Wanderings and … wonderings.

It’s a rare movie that successfully depicts a vision of the future within an identifiable present you can recognise. It’s funny, a Utopian vision full of filth, Cruise graduating from the pristine confines of a police department to accidentally munching on a 12- year-old sandwich unearthed from Peter Stormare’s fridge.

Scarily accurate in its technological predictions, and the overarching powers of police surveillance in the age of preemptive strike, it’s a sad shame the script lifts verbatim a crucial scene from L.A. Confidential (1997). Flattery, or just lazy writing?

And the ending is embarrassing to watch, the cringe enduring image of three clairvoyants in old codger jumpers, reading books in a cottage, with a corny Cruise voice-over explaining why they are there.

It should have concluded with a bit more of the weirdness and ambiguity of Philip K. Dick.

Michael Madsen seemed to exist in this liminal space between trash and art, or how sometimes they can be intertwined. And let’s not forget the unforgettable creation, the lad who had a predilection for slicing ears off.

Scary man!

The biggest pat on the back I can bestow on this middling commercial is that it makes me wish to watch Jaws (1975) again for the 148th time.

Thanks.

Survived an hour of Joker: Folie à Deux (2024).

I understand, after much research, it’s a self-reflexive flick that draws attention to the audience’s alleged complicity in the villain’s crimes, or our fascination in them – hence the tedium, the daft singing, the proverbial strangling-the-cat. If that’s the point, what’s the point? If I want karaoke, I’ll listen to any pub in Edinburgh on a Saturday.

This film is one of the most painful experiences I’ve had to endure this year. I can rustle up a more captivating, less infuriating shitter with £500, and this wouldn’t even be an arduous quest. And I’m a fabulous singer compared to these two sawdust-throated failed crooners.

I fucking hate this movie.