The anniversary of Shane MacGowan's death came and went last week... now bear with me. I need to write this down somewhere. And I threw on "Rainy Night in Soho" after watching Nick Cave butcher it at MacGowan's funeral and found myself unable to sing along without tearing up. I've spent the week trying to parse that strong reaction. I remember the exact way I came to listen to The Pogues for the first time. I listened to The Clash,…
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2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
What a massive mistake it was to watch this on a tiny TV when I was 16. I didn't appreciate this picture at all until it started rolling for a second time.
The score's wailing choirs are so good. I thought they sounded like wind, personally, like a relentless, invisible roaring force that never crescendos, it just keeps going. Felt like that was a pretty apt connection to the monoliths, uniform and unchanging, but perpetually pushing creation and evolution forward…
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Mickey 17 2025
Book Token: Mickey7
I think this is an improvement on the book! It trims a lot of what I liked, like Mickey's job as a historian and his occasional description of other failed colonies. But! It fixes so much stuff that I didn't like in the book. Mickey18's story resolves in a much better way than Mickey8, and he's actually a character which is nice. Mickey8 spends most of the book in bed. And I think the changes they make…
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Sambizanga 1972
I think I'm starting to hone in on the features of African cinema as I watched more. Despite Angola's history with Portuguese occupation, this felt as though it was inspired by French New Wave as the (criminally) small sample of Western African films I've seen have done. Maybe what I'm detecting is cognate, rather than being derived of a European trend. But I feel both New Wave and African film have an almost volcanic property. They simmer slowly for a…
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Small Things Like These 2024
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Easily my favourite film of the year. This might be the most authentically Irish film I've ever seen, by every conceivable metric. I'll try and break this up cohesively but I'm bad at writing reviews, bear with me.
First off, Furlong is the absolute, quintessential image of Irish fatherhood and masculinity. And he's the image of that familiar archetype pushed to its extremes. He's so reductive about his past and childhood. He lies to his kids, he clearly doesn't speak…
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Gladiator II 2024
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Really strong action, in particular the flooded Colosseum. This is is my first time watching Mescal act and he's doing us proud out there in Hollywood, have to say. I was also souring on Pascal after Mando Season 3 and him picking projects that don't really interest me but he's good here! I liked the conflict being like that of RRR, where a laser focused goal of personal revenge sets the protagonist against someone who seems to be evil, but…
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