Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  The Sect 1991

  ★★★★ Watched 24 Mar 2025

  BFI Player

  A really amazing film.

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  Fascination 1979

  ★★★★ Watched 14 Mar 2025

  BFI Player

  Erotic horror film. Great diaphonous robes under moonlight. Ends with a kiss (but not the usual kind). Director Jean Rollin’s father was a member of Georges Bataille’s secret society Acéphale.

Popular reviews

• 

  Shame 2011

  ★★★★★ Watched 13 Feb 2024 1

  C4

  I first saw this film at Cineworld, Middlesbrough with B. As we were waiting in the foyer, a guy loitering near asked (knowing the answer already): what’s this film about? Sexual addiction, I replied. He wandered off. There were just a few of us in a large cinema. Lots of empty seats. The loitering guy chose to sit in the seat right behind us.

• 

  She Will 2021

  ★★½ Rewatched 27 Feb 2025

  Amazon Prime

  There are some well-wrought images. Lots of debt being paid to: Kubrick (especially) , Deren, Tarkovsky . . . which means some beautiful and intense cinematography. There’s a very unpleasant male character Eric Hathbourne (is it supposed to make you think of the Marxist historian? , is class war being waged? - see below for more details) played by always watchable Malcolm McDowell (we are decades on from If. . . ) Centring the film around an ageing…