. I could have watched a whole film of Roundtree walking around grimy early 70s New York in turtle neck sweaters and leather jackets to Isaac Hayes's legendary funk score, including the Oscar winning title song. One thing that I really liked, and something I didn't get when I first watched this as a teenager, is how much this is just an updated take on the film noir genre of the 40s. I would love to see a version of this that really leans into that, filmed in black and white with more of a jazz score, that would be really interesting. 8/10 Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga dir. George Miller/2024/2h29m A prequel to Fury Road, Furiosa tells the story of the title character (Anya Taylor-Joy with Alyla Browne as the child Furiosa) and how she was taken from her home when she was young by the Biker Horde under the command of the Warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) before falling into the clutches of Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme). It's not long before gang war breaks out with the two warlords battling for control of the wasteland and all the while Furiosa has to survive to stand a chance of ever getting home again. Less of an adrenaline fuelled rollercoaster ride than Fury Road, this feels like an excavation of an ancient mythology with more in common with Miller's last film Three Thousand Years of Longing, which is all about storytelling. One of the most interesting characters to me is The History Man (George Shevtsov), who Dementus keeps almost like a pet and is called upon whenever he needs something explained to him. Shevtsov also appeared in Three Thousand Years of Longing as a character called The Old Storyteller, which in itself is telling. But this is still an exciting film full of the mad car chases and explosions and insane, twisted characters that you would expect from a Mad Max film. Now, Max himself doesn't appear here, but there is one very interesting character that Furiosa teams up with and kind of takes under her wing that is basically a stand in for him and I'm not sure what I think about it yet and would like to hear some more opinions on it. Taylor-Joy is excellent in the lead, being able to portray both incredible strength and vulnerability even with about ten lines of dialogue. What I did feel was a bit of a let down was the ending, which we already know because we've seen Fury Road and know she doesn't escape. Apart from that I thought this was a thrilling ride that expands the mythology of the wasteland in an interesting way. And, watching it in the cinema, it's f*cking loud. 8.5/10 The Princess and the Frog dir. Ron Clements, John Musker/2009/1h38m Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) is a waitress in New Orleans saving up to open her own restaurant. When a visiting prince is turned into a frog by voodoo trickster Dr. Facilier (Keith David) he promises to help her dream come true if she just kisses him and turns him human again. Unfortunately, instead of turning him human, she also turns into a frog. I instantly liked this because it is traditionally animated in the classic style and it looks fantastic. The characters just look more expressive and alive than they do in CGI, at least at this point in time. This film also returns to the Disney tradition of being a musical where the characters break out into song, and there are some really good ones all in that hot New Orleans jazz style, but none of them really stand out as classics. Noni Rose is great in the lead role, headstrong and determined to earn everything through hard work but at times too stubborn, and she's surrounded by a fantastic supporting cast with my favourite being Michael Leon-Wooley's trumpet playing alligator Louis. I could say something about the lazy stereotyping that pops up occasionally, but I honestly loved this and it made me cry over a firefly. Back to back bangers from Disney. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Evil Dead Rise dir. Lee Cronin/2023/1h36m The latest entry in the Evil Dead series moves the action from the creepy woods to an LA apartment building where demonic forces are unleased by a teenage boy, Danny (Morgan Davies), that soon possess his mother Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland). He and his sisters, teenage Bridget (Gabrielle Echols) and young Kassie (Nell Fisher) along with their aunt Beth (Lily Sullivan) must fight to survive the night. Although the film does well to make this location interesting I do think they lose a lot in terms of atmosphere by taking this story out of the woods. Much of the original Evil Dead was about the battle between nature and man and you can't have that if you get rid of the nature. There are some very well done gore scenes and gross out moments and the performances are all solid, especially from Fisher who has a lot to do for such a young kid, this just doesn't feel connected to the other films in any way. This feels like it was an original story that had the Evil Dead brand slapped on it to make it easier to sell. 6/10 Hairspray dir. John Waters/1988/1h32m In early 60s Baltimore “pleasantly plump” teen Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) has just become the star of the local TV dance show, using her platform to fight for civil rights, much to the chagrin of her rival for the title of Miss Auto Show 1963, Amber Von Tussle (Vitamin C). This is a fun, tongue in cheek film from master of bad taste John Waters with a catchy r&b/soul/rock 'n' roll soundtrack and an adorable lead performance by Lake who just personifies the gee whizz candy coated optimism of the time. She is surrounded by what can only be called an eclectic supporting cast with Sonny Bono and Debbie Harry as Amber's parents and Jerry Stiller and legendary drag queen Divine as Mr and Mrs Turnblad. Some nice costuming and fun choreography make this seem as fluffy as candy floss but there is some biting social commentary here. Rude, crude and with a heart of gold, though I was under the impression that this was a musical because the remake was, so colour me slightly disappointed that it isn't. 8/10 Expend4bles dir. Scott Waugh/2023/1h43m Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) is back and more tired than ever, so tired he can't even be bothered to dye his hair jet black anymore – and he looks better for it. This time he and his gang of big boys have to save the world from nukes or something, there's some guy called Ocelot whose identity is a secret and Megan Fox is in it now as a member of the team called Gina. And 50 Cent too! And I don't know which is the worst actor. There's some really bad CGI here, and a lot of scenes look like they were shot on a green screen in 2003. A lot of this film feels like a test to see whether Jason Statham can carry the franchise on his own and I have one question to that, why bother? There's no cringe inducing nostalgia bait here though, so that's something. 3/10 Yuki's Sun dir. Hayao Miyazaki/1972/5m The first ever film by living god of animation Hayao Miyazaki is a proof of concept pilot for a TV show about a young orphan girl, Yuki, who is adopted by a wealthy family. This is just a montage of scenes that introduce her and her personality, which feels very familiar if you've seen any of his later works. This is much simpler in style than what he would become known for, but the emphasis on nature is still there, and he already has an eye for a striking composition. Because this isn't a complete work it's hard to say much about it, but it does give a glimpse at the artist yet to come. 6/10

