‘Scum’ is a film bursting with scalp-prickling scenes but I wanted to highlight a more meditative scene that I think is the real heart of the film. At the start of the third act, when every character is (knowingly or not) truly standing on the edge of oblivion, ‘square peg’ of the bunch Archer’s discussion on the function of the great machine all the characters find themselves in acts as an omen for future devastation. He describes the process of…
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True Romance 1993
What Quentin Tarantino does, better than anything else, is archetypes and ‘True Romance’ shows his strongest archetype on full display: the psychopathic villain. This archetype is multi-faceted and is not limited to just one character in the film but extends throughout a full rogues’ gallery: each villain more tantalisingly twisted than the last.
While Tarantino is drawing on some cinematic reference at every moment, the most precisely individual of his characters is always his unhinged villain. From Mr. Blonde in…
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Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl 2024
I don’t really go for nostalgia-reliant legacy sequels, but this is the British equivalent of bringing Gustavo Fring back in ‘Better Call Saul’ and they did it about as well. Merry Christmas and a warm welcome back to Wallace & Gromit!
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The Brutalist 2024
Feels like a literary masterwork that has been stewing for so much longer than its time. Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold’s ‘The Brutalist’ is such a profound exploration of immigration to America in the 1940s that it seems almost impossible that it was not written by someone embarking on that excruciating journey at the time. It is so fully imbued with a sense of empathy with the process of ingratiating into American society and righteous anger at its apparent impossibility…
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