Category Archives: Movie

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 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 21 2026
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Art, Cinema, Edinburgh, Movie, Movies

Trainspotting (1996).

The overriding cliché peddled about this masterly, dazzling cinema experience is that it was the mid-’90s version of A Clockwork Orange (1971). I don’t get that, but lazy film criticism like this permeates popular culture.

However, what defines this luxury work is how free of restraint and convention it is, that anything can happen in this magical realist slice of junkie hell.

Anyway, I saw the 30-year anniversary showing today and I am happy to report that everything in it works to peak levels.

A rare flawless movie, a 6/5.

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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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Aug 08 2026
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie

The Fifth Element (1997).

Another sensommer viewing of this marvellously mental movie (accidental alliteration).

It exists entirely within its own orbit and every frankly daft facet of it works because it’s congruent with the overriding narrative of stylised stupidity.

A feast for the eyes, the ears, … maybe not the brain when Chris Tucker is screaming. There is not a dull moment in this fervidly imaginative slice of peak Luc Besson, the pioneer of cinéma du look.

And Eric Serra should have done more film scores.

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Aug 05 2026
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies

The Odyssey (2026).

Some movies are event movies, such is the dearth of auteur cinema on the big screen today. Christopher Nolan, for better or worse, might just be the last director making epic blockbusters who is able to inject them with any kind of personal stamp and aesthetic idiosyncrasies. 

The Odyssey (2026) is, I am relieved to write, mostly pretty fucking awesome and a technical marvel. The only gripe I have is that the underwhelming denouement consists of the generic battle-infused run-of-the-mill crawl to the finish line that characterises hundreds of these flicks. 

That aside, the good stuff is fabulous, the episodic fantastical elements more then mere monster-of-the-week subplots, instead seamlessly embedded within the recognisable reality of a historical fiction, with its director’s preoccupation with time and fate.

And how does one top Brian Cox’s riotously unhinged Agamemnon in Troy (2004)? You go the opposite way and have him as a mute, full armour-clad beast the size of a Klitschko brother, even his warrior satraps – Odysseus included – quivering at his presence.

And Sleaze of the Year award goes to Robert Pattinson. I read that he based his performance on the redoubtable James Woods as Lester Diamond in Casino (1995). What an off-kilter but apt tribute. 

The Odyssey is the best version of Nolan. 

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