What I Watched This Week #127 (June 3-9) Nineteen Eighty-Four dir. Michael Radford/1984/1h53m In this adaptation of George Orwell's legendary dystopian novel John Hurt stars as Winston Smith, mindless drone working for a totalitarian state rewriting history for the good of the party. But his heart yearns for freedom and love, and he finds a kindred soul in Julia (Suzanna Hamilton), but every secret meeting of theirs brings them closer to the ever watchful eye of Big Brother. Bleak, terrifying and more relevant with each passing year, this offers us a vision of a future under total state control, control of body and of thought, that is every Torie's w*t dream - “if you want to imagine the future imagine a boot stamping on a human head, forever”. Hurt is excellent in the lead, a man who wants freedom but not at any cost. A man who ends up totally broken by the society he lives in. A coward. The brutalist Soviet style set design, with everything covered in grime and rust, really sells the tone of this world, along with the costuming, anonymous jumpsuits robbing everyone of their individuality. Being an adaptation there are many things that have been left out, and having read the book at least half a dozen times I really felt these exclusions and changes, but if they were kept in I think the film would be just too depressing, especially the ending. There's good support from Richard Burton, in his final role, as O'Brien, Smith's ally from the inner party, and Gregor Fisher – the man who would be Rab C. Nesbitt – as his hapless neighbour Parsons, but I felt that the performance of Hamilton as Julia was a bit wanting, but a lot of that has to do with the writing, which really cut a lot of her development from the novel. But that said, this is still a worthy effort to bring to life one of the most important books ever written. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. 8.5/10 Maurice's Bar dir. Tom Prezman, Tzor Edery/2023/15m Based on a true story, Maurice's Bar sees a drag queen, Bobette (Soa De Muse), reminiscing about one of Paris's first gay bars as she takes a train journey during WWII. The flashback, set in 1903, sees patrons of the bar gossiping about its owner, the mysterious Maurice, a gay Jewish-Algerian man who was murdered by the n*zis in Auschwitz. Beautifully animated in a simple art-deco style that's very evocative of the period in which it's set, there's a real fluidity to the animation that sees it morphing and transforming between scenes in an almost organic way. The simple colour palette of reds and blacks suits the nightclub setting yet at the same time signals the impending danger. At times this reminded me of the short animations of Susan Pitt, several of which I recently watched and I'm sure was a big influence on these filmmakers. A beautiful reclamation of a piece of history that was nearly destroyed. 8/10 Bolt dir. Chris Williams, Byron Howard/2008/1h38m Bolt (John Travolta) is the superpowered canine star of a TV show where he helps his sweet owner Penny (Miley Cyrus) track down evil villains. The thing is that he thinks it's all real, including his powers, so when one episode ends with Penny being kidnapped he heads out on a cross country adventure to save her. Along the way he picks up the manipulative alley cat Mittens (Susie Essman) and a hamster in a ball who is his biggest fan, Rhino (Mark Walton). The first thing that struck me about this film is how much better it looks than their previous CG films. Disney's purchase of Pixar in 2006 has a lot to do with this I'm sure. I was particularly impressed with the texture of the fur on all the animals, the lighting and the dynamic camera movements, all a marked improvement over their previous efforts. The second thing that really struck me was how much I was enjoying everything about this film. I think the story is great with some really funny scenes along with some exciting action and a very well done emotional ending. A very pleasant surprise and a severely underrated entry in the Disney canon. 9/10 Glago's Guest dir. Chris Williams/2008/7m This dialogue free animated short is set in the 1920's and centres around a lonely Russian soldier in his isolated outpost in the Siberian wastes. One day he receives an unexpected guest. Very experimental for a Disney production with a distinctive style I found myself instantly engrossed in this story. I really liked the simple visual storytelling with us watching his very boring daily routine before it is disrupted in a world changing way. I don't think this would translate to a full length feature but I was left wanting more at the end and feel like it could have been developed more. But still, I got more than I was expecting considering I only watched it because the only cast member is Macho Man Randy Savage, and he doesn't even say anything, just a little chuckle at the end. 8/10 Godzilla Minus One dir. Takashi Yamazaki/2023/2h5m The latest Japanese Godzilla film, which I'm pretty sure have no connection to the recent American Godzilla vs. Kong movies, presents us with the origin story of the world's most famous kaiju. Set during post-war Japan Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a kamikaze pilot who saw the way the war was going and refused to kill himself for a lost cause that he didn't even believe in to begin with. Struggling with not only his personal shame but the national shame felt across the country at the time he finds s chance to redeem himself when a giant monster born from the fires of nuclear devastation appears and wreaks havoc and chaos across Tokyo. To my shame the only other Godzilla movie I'd seen before this was the awful 1998 version (though that does have a banger theme song in Jamiroquai's Deeper Underground). Unlike that film, this has a very strong emotional core and human characters that you actually care about, so you're never left just waiting for Godzilla to show up again. But when he does boy is it f*cking awesome. The scenes of him smashing up battleships and levelling skyscrapers are all excellently shot, really showing you the scale of the destruction without ever getting choppy or confusing as to what's happening. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! King Kong dir. Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack/1933/1h44m Godzilla Minus One gave me a taste for monster movies so I watched the granddaddy of them all, King Kong. Director Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) has heard rumours of a giant ape on an uncharted island and he wants to film it. When his ship arrives they find what they were looking for, but they didn't count on Kong falling for leading lady Ann Darrow (Fay Wray). Transported to New York, Kong breaks free and captures Ann, taking her up to the top of the Empire State Building in one of cinema's most iconic scenes. Still an exciting adventure, I was actually surprised by how violent this gets, despite the dated (but still magical) effects. The ending to the fight between Kong and a T-Rex where Kong kills it by wrenching its jaws apart to the crunching and cracking of bone, blood pouring out of its mouth, was brutal. The effect, dated as they are, still work well, with brilliant use of rear projection and some ingenious moments where the projected footage appears to interact with live elements. Some dated attitudes towards s*x and race are to be expected, but they're never too egregious, and some really entertaining characters like Denham and the ship's cook Charlie (Victor Wong), and whip-crack like dialogue always kept me engaged. 