Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Heat 1995

  ★★★★ Rewatched 18 Mar 2025

  A trip to see this in the cinema had to be abandoned last night after 40 minutes because the screen was too dark. “The manager says it’s fine”, I was told. 
  It looked so much better on my twelve year old TV this evening thanks to Disney+.

  I last saw it 30 years ago on release and I think I had exactly the same reaction: I was mostly thrilled by it but found the relationship between Neil and Eady unconvincing. It’s an important element but there’s enough going on elsewhere that it didn’t derail the excitement.

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  Before Stonewall 1984

  ★★★½ Watched 16 Mar 2025

  A Letterboxd review pointed out that Trans activists have been pretty much ignored in this telling of events here, something that didn’t even occur to me when watching, even though a lot of what was happening on screen reminded me of what Trans people are suffering today. 

  What we do get is still fascinating and important stuff, illustrated with plenty of archive footage. There’s a couple of pre-code movies featured which I’d like to seek out.

Popular reviews

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  Knives Out 2019

  ★★★★★ Watched 28 Nov 2019 3

  Generally, I don’t like whodunnits but with the glowing reviews and stellar cast, how could I resist?
  And with a very early visual nod towards 1972’s Sleuth (which, by coincidence, I rewatched just recently after about 30 years) I felt in safe hands. 

  My problem with whodunnits in general is that the reveal is often an anti-climax and all the interesting stuff is told in flashbacks at the end. Here there are plenty of flashbacks but they’re cleverly interwoven into…

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  'Pimpernel' Smith 1941

  ★★★★ Watched 30 Sep 2016

  A propaganda film that celebrates individuality, eccentricity and humour over the Nazi machine. And who better to personify such Englishness than Leslie Howard?
  He's just fantastic. 

  He performs a similar function in Powell and Pressburger’s Canadian adventure The 49th Parallel (1941) and he also directed The Gentle Sex (1943) a sensitive home-front propaganda film intended to encourage women to join the auxiliary army. 

  Unfortunately, in June 1943, he was killed along with other, possibly more important targets, when his passenger plane was shot down in neutral territory (Portugal) by Nazi machines.