I like a film with ideas good enough to write about - even a failure can be of interest.
Favorite films
Recent activity
AllPinned reviews
More-
Nope 2022
Jordan Peele throws out his lasso and catches…something.
In the most distinguished film from a distinguished filmography, Peele conjures a disarmingly loose metaphor that still feels necessary and exact. The film warns against the dangers of symbolic control, while creating this very caution out of a series of well associated, uncanny images.
With this formal sleight of hand, Peele confirms his status as one of the best contemporary genre filmmakers.
Translated from by -
Infinity Pool 2023
Conscious that his career is drawn from a prefigured cinematic gene pool, this Cronenberg goes for a sunburnt, sordid satire, which is a step sideways from his previous grotesques.
In an early scene, a character drolly explains her talent for feigning how to ‘fail naturally’. As the ultra violence of Infinity Pool evaporates in a lurid hallucinogenic sun, the film’s overheated meanings increasingly conform to this behaviour, creating a kind of searching, touristic irony.
Translated from by
Recent reviews
More-
Wrath of Man 2021
Perhaps without expecting a Guy Ritchie picture to delve too deep into the recesses of human nature, Wrath of Man delivers a slick, single-minded crusade set in a world of double-crossings and score-settling. Jason Statham convinces as a taciturn tough guy with an explicit motivation, providing a clinical contrast to the standard teeth gnashing of the revenge genre. Ritchie chooses precipitating strings and ever-so rising action over conversational sprawl, reliably fine provisions to cover for any deficits in banter or wit in advance.
Translated from by -
Marching Powder 2025
Marching Powder is a spiritual successor to Nick Love’s cult favourite The Football Factory and, in case you were wondering guv, is definitely not its official sequel, committed as it is to cleaning up the act of its marooned middle aged disturber of the peace. Bubblegum pinks run across its promotional materials as if to refute accusations of unrepentant machismo, with Love’s latest qualifying as his first intentional romantic comedy. The romance is handled better than any of its humour,…
Translated from by
Popular reviews
More-
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget 2023
Swapping exfiltration for infiltration, and a soaring escape drama for a souped up spy escapade, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a likeable return to the unlikely world of plasticine poultry. The nimble visual stylings, solid craftsmanship and easily integrated cinematic reference points all keep the adventure appealing as the simplistic, less than free-range script is fenced in and often left struggling for purpose and genuinely new frontiers.
Translated from by -
Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire 2023
Zack Snyder is contemporary cinema’s most harmless fetishist - his pulpy pop-art is almost entirely enlisted for the slick rendition of tropes and visual teases - but he is also one of its most overinflated albeit recurring creatives. Rebel Moon finds Snyder in the rare situation of an original storyteller, segueing into an undercooked and oversaturated space fantasy, audaciously wagering that his intermittent aesthetic curiosities can cover for a sagging story and cut-out characterisations.
Predictable apologias for a ‘Deus Ex…
Translated from by