9/10 Paris Is Burning dir. Jennie Livingston/1990/1h18m This documentary, shot over several years, takes us inside the world of New York's drag-ball scene, parties where drag queens and trans and gay people come together to show off who they are without fear. Split up into groups called “houses” they're like gangs that fight with dancing and catwalk modelling. If you ever wondered where Madonna stole the vogue from, it's right here and shown off to its full effect by the master of the vogue Willi Ninja. He is just one of many warm and colourful people interviewed for this film who are ready to open themselves up so freely, despite the hate that exists in the world for people like them. Having to deal daily with homophobia, transphobia, racism, the fear of AIDS and homelessness it is inspiring that they still want to dress up and face the world as their fabulous selves without a second thought. The film ends with the news of the murder of one of its subjects, Venus Xtravaganza, really hammering home just how dangerous the world can be if you're different. But the overall feeling of this film is one of celebration and community and love, something we could all do with more of. Happy Pride. 9/10 The Expendables 3 dir. Patrick Hughes/2014/2h6m Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) is back, this time facing off against co-founder of the Expendables, and a man who he shot and thought he killed years ago because he went rogue or something, Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson). These films are the cinematic equivalent of dangling some car keys in front of a baby, exploding car keys with badly written one-liners. I preferred this one to the previous two but I don't think I could tell you why. There's no crappy looking CGI blood spatter, but they didn't bother using practical effects either so now there's nothing. I'm not sure if that's better or worse. Kelsey Grammer is in it for a couple of scenes and I like him. Harrison Ford is there too, and the part where he's flying a helicopter and spouting random non-sequiturs was funny. Wesley Snipes and Antonio Banderas are both funny too. Ridiculous and a bit too over the top for the tone that this is aiming for, but I still enjoyed their performances. There's also less nostalgia bait here, though I did cringe at Arnie shouting about getting to the choppa not once but twice. 5/10 The Marshal's Two Executions dir. Radu Jude/2018/10m (no trailer for this) Ion Antonescu was the leader of Romania during WWII and was a n*zi sympathiser who was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jewish people during that time. In 1946 he, and three other high ranking members of the Romanian regime, were sentenced to death and executed. This short film from Romanian director Radu Jude takes actual footage of their execution and compares it with a biopic made in the 90's that attempted to redeem Antonescu. Despite showing the same event these two films are in stark contrast to each other. The real footage is silent, in black and white and strangely emotionless and clinical. The biopic is in colour with a sombre and stirring score and it tries to paint this man as a martyr, dying for his country. If all you saw was this colour section with no other context you could easily believe that this man was a hero, Jude showing us here how easily history can be rewritten and manipulated to serve whatever narrative you want. This is something he has done in the other films of his I've seen, but here it feels distilled to its purest, most potent form. I would score this higher but the footage of the real executions, despite them being n*zi's, still disturbed me. It's not like in the films when people get shot. In reality they just drop on the spot like a puppet having its strings cut. 8/10

I came across these browsing Youtube. The first is funny, if you know the films Star Wars (who doesn't?) and 2001. The second isn't really meant to be that funny but if you watch one you may well watch the other too,

Much Ado About Nothing (1993) dir Kenneth Brannagh Kenneth Brannagh's second Shakespeare adaptation has a cast of his regulars and some Holywood actors. Duke Pedro (Denzil Washington) is returning home from a successful military campaign. Amongst his substantial entourage are best friend Benedick (Kenneth Brannagh), his brother John (Keanau Reeves) and the young Count Claudio (Robert Sean Leonard). They stop off for a while at the estate of two brothers, Leonato (Richard Briers) and Antonio (Brian Blessed), each of which has a daughter of marriageable age, Hero (Kate Beckinsale) and Beatrice (Emma Thompson). Hero and Claudio are in love, but John, the villain of the story, conspires to split them up. Beatrice and Benedick know each other well and love to verbally spar and mock each other, so Pedro, Claudio, Hero et al decide to get them to fall in love too. It's a romantic comedy, and as the title implies, there is really not much that important that happens, that's the point. It's just a nice story to provide light entertainment without trying to be deep and meaningful or too dramatic. It has a stunning setting, in Tuscany. This version is updated to what looks like the early 19th century. The acting is great, especially between Brannagh and Thompson (then a couple in real life). There's also great, very funny, performance from Michael Keaton later on, as the inept constable investigating the misdemeanours of John's associates with his assistant played by Ben Elton. It's got a good sound-track too. I have watched this many time before and it remains one of my favourite films. I don't usually like films that get described as romantic comedy, because it seems that is often a kind of default categorisation for a a film that can't be classed as anything else. But this one is really good. 10 / 10

What I Watched This Week #125 (May 20-26) Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World dir. Radu Jude/2023/2h44m Jude's follow up to his audaciously shocking Bad Luck Banging or Loony p*rn (which has the best ending of any film ever), this sees overworked production assistant Angela (Ilinca Manolache) driving around Bucharest interviewing people who have suffered workplace injuries for a corporate health and safety video. When she has a spare moment she records foul mouthed misogynistic tirades for TikTok using a filter that makes herself look like Andrew Tate. Shot almost documentary style in grainy black and white this is slightly less formally experimental than Bad Luck Banging, but, like that film, this is full of references to Romanian history – the film is intercut with colour scenes from a pre-revolutionary film about a female cab driver – that are mostly lost on me. What's not lost is the incredibly nuanced and naturalistic lead performance from Manolache. She appears as a fully formed character that just gets more and more complicated and human as we follow her around for the day. The grand finale here is an extended scene shot from one static angle of the filming of the health and safety video where the story of the victim is edited and changed on the fly by a producer in order to make their corporate paymasters look good. Totally captivating and zeitgeist capturing, this is a film for our age. 