I caught this yesterday afternoon, and was really looking forward to it, as it sounded like a film with a lot of ambition and imagination, and I’ve not been having a great film-going year. This, it appears, will continue, as — jesus wept — I absolutely loathed this film and had to force myself to sit through this gibbe…

A belated shout-out to say:  This was one of my favourite films of the year, for it’s all-out bonkers premise and execution. Loved it.

Some of these have yet to be released over here in the UK, and I really regret missing both Licorice Pizza and West Side Story, but managed to see The Power of the Dog at the London Film Festival last year, and found it underwhelming: A plodding melodrama which takes a trio of great actors and doesn’t seem to know…

Fun, but not Oscar material, maybe. To be honest, I spent most of its running time wishing and hoping it would be funnier and that everyone was either overracting or not bothering at all, but I did think that last dinner scene really brought it all home and was a really beautiful piece of filmmaking.

While a lot of these have yet to see the light of day over here, I do agree with the top two, which I got to see at the London film Festival this year, both of which made my top 10. Others, though....About Endlessness is the lesser of Andersson’s recent films, a muted postscript to his delightful trilogy which seems…

Saw this at the London Film Festival this year, and sat through most of it thinking, “What is this film for??” It wasn’t faithful enough to be biography, and not daring enough to be seen as an artsy take, and there wasn’t anything that hadn’t been seen a million times before, even from a single episode of The Crown.…

I fully agree — I can’t see this working as a film, but as a TV drama, it was incomparable, and is definitely up there with one of the best things I’ve seen on TV this year, a pressure-cooker of a chamber piece.  The acting was jaw-droppingly good, and Horgan’s long monologue about her mother left me absolutely…

“It’s worth noting that Lashana Lynch’s Nomi creates just as strong of an impression as de Armas”

Yet more ways this unbearably, embarrassingly unfunny show will litter the universe.  Great.

The Man in the Hat — it’s a quirky, picaresque tale in which Ciaran Hinds plays the eponymous Man, driving across France in a Fiat 500 with a framed photo of a young woman. It’s a string of vignettes, some poignant, some surreal, with great scenery and fabulous musical interludes. It’s got charm in abundance and is…

So many of these haven’t made it across the Atlantic, or probably wouldn’t travel well, anyway, but a year of living streamingly has left us with rich pickings, and I was surprised that Mae Martin’s Feel Good didn’t make the grade. It was easily up there with the best for me - so funny, tender and raw, while we were…

The Daily Mail is one of the most right-wing newspapers (if not THE most right wing newspaper) we have in the UK. Anti-immigrant, constantly raging against socialist plots, it has a long history of fascism (it’s proprietor back in the 30s, Lord Rothermere, absolutely lurrrved Mr Hitler). If even they print something…

I watched this last night and it’s already gone straight to my number 1 slot of 2020 films. A difficult, disorientating kaleidoscope of memory and loss, there was just so much to take in,and it’s a rare film I’d gladly see again just to catch all the references. I found myself in the difficult position of…

I kind of lost interest after Lost in Space, skipped Charmer and Smilers, but for some reason came back for Mental Illness, a decision I regretted, as it’s rinky-tink 3/4 acoustic waltzing ditties bored the hell out of me.

Interesting article. I loved Aimee Mann from her debut album (where her anger and fierceness still make it one of my favourites of hers) and looked forward to seeing this film on its release, even though Boogie Nights just left me going, “Meh”. To my surprise - and that of everyone I knew - I absolutely loathed Magnoli…

JoJo Rabbit is not the new Life Is Beautiful because the former is a wildly inventive, blackly funny, free-wheeling film, while the latter was a saccharine, Holocaust-scrubbing piece of shit. It was “Norman Wisdom Goes to Auschwitz”, with a spotlessly clean camp. I hated it then and got a lot of flak for it. I saw…

In honesty I should point out that I seriously thought that THIS was the last ever episode. I’ve seen the next (and I assume last) episode last night and realised my stupid mistake, but in my own defence the whole season had drifted without much in the way of pace and shape, so thinking that the finale would be so…

I thought the first two seasons of The Good Place were up with the finest ever shown on TV -- intelligent, sharply written, funny and deeply humane and thought-provoking.  After that, I really felt it lost its way -- the third season was patchy and wayward as if, having proven itself, it got distracted and lost…

Just finished watching Dracula over here in the UK, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Purists will be upset (and I’ve already encountered one irate viewer) but it’s a dark, bloody and extremely blackly funny adaptation, which shows a lot of imagination and wit.  Gatiss is a fan of horror films and is knowledgeable about…

Thank god you’ve got Gentleman Jack in there -- Suranne Jones is truly astonishing in this role, and made it one of the most purely enjoyable series I saw all year.  Just watching her stride manfully across a ballroom while decked out in frills and taffeta was one of my TV highlights.  Not bad at all for someone who…