Fallen Leaves’ commanding of its dry humour had me laughing louder than most comedies I’ve watched this year: perfectly timed, perfectly melancholic. You’re watching a romance between two awkward people emerge in stops and starts at once - they learn to trust, accept their flaws: and it all starts with The Dead Don’t Die, in an hilarious cinema date that had me tip this film from “yes, I like this” into “yes, this is absolutely a masterpiece”.
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Pacifiction 2022
Something of a marvel - a bit too long, undoubtedly, but all the better because of it. Lots of geopolitics on a grand, seedy scale - touching on themes of colonialism and an ever growing sense of despair. It's hypnotic of course; even in its slower moments - and it's the best political thriller since Olivier Assayas' underrated Wasp Network so of course I loved it.
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A Thousand and One 2023
Oscar nomination for Teyana Taylor please and thank you. Emotional, a powerful knockout of a film that captures the essence of 90s New York perfectly - as far as explorations of the complicated dynamic between mothers and sons go - there are few better films than this. A sobering fight against the system as options are running out at every turn.
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Champions 2023
Fun and you can't help but like Champions - even if it pulls all the manipulative tricks to make you like it, but ultimately this film feels way too long and you know exactly where everything is going from the word go; as it telegraphs everything way too early. Maybe about half an hour shorter could've improved this one.
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Cocaine Bear 2023
Not quite the level of camp that it wants to be unfortunately - and wastes a fantastic cast that's far too good to be in a project like this. Too many characters and far too sprawling even for a tight 96 minutes. Think its biggest offense is it makes a film with that title dull.
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A Matter of Life and Death 1946
Hey, I grew up near that beach! what a film - second viewing but first on the big screen and I just love the moment when this film transitions from black and white to glorious technicolour; its depicition of the real world being the colour and the fantastical being black and white hasn't been topped since. The conversation between David Niven and Kim Hunter over the radio oozes class and chemistry, Niven impeccable as ever; Pressburger and Powell maybe the best to ever do it: when watching this film on the big screen it really feels like the best movie ever made, no competition.
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Orlando 1992
Magically queer and so ahead of its time in so many ways to the point where it almost feels revolutionary now - Sally Potter's Orlando, watched on the big screen for the first time with an introduction from Jenny Chamarette; tells the discovery and the transition of sex that comes with the sprawling decades running from 1600s up to the then present day and the 1990s. It's a superb performance from Tilda Swinton who we first see as a young…
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The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1943
A satire of the attitude of pre WW1 soldiers and a film that Churchill tried to suppress due to the way he saw that it painted British soldiers. Its comedy is excellent and seeing this with an audience led to a fantastic experience, and that remaster is a marvel! Earns its length and the way it tells a story between the two wars using WW2 as a bookend and placing the excellent Deborah Kerr front and centre - it’s hard not to fall in love with this one. No such thing as minor Powell & Pressburger.
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An American in Paris 1951
Magical. The whole tap dancing sequence at the end was enough for me to fall in love and the theatrical comedy and charm played by the love triangle and the elevation of the broke artist to high society is handled well, thanks in no small part due to Gene Kelly and his charm - and the circle of friends An American in Paris surrounds him with. The set design is something special, and it was just a joy to experience this for the first time at the cinema.
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Napoleon 2023
He came from nothing. He conquered everything. Ridley Scott’s rags to riches tale of Napoleon; a general who conquered most of Europe – is anything but another Gladiator which many of you may have been expecting. Instead; it’s an inside look, thanks to the always brilliant multifaceted Joaquin Phoenix performance, of an addictive and volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine, who he marries but has to divorce after learning that she cannot bear a child. Now Emperor, the future of…
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