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Joan of Arc dir. Georges Melies/1900/11m Lost until 1982, this version of the story of Joan of Arc was one of the first big hits of Melies's career and the first one made for film. One thing that I always love about his films is the incredible attention to detail in the backdrops and sets, as if he were going to be filming in 8K for IMAX. The way his films are hand painted frame by frame in order to give them colour also gives the effect of a stained glass window come to life, very fitting for this film as Joan was granted sainthood just twenty years after it was released. This film has a much more serious tone than Melies's other big films which are usually very whimsical and fantastic full of fairies and devilish tricksters and people taking rocket ships to the moon or a train to the sun. This just reinforces the seriousness of Joan's martyrdom and how much it means to France as part of their national identity. I would score this slightly higher, but the whole time I couldn't help but to compare it to the best silent film I've ever seen, Carl Theodore Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc from 1928, which also features probably the best performance I've ever seen in any film, silent or otherwise, by Maria Falconetti as Joan. But if that is the definitive version of her story, then Melies's film is like the illustrated children's version, and I don't mean that as a pejorative. 8/10 Boudu Saved from Drowning dir. Jean Renoir/1932/1h24m Michel Simon stars as the titular Boudu, a homeless man who, after his dog runs away, tries to kill himself by jumping into the Seine river. He is promptly saved by book store owner Edouard Lestingois (Charles Granval), who now feels that he is responsible for this man's life, but Boudu is not as thankful as he would have hoped. This film starts off like it's going to be about how Boudu is given a new lease on life and becomes a part of society thanks to his new friend but Boudu is a chaotic, mean spirited force of nature exposing the hypocrisy of the middle classes before moving on, totally unchanged, just a free spirit riding on the breeze. This is a satire on the notion that the bourgeoisie at the time treated poor people like little projects or pets rather than actual human beings (not like today of course), so here's Boudu to show them just how human the poor can be. I think this would've worked more if Boudu wasn't such an *sshole at times and played him as more of a prankster like Chaplin's Little tr*mp, but Simon's performance is always committed and you can't take your eyes off him when he's on screen, if only to make sure he doesn't steal your wallet. 7/10 Close-Up dir. Abbas Kiarostami/1990/1h38m In a breath-taking blend of fiction and documentary Iran's greatest filmmaker tells us the story of Hossain Sabzian who convinced a whole family, the Ahankhahs, that he was another legendary director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Over a couple of weeks he insinuates himself into the family, promising to give them roles in his next film and saying he wants to use their house as a location. With the help of journalist Hossain Farazmand he is exposed as a fraud and arrested. In this film all of these people play themselves and re-enact the entire story, from Sabzian's first chance meeting with the mother of the Ahankhah family on a bus up to his arrest. This is intercut with footage from Sabzian's trial, which Kiarostami got permission to film, and ends in a truly beautiful sequence where Sabzian gets to meet his hero Makhmalbaf and the two go to visit the Ahankhah house. This is a story about identity and what you do if you don't feel like you really have one. The performances, if you can even call them that, are all incredible, with Sabzian coming across quite sympathetically. The neorealist style of the filmmaking really helps to blur the line between fiction and reality perfectly, always making us question if what we're seeing is real or a reconstruction. Film as reality as film. 9/10 Ashkal dir. Youssef Chebbi/2022/1h35m This Tunisian police procedural follows two cops, Fatma (Fatma Oussaifi) and Batal (Mohamed Grayaa), as they investigate a series of murders where the victims are burned alive without resisting. Meanwhile, Fatma's father is leading a government inquiry on police corruption making her persona non grata in the force. This is a slow burn (pun intended) of a thriller with hints of noir and a fantastically oppressive atmosphere represented by Fatma spending a lot of time engulfed by the bare skeletons of the construction sites where a lot of the murders take place. The film strays into the supernatural as it progresses but it seems to be symbolic of the countries dictatorial past rather than anything actually spooky and, being as I know nothing about Tunisia, it just adds to the mystery of the film. Oussaifi is great in the lead, conveying a lot without much dialogue. Her determination in the face of the struggles she faces at work due to the political tensions caused by her father is written in her every expression. 9/10 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger/1943/2h36m (surprisingly no trailer for this, so here's a short video about its restoration by Scorsese's Film Foundation) General Candy (Roger Livesey), elderly leader of a home guard troop doesn't get the respect of his men who think he's old and past it. Through flashbacks we learn about his life and military career through both the Boer War and WWI. Most importantly of all is his lifelong friendship with German officer Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Adolf Wohlbruck), who he first meets as an opponent in a duel. A war film made during WWII could be nothing more than flag waving propaganda, but Powell and Pressburger are much better than that and here have the b*lls to make an anti-war film that doesn't present every German as a maniacal n*zi. The best scene in the film is Kretschmar-Schuldorff lamenting the loss of his family at the onset of WWII, not because they died but because his sons turned into “good n*zis”, and how he links that loss to the loss of WWI when he failed as an officer. It should go without saying that this is a gorgeously shot film with a use of colour that rivals The Red Shoes. The two lead performances are excellent and really compliment each other well. Their relationship and the way it develops over the years is done so naturally that you never doubt their friendship for a second. Not quite on the same level as Powell and Pressburger's very best films, this is still an impactful and touching portrait of enduring friendship. 8.5/10 The London Story dir. Sally Potter/1986/15m (no trailer for this) Jack Winger (Jacky Langsley) is a mysterious woman creeping around Westminster recruiting a doorman who really loves opening doors (George Antoni), and an ex minister (Arthur Fincham) for a plot to overthrow the government. It ends with a dance routine by the Thames. This short film is very light on details and feels more like a satirical sketch by some students who recently discovered politics than a film by an accomplished director who would go on to make a masterpiece like Orlando. I did like the scene of the doorman practicing opening a door in his flat, and the dance routine is fun but otherwise this is pretty forgettable stuff. 4/10

Yes. Me too. I’ve watched several horror movies recently…will rewatch them to get nice reviews up. Glad I can count on you and DJ keeping this alive. Thank you both of you. When Evil Lurks - 5/5….this is terror, wrapped in horror. The Zone of Interest (2024) - 5/5....Phenomenal. Late Night with the Devil (2024) - 4/5 No One Will Save You - 4/5 It Comes At Night - 3/5 Satanic Hispanics - 3/5 Black Phone - 3/5 Abigail - 2/5 Saw X - 1/5 (didn’t finish, I stopped it 20 minutes in. DO NOT MAKE GORE ACCIDENTALLY FUNNY. GORE IS NOT A GAME.)

