Category Archives: Film

Oct 16 2026
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Art, Cinema, Film, Uncategorized

The King of Comedy (1982).

This movie got so uncomfortable, for the sixth viewing, that yes, it was a wee bit of a struggle – was celebrity worship like this before the internets? – to not turn it off, Scorsese pushing the awkwardness to the max.

De Niro’s strange concoction that is Rupert Pupkin keeps turning up, the proverbial gatecrasher, won’t take no for an answer and as confident as can be, wholly without any insight into his own insanity. He’s Travis Bickle but less visually threatening. But just as mental.

Celebrity is the answer to this lad’s problems in the most static, non-expressionist masterpiece Scorsese made. The visual discipline even works in its favour in how it defines the insufferable presence of this Pupkin creation.

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Oct 12 2026
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Film, Movie, Movies

The Shadow (1994).

For a movie exclaiming to be all about the gargantuan power of the mind and the grand role of shadows as a visual metaphor (about … something), it displays scant interest in either.

I don’t know what this is meant to be. I don’t think anyone in it knew, either.

But it’s certainly pish.

Alec Baldwin, somehow the least annoying Baldwin of four vexing Baldwins, did have most of the attributes you’d apply to leading man goodies – aside from likeability. He even peacocks his Austin Powers/Ryan Giggs chest hair/love rug here with no irony attempted. B for Baldwin effort.

But he’s still delusional in his attempts at the hero role because he’s rubbish at it.

Some actors are better when they’re that frazzled weirdo in a supporting role.

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Oct 05 2026
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Blackhat (2015).

An all-engulfing snooze which doesn’t quite understand its subject matter, its technological obsessions appearing as suppositions, you don’t believe a minute of it. And it’s boring, most boring.

You’re asked to be invested in scenes that have no meaning; there are no characters and the only dialogue the speakers spew out is unfettered jargon. We also have cringe effects, like Michael Mann wasn’t aware that a groovy POV shot in a mainframe has been regurgitated a hundred times since the 56K modem took a shit.

There is also a scene in this that channels a seminal moment in Manhunter (1986) when Will Graham figures out that Francis Dolarhyde has seen the home vids, with “You son of a bitch” the declarative sentence. I was horrified at how the director has ripped off his own work.

What a rotten, pathetic movie Blackhat (2015) is.

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Sep 28 2026
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Cinema, Film, Uncategorized

Marty Supreme (2025).

Talk about pizzazz and energy. This is the type of movie Paul Thomas Anderson used to make, may he rest in peace. I know absolutely fuck all about ping-pong other than that Forrest Gump aced it once, but I’m sure it’s not as exciting as depicted here.

Breathless fun.

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Sep 21 2026
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Art, Cinema, Film

Days of Thunder (1990).

In a noisy worship of star wattage, it’s all about Cruise – the cocky rookie with the hair, the teeth, the swag, but the inevitable soft underbelly – in what must have been pitched and billed as “Top Gun on wheels”, or is that the lazy retrospective narrative?

Aside from the curiosity factor, mainly how on earth this even got made, it’s a fucking bore for the ages that offers negligible reasons for your investment. Highlights: Erstwhile senator Fred Thompson plays an authority figure, and Michael Rooker plays a Michael Rooker character.

Less a movie than a glossy music video with a few inchoate ideas twirling around, occasionally intersecting amidst the deafening, pointless racket, one gets the impression this was written without cars in mind, but somehow they found their way into the ‘story’.

This one’s a long shift.

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Sep 14 2026
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) is funny.

There is a cringe-worthy delight to be found in just how mundane and pointless the conversations are in this gloriously weird movie, and by Kubrick’s design. Every interaction is awkward beyond belief.

The lad clearly didn’t think humans were the most eloquent bunch, and the dialogue here is Grade A stinky, the sort of exchanges one endures in an office, and on closer scrutiny in most scenarios in which one must converse.

I’ve not placed Eyes Wide Shut (1999) into the category of comedy before, but it’s a funny one, especially in the early hours when you’ve tanned too many Blue WKDs and require a chuckle.

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Aug 24 2026
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004).

For a topic seemingly so universal, this movie is trivial overkill to the max. Schematic, derivative, dire in its desperation to be something elevated beyond your standard Woody-Allen-with-an-edge (the edge is memory wiping in this one) snapshot of relationships, it stinks of needy filmmaking, and I’d lump it down there with Garden State (2004) as one of the worst of that era.

The boredom levels were high. I was mostly just … bored, even if everyone in it aside from Tom Wilkinson is a vexing hysteric. In this way, the film is insightful. People who dye their hair don’t have an actual personality. In general.

The lad who just wishes to make his birdhouse, though. He was funny:

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Aug 19 2026
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies

The Jackal (1997). Madness.

The highlight of The Jackal (1997) is seeing Bruce Willis’ inscrutable assassin inhabit a range of progressively goofy disguises and get away with it. In a rare villainous role, you never know what elaborate wig he’s going to don from one scene to the next.

One wishes it would just focus on this promising procedural stuff, as did its progenitor, instead of the needless Richard Gere IRA backstory. And his entire character arc. And his ‘accent’. Our funny intro to him is of the lad shadow boxing in his cell. How original! What writing! This movie also pushes the absurd fallacy that the Russian police – in the epoch of peak Yeltsin state gangsterism – were trying to smash the mafia. Give this motion picture points for trying too hard.

Sidney Poitier adds the expected gravitas in a role that would have worked better with him as the deuteragonist.

It’s entertaining trash and I recommend it. But I don’t think Roger Ebert liked it much:

‘There was never a moment in “The Jackal” where I had the slightest confidence in the expertise of the characters. The Jackal strikes me as the kind of overachiever who, assigned to kill a mosquito, would purchase contraband insecticides from Iraq and bring them into the United States by hot air balloon, distilling his drinking water from clouds and shooting birds for food.’

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Aug 17 2026
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies

The Enemy Below (1957).

However you fully define the dimensions of screen presence, Robert Mitchum had it. Few other actors – and this lad has variously been described as languid to lazy – have injected so much of his own personality into characters. This in a way contradicts the nature of acting, but if he were merely being himself, then Cape Fear (1962), The Night of the Hunter (1955), and Out of the Past (1947), must have all been different personas of an overall self.

‘His laid back, sleepy eyed intensity, has hypnotized audiences for decades.‘ – Halliwell’s Film Guide.

That’s The Enemy Below (1957).

Intense.

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Aug 10 2026
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies

Catch Me If You Can (2002).

An inconsequential bore, pointless in its totality, and I didn’t buy a word of it. It smelled of a fake movie about a fake man with fake stories, and the stories have been proven to be just that. This is riddled with unfunny jokes, facile attempts at characterisation, and it’s way too long.

A surfeit of irritating bimbos permeate this pathetic farce, and it’s embarrassing to see them swoon over Leo’s facepalm-inducing pick-up lines straight out of the depths of cringe.

What annoyed me the most was Spielberg’s attempts to inject a fake story with a fake father-and-son melodrama, with surrogate dad Hanks and real dad Walken. The latter is fine, the former is not as nauseating as usual but he is still a pain.

The movie was there so I watched it. I won’t be doing so again.

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