The Coffee Table (2022) If you never heard of this. Don’t look it up. Don’t spoil it. All you need to know is that a couple buys a coffee table that is going to bring them a lifetime of happiness. You will need a strong healthy horror heart and mind for this one. While this isn’t gory or ultra violent, the inciting incident is the horror, and could be given away in summaries and descriptions of the film. Avoid them. This is not for the tame. But not because it’s bloody or gory, it’s just worse than that. I watched it not knowing what to expect, I had my own idea of what the film was going to be about, but the film quickly put me in my f*cking place. I hope some of you are brave enough to watch it, so we can discuss it. It is just well crafted in every aspect. Some say the dialogue was too much when it came to the dark comedy, but those folks don’t realize that the genius of it is the fact that the dialogue is NOT meant to come across as funny. We just become conditioned to have no choice but to chuckle, when we know damn well, we shouldn’t be. I love that the exchanges serve as HAMMERS to “remind” us. Final Verdict…..4/5…..I watched it twice in one sitting. Not a full score because the ending, while very good, I felt that at that point, could have been exceptional. It is in Spanish with English subtitles, and I can assure you, nothing is lost in translation.

William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996) dir Baz Luhrman Baz Luhrman's second feature film is a slick and s*xy, modern day adaptation of Shakespeare's famous tragedy. The script is all Shakespeare's words (as far as I am aware), but it's set in the late 20th century, with some clever use of situations and backgrounds to make those words work in that setting. Verona, Italy, becomes the fictitious Verona Beach, USA, (filmed in Mexico); the city's leader becomes Chief Prince of the VBPD; the swords in the fight scenes become the “Sword 9mm” pistol and it starts and ends with the Chorus (narrator) as a TV news presenter. It was probably the big breakthrough performances for Leonardo di Caprio (far from my favourite actor) and Claire Danes in the lead roles, although he clearly went on to much bigger things than she did. They both do well, but the best performances, for me, are some of the support roles. Pete Postlethwaite as Father Lawrence and Miriam Margolyes as Juliet's Nurse are great as the adult confidantes of the teenage leads. Harrold Perrineau (The Matrix, Lost) is very good as Romeo's friend Mercutio but the best performance is John Leguizamo as Juliet's cousin Tibalt. He really ramps up the hate and loathing he has for anyone of Romeo's family and at times seems like he can hardly allow himself to breath the very same air that may have been tainted by a “dog of the house of Montague”. It's visually stunning, with great sets and costumes. It has a brilliant, modern, sound track with songs by Radiohead, Garbage, Kim Mazelle, Des'ree and many more. Once upon a time I would have said this was one of my all time favourite films, I still rate it very highly, but I've seen a lot more films since this first came out. 9 / 10

What I Watched This Week #124 (May 13-19) Calamity Jane dir. David Butler/1953/1h41m This musical western stars Doris Day in the title role of the rootingest, tootingest cowgirl in the town of Deadwood who likes to embellish tales of her escapades. She gets in trouble with the locals when she promises to bring back a famous actress to perform in the saloon but, through a case of mistaken identity, she brings back unknown Katie Brown (Allyn Ann McLerie). There is a romance plot here between Jane and Wild Bill Hickock (Howard Keel) but the real romance here is between Jane and Katie. It's just so in your face how gay this is that it's hilarious and I'm totally here for it. There is one musical number where the two decorate Jane's cabin up all fancy so the two of them can live together and it's called “A Woman's Touch”. It's supposed to be a song about how to be the perfect wife but come on, it's so not. Day is just so charming in the lead even though she really doesn't fit the role, but she makes up for that with her performances in all of the song and dance routines. 7/10 Doctor Who dir. Geoffrey Sax/1996/1h29m Coming between the end of Doctor Who's original run in 1989 and its revival in 2005 this TV film sees Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor (my personal favourite classic Doctor) get gunned down in the streets of San Francisco at the turn of the new millennium and regenerate into Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor who must battle his mortal nemesis The Master (Eric Roberts) and save the world. The best thing about this film is McGann who is excellent as The Doctor so it's a shame that this is basically his only appearance in the role. There are times where he is a bit too much of an action-hero, which isn't really in the spirit of the character but those are few and far between. Roberts is an over-acting ham here and is very much just a stereotypical evil guy when The Master and The Doctor are supposed to be like two sides of the same coin, but it is fun to watch. The biggest problem I have with this is that there's not much actual sci-fi and alien nonsense with much of it playing out like an action film. I'm just saying that if you're making a Doctor Who film and set it all on Earth then you're doing something wrong. Also the effects have aged terribly, the companion and love interest. Dr. Grace Holloway (Daphne Ashbrook), is bland, and the story is boring. But Paul McGann is really, really good. 5/10 Strasbourg 1518 dir. Jonathan Glazer/2020/10m This short film from Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer, Strasbourg 1518, features several contemporary dancers filmed in isolation during the first COVID lockdown freestyling to a repetitive earworm of a banger by Mica Levi. The title refers to a dancing plague that spread across the city in that year that saw people spontaneously break out into the freshest of moves. This film captures the manic intensity of that event through a modern lens and also the madness of isolation from that period. Like the song that this is set to, this film almost starts to become monotonous but ends before that really happens. My favourite dancers are the lady who rhythmically and repetitively takes off and puts on a cardigan, a bald dude who just f*cking goes for it throwing himself around, and a woman who uses a tub of water in her piece, flapping around like a wet flannel, though I was worried about her slipping over on her wood floor. 8/10 Love Lies Bleeding dir. Rose Glass/2024/1h44m Director Rose Glass's follow up to her brilliant 2019 debut Saint Maud, Love Lies Bleeding stars Katy O'Brian as Jackie, an aspiring female bodybuilder stopping off in a small New Mexico town on her way to Vegas for a competition. While there she meets and quickly falls in love with gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart), but things are complicated by Lou's violently criminal family led by her father Lou Sr. (Ed Harris). This is a bloody and brutal thriller with a brilliantly pulpy and sleazy atmosphere that makes everything feel like it's covered in a fine layer of grime. O'Brian is a fantastic lead, totally dominating the film both physically – she is a damn fine specimen of a woman – and emotionally. She's like a raw nerve and the use of extreme close ups showing her muscles rippling threateningly under her skin really shows the animalistic side of her, something that comes into full effect in the absolutely bonkers ending. This is Thelma and Louise on steroids and I loved it. 9/10 Evil Does Not Exist dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi/2023/1h46m Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) lives with his young daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) in a small village in the countryside where he is a respected member of the community. A development company wants to open up a glamping site nearby, regardless of the consequences to the environment. This is a film that takes its time to build up its characters through observation. The opening watches Takumi performing odd-jobs for his community. We sit in on the meeting between the locals and representatives of the company, Takahashi and Mayuzumi (Ryuji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani) and then a meeting between them and their boss, and a car journey between the two of them, very reminiscent of key scenes in the director's previous film Drive My Car. Like that film this is also about communications and problems that arise when they break down, most importantly of all the communication between man and nature. This is all tied together with a gorgeously mournful score by Eiko Ishibashi. To quote a review I read for this, evil does not exist because everybody is just doing their job. 9/10 Hands Up! dir. Jerzy Skolimowski/1981/1h21m Made in 1967, this film was immediately banned by the communist government because of its criticism of Stalinism and the director was banished from Poland. At the fall of the regime he got the footage back, recorded a new introduction giving more context to the film and released it. A surreal satire that sees four medical students travelling in a train boxcar who all refer to each other by the make of car they drive and make overt references to the holocaust, with the carriage becoming filled with ash by the end of the film. Not knowing a great deal about the politics of Poland at the time many of the references and satirical digs were lost on me, but what wasn't was the sheer anger of Skolimowski's bought full force in this mesmerising and radical film. 8.5/10 Let It Be dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg/1970/1h29m This newly restored version of Michael Lindsay-Hogg's documentary sees The Beatles gather together in January 1969 to write and record the songs that would make up their final album, Let It Be, in their Apple Corps offices. It culminates with their final live performance on the rooftop, with John Lennon joking at the end “I hope we passed the audition.” What's amazing about watching these men work is that they are clearly geniuses from another world, but at the same time they are so normal and, well, scouse. The moment when Paul stares right into the camera and into your soul while he performs the title song totally broke me, it was so beautiful. What can you say about this? It's like if there was a documentary crew around to film DaVinci paint the Mona Lisa or Shakespeare write Hamlet. But better, becase this also has Billy Preston on keys. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Meet the Robinsons dir. Stephen J. Anderson/2007/1h35m Genius twelve year old inventor Lewis (Daniel Hansen) gets caught up in an overly complicated time-travel plot (aren't they all?) involving the villanous Bowler Hat Guy (director Anderson) and mysterious teenager from the future Wilbur (Wesley Singerman). This is a huge step up from Chicken Little, although some of the character designs are still a little grotesque. The biggest difference here is the lighting which really brings some life to the scenes, something lacking from the last Disney film. A pretty decent Danny Elfman score and some genuine laughs elevate this above average, and I loved Adam West as a superhero pizza delivery guy. Not brilliant, but a big step in the right direction. 6.5/10

What I Watched This Week #121 (April 22-28) The Housemaid dir. Im Sang-soo/2010/1h47m A remake of a 1960 film of the same name, The Housemaid stars Jeon Do-yeon as Eun-yi, a young woman hired by a wealthy couple to look after their child. Once in the house the husband Hoon (Lee Jung-jae) uses his position of authority to seduce and impregnate her. A psychosexual social commentary on inequality this is a beautifully shot film with a great lead performance by Do-yeon. The plot of this film does stray pretty far from that of the original. Here Eun-yi is the victim whereas in the original she is the one who manipulates and controls the family she works for, which I think makes for a more interesting story, very much like a prototypical Parasite. I do like some of the changes and appreciate the fact that they wanted to do something different, but this in no way matches the deranged insanity that the original spirals into. That said, this is still a finely crafted thriller with some well placed shocks. 7/10 Cries and Whispers dir. Ingmar Bergman/1972/1h35m A period drama from Ingmar Bergman, Cries and Whispers stars Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin and Harriet Andersson as Maria, Karin and Agnes, three sisters, the latter of which is dying of cancer. Rather than coming together to comfort her, their reunion only brings up painful memories with only the maid, Anna (Kari Sylwan), offering any care to the dying woman. A film about how grief can not only bring people together but also force them apart, this to me makes up an unofficial trilogy alongside Persona and Autumn Sonata – Bergman films starring Liv Ullmann about women confined together in a single location getting heavy with the emotions. Bergman's theatre background shines through in his framing and composition, especially the positions of characters in his frame. His use of the colour red here would make Pedro Almodóvar jealous. An emotionally exhausting watch, this isn't quite as good as the other two films mentioned earlier, but when they are both masterpieces you can't be too upset. 8.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Jill, Uncredited dir. Anthony Ing/2022/18m You won't recognise her name or her face, but you will have seen Jill Goldston before as she has appeared as an extra in nearly 2000 film and TV productions between 1960 and 2009 from the Carry On series and Mr. Bean to Aliens and The Elephant Man. This short film takes clips where she is briefly seen and slows them down, zooming in on the more and more recognisable face as she brushes past Malcolm McDowall on the street or assists Anthony Hopkins with surgery. There's something of an ominous tone to this film as it at times feels like we're stalking this woman, piecing together her life from brief glimpses, never coming close to a full portrait. A mesmerising tribute to all of the people who make films feel alive, this has also made Jill's face as recognisable to me as any of the A-listers who were lucky enough to work alongside her. 7/10 Chicken Little dir. Mark Dindal/2005/1h21m Zach Braff stars as the titular character who becomes the joke of his town and brings shame on his father when he claims that the sky is falling. But what if there really is something else up there? This is f*cking awful. It's Disney's first fully CGI film – Dinosaur had live action backgrounds – and it's one of the ugliest films I've ever seen. All of the characters look like they should be in constant pain and there is nothing natural about their movements. The script is bland and unfunny and none of the lead performances stood out. Braff is a terrible lead with no charm whatsoever. The only bit I liked here was the film-within-a-film that had Adam West as a beefy Chicken Little. 1/10 Clowns dir. Marco Bellocchio/2016/18m (no trailer or any video at all about this film exists, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it does) Clowns is a short film about a rehearsal of the opera I Pagliacci and a dinner party at the rich backer's home afterwards where a hypnosis session brings up all sorts of family drama. There are some interesting ideas here and it does feel like it's building towards something, but ultimately it all just feels a bit underdeveloped and goes nowhere. Lucia Ragni gives the best performance as the cold and heartless matriarch of the family, and I loved the scene of Corrado Invernizzi singing the clown's part from the opera. Other than that this is sadly pretty forgettable. 5/10 The Red Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry dir. Faris Alrjoob/2023/21m Ida (Clara Schwinning) travels from Germany to a small town on the Red Sea in Jordan to investigate the disappearance of her husband Ismail (Ahmed Shihab-Eldin), who is presumed dead. A rumination on grief and the absence of a loved one shot on grainy 16mm film this is a haunting experience with a powerful lead performance from Schwinning. In a way this feels like a story about the living haunting the dead, following them just one step behind, wanting to inhabit the same spaces they used to. I would love to see a feature length version of this story. 8/10 The Lords of Flatbush dir. Martin Davidson, Stephen Verona/1974/1h26m The Lords of Flatbush stars Sylvester Stallone in his first lead role not in a softcore p*rn film as a member of a gang of teenagers hanging around Brooklyn in the late fifties, with Henry Winkler also in the gang. There's not much of a plot here, the biggest throughline was Stallone's character getting his girlfriend pregnant and being pressured into marrying her – the scene in the jewellery store where he gets pissed about the price of rings is the best scene in the film. This is like an east coast, working class American Graffiti. It's all about those last dying days of childhood before the responsibilities of the world smack you in the face and tells you to get a job. Apart from the novelty of seeing a pre-Rocky Stallone and a pre-Fonz Winkler there's not really anything to recommend this. Not that there's anything awful here, it's just all pretty generic. 5/10

Curvature (2017) dir Dieogo Hallivis An interesting, low-budget sci-fi, but with a confusingly flawed plot and at times terrible script and support acting. Scientist Helen (Lyndsy Fonseca) returns to work a couple of weeks after her husband killed himself. He was also a scientist and his company has invented a time machine. What seems to her a day or so later she awakes a bit groggy and discovers she cannot remember the past 7 days. She then gets a phone call from a mysterious woman warning her someone is coming to kill her. She goes to her family hunting cabin and there she finds some things not quite as expected, as if someone was leaving her clues and eventually works out things are not what they seemed to be at first. As I said already the plot is confusing. What we are eventually meant to believe has happened involves someone using the time machine to travel into their own past, to get their past self to do something different. So now, in the timeline we are watching at least, there are 2 copies of this character. This ought to make for an interesting plot about the consequences of time travel, if it were possible. But it's just badly written and does not explore this the way a serious sci-fi film ought to. For example the fact that someone goes back into their own past, making two copies of themselves, surely means one of those two is also going to go back in time eventually, so then there then will be 3 of them, and then one of those will go back in time to make 4, etc etc. It also has some pretty cheap plot elements and crappy lines. There is one bit were someone is tracking another person down, finds them inside a locked room, and says something like “OK, come out or I'll count to 10 then smash the door down”. Why would you give your enemy a 10 s warning!? It's like a child wrote it at times. However it's still an interesting story and the lead actor manages to hold things together despite the poor support. 4 / 10

What I Watched This Week #120 (April 15-21) Of Time and the City dir. Terence Davies/2008/1h18m Of Time and the City is a documentary collage film made up of newsreel and archive footage that builds up a picture of the director's childhood in Liverpool during the 50's and 60's. This is like film as a memory, fragmented and broken into unrelated segments as if it were edited by stream of consciousness all scored to a majestic classical soundtrack. The narration, by Davies himself, is just like the rest of the film, at times he snarls about religion and the royal family, at others he rhapsodises about his working class upbringing, his s*xual awakening. Both incredibly personal and universal – he could be talking about a thousand cities, a thousand lives – the juxtaposition of dirt poor children playing in the streets set to highbrow classical music does become a little laboured over the length of the film, but that is my only small negative I have for this very moving picture of time and place. 9/10 Joint Security Area dir. Park Chan-wook/2000/1h48m On the border of North and South Korea two Northern soldiers are killed by a soldier from the South with the investigation uncovering what seems to be a very strange mystery – too many bullets fired, stories not matching up – but the truth is much simpler and much more tragic. Director Park Chan-wook is a master of unravelling mysteries in interesting ways – Oldboy and the recent Decision to Leave being two prime examples – and this is no different, with the investigation uncovering more information relayed through flashbacks. Saying anything more about the plot would be to spoil it, but the tension never lets up, even during moments of levity, because one wrong move would be disastrous for both sides. The two lead performances of South Korean Sgt. Lee (Lee Byung-hun) and the North's Sgt. Oh (Song Kang-ho, probably the biggest star in Korean film right now thanks to his work with b*ng Joon-ho) are excellent. The film also ends with a brilliant still image from a scene in the middle of the film that is given a whole new meaning thanks to the context we subsequently get. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Dead of Night dir. Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer, Alberto Cavalcanti/1945/1h43m Dead of Night is an anthology horror film that stars Mervyn Johns as Walter Craig, an architect invited to a cosy little country inn to see about renovations, but when he arrives he realises that all of the people there, total strangers, are people he has seen in a dream, a dream where something terrible happens at the end, but he can't remember what. We then get four of the guests telling spooky stories of their own, which makes up the majority of the film. While the first three stories are good, especially the more comedic one about a dead golfer haunting his friend, it's the last one that really sticks with you. It stars Michael Redgrave as ventriloquist Maxwell Frere who goes mad with jealousy thinking that his d*mmy Hugo wants to leave him for another ventriloquist. It felt very much like an inspiration for the brilliant Anthony Hopkins film Magic (and every other creepy ventriloquist's d*mmy in media.) Chilling and charming in equal measure, this is a fun watch with some genuine thrills sprinkled throughout. 9/10 The Guard dir. John Michael McDonagh/2011/1h36m Mean, miserable, drug addled and prostitute loving small town Irish cop Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is less than pleased when he's teamed up with FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to bust an international drug smuggling ring. This is a black comedy with a real mean streak that you can't help but to compare to the works of the director's brother Martin McDonagh, particularly In Bruges. It's a testament to this film that it's not a totally unflattering comparison. Gleeson is always a joy to watch, even when he's playing someone so aggressively unlikeable. Cheadle doesn't really have a lot to do other than be amazed that Boyle is saying/doing the things that he's saying/doing, but he does it well. It does fell a little too mean spirited at points, but that is softened by a few scenes where Boyle meets with his equally foul-mouthed mother (Fionnula Flanagan), and I really liked Mark Strong's character of a drug dealer who feels like he's above it all. 7/10 The Party dir. Sally Potter/2017/1h11m Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas) is throwing a party to celebrate getting a shadow ministerial position but her husband Bill (Timothy Spall) seems distant and distracted, her best friend April (Patricia Clarkson) is splitting up with her partner, the very zen Godfried (Bruno Ganz), and Tom (Cillian Murphy) has turned up upset with a load of cocaine and a gun. A blackly comic social satire, this gets a little too verbose at times and feels like the characters are just spouting ideologies rather than having conversations for a lot of the very short runtime, but when it is as well written as this is you can forgive that for the most part. The performances are all solid. Clarkson's withering insults had me cackling every time, and I couldn't get enough of Ganz's Godfried, especially when he starts a therapy session for Bill and Tom. This film also has a really strong ending which I didn't see coming but that the script had seeded subtly throughout in a very smart way. 8.5/10 The Cure dir. Charlie Chaplin/1917/24m In this mid tier Chaplin short he plays an alcoholic who checks in to a health spa in order to sober up, but it's going to be a hard job when he brings a case full of booze with him. In the end the spa's well of curative water is spiked with alcohol and everyone enjoys getting blasted. During the film he makes classic slapstick out of revolving doors, the changing rooms and has a wrestling match with a burly masseuse. For me, whenever Chaplin strays from the character of the little tr*mp his films lose a bit of their heart and humanity. Rather than actually having anything to say this film is more like his earlier works in that it's just a succession of gags. They're really good ones performed by the best to ever do it, but when you know he's capable of more then you can't help but feel a little disappointed. That said, this is still better than the majority of films from the time and we're lucky to still have them. 6.5/10 Dilating for Maximum Results dir. Nyala Moon/2023/14m Trans woman Dreya (writer/director Nyala Moon) is going to hook up with her online boyfriend for the first time, but she has never been with a man and hasn't dilated in years, with this comedy following her as she tries to get ready. You learn something new every day, and the day I watched this film I learned that trans women need to dilate to stop from closing up, and that is what we get here in what I can only call a zany way. My main problem with this film is that the comedy is very TikTok if that makes sense. It's just not my taste, but that's me being an old man not hip with the kids. I do like how much of Moon's personality shines through here, she's very engaging and likeable. I also appreciate seeing a film about a trans woman that's not depressing and only focuses on negative experiences. 6/10 TRAY TRAY KO dir. Seba Calfuqueo/2022/6m (no trailer so here's the artist performing another piece in a gallery) This avant-garde piece of indigenous art see filmmaker Calfuqueo drag a long train of shimmering blue material through the Chilean rainforest to a sacred spot at the base of a waterfall. The only sounds are that of the forest and the water. The material is like a stream of man's making, leaving its mark on the landscape but only for a second, only until Calfuqueo hass passed by. There's a gorgeous overhead shot of the synthetic stream running next to a real one, man in harmony with nature. Hypnotic and meditative. 7/10