TWENTY TWENTY FIVE : A CINEMATIC LONG ROAD

 

It’s been a long road this cinematic year, yes, I know it’s not over yet, but It’s time for my year in cinema. The films I have seen in 2025

Nosferatu-Dark gothic take that is both scary and thoughtful. A good job well done

We Live In Time- A surprise. The second-best British film about a couple this year

Alba Rose – A great little movie about loss with a subtle lead performance from Nicola Wright

Luther Never Too Much-A must if, like me, you are a fan of Mr Vandross

Nightbitch- A bit more miss than hit but a original ideas are worth celebrating

Hard Truths – Spot on and timely performance from Marianne Jean- Baptiste. Mike Leigh does it again

Captain America Brave New World – Entertaining fluff. Perhaps it’s a franchise film too far though

The Monkey – I liked it. Very much a retro feel to this tight horror

Maxxxine – The last instalment in the trilogy. Aspires to All About Eve status

Mickey 17 – Disappointing from the great Bong Joon-ho. A blemish on his career

Black Bag – The best British Couples movie of the year. Compelling with uniformally good performances

Alto Knights – Not sure why it needed the multiple roles gimmick. Fell short of the qualities the leads possess

Thunderbolts – The other Marvel team take a bow. Hokum, but fun

Drop – High concept, well executed 

Sinners- Strong shout for film of the year. Singular horror gangster noir from Ryan Cooglar

Mission : Impossible The Final Reckoning – A worthy send-off that ties up a lot of loose ends and proves again that nobody is better at being Tom Cruise than Tom Cruise

28 Years Later – Great, great sequel. Enthralling and elegiac at the same time

The Ballad Of Wallis Island – A gem of a film that should have had more coverage

Hot Milk -Excellent film that uses the old trope of ‘quirky non-conformist meets ordinary girl’ with fresh breath 

Superman – Enjoyable and for once we don’t have to go through the whole origin thing. For fans of Silver Age Superman and All-Star Superman this is essential viewing. Great supporting cast of heroes by the way

Fantastic Four: First Steps – Tough one for me. My favourite comic becomes flesh for the fourth time, so expectations were high. Superb retro design underpins a story of family with a light touch Let’s see where this goes

Friendship – An odd couple dark comedy that is well worth your time 

Weapons – Originality again and a sense of dread pervades this film that packs a punch

The Life Of Chuck – Left me feeling “is that all there is”

The Last Showgirl - Pamela Anderson is fantastic in this story of faded glamour and parenthood

The Roses – This, for me is the worst film that I have seen this year. The two leads give the expectation that one is about to see something special, but it’s far from it. It’s impossible to feel anything about its cast of characters and the moribund story. Hard to know what went wrong. I would imagine ‘everything’

Highest 2 Lowest – Spike Lee returns with another solid performance from Denzel Washington. Doesn’t reach the heights of Lee’s best work but still very watchable 

Companion – The perils of AI made real. Unusual to see humans stalking a robot, and that robot has more soul than the humans involved.

Chungking Express – An Oldie but Goldie. Could have been made yesterday. Loved seeing it again on the big screen. Outstanding 

The Long Walk -Very good Stephen King adaptation, that has some similar themes to Stand By Me

The Surfer -Nicolas Cage is hit and miss. In this he is definitely a hit. Surreal and thought provoking in these times of toxic masculinity

Presence – Strangely unemotional but a one-off experience that leaves you guessing

One Battle After Another – Film of the year. Paul Thomas Anderson gives us his usual excellence in storytelling, pacing and emotional intelligence and as for the car chase; wow!

A House Of Dynamite – Outstanding from Kathryn Bigelow. A premise and delivery of that premise that is exceptional

Bugonia – Strong performance from Emma Stone in a wonderful film that, like most of Lathinos’ work is unique.

DYSTOPIA NOW

In a dystopian future the leader of the free world is a rotund man, devoid of empathy. A man whose features peer out from behind a mask of a radiant hue, a man who festoons his living quarters with the garish blandishments of opulence and entertains his guests with fast food while the citizens scrabble for the meagre offerings available to them. In this future, corrupt warlords visit to pay homage. Critics are silenced, shouted down for their impudence and his followers adorn themselves with his symbolism.

Pronouncements that would put Caligula to shame are issued on a daily basis. A harem of young women are offered to him by those seeking favour and the disdain with which he treats the female populace is not hidden from sight.

Like all good despots there are Jesters aplenty to entertain him, Jesters and Knaves abound in his court.

His kingdom is protected from interlopers by a high wall, guarded by the paramilitary and celebrated by the acolytes.

His devotees see him as almost religious figure; a Jesus without a conscience. He is a snake oil salesman with less integrity, a bile filled tyrant with a motto, a man without a moral compass.

This is not a preface to a science Fiction novel from the mid 1970s, this is not an unused Mad Max synopsis, no, this is America 2025. And it's leader is a cross between Baron Harkonnen and Immortan Joe, who cheats at golf and salivates over his daughter. All that's missing are hybrid cars roaring across the plains and skulls haging from lampsts in Washington.

Like most things that are real, truth is stranger than fiction and the reality of the current President's tenure is the stuff of future shock. Each day brings a new sound bite of dubious content. Each action and pronouncement is more bizarre than the last. The levels of denial and delusion are staggering, yet he prevails, his zealous fanbase lift him in his throne, his MAGA minions prop up his ego, polish his crown of thorns, belittle his opponents and the the term "fake news" as a weapon.

A quote, attributed to Abraham Lincoln (the antithesis of the current incumbent) is aposite:

"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time".

Sorry Abe, but in Trump's head it seems you can fool all of the people all of the time.

THE GOOD THE BLAND AND THE UGLY

Desaturated Saturation

It occurs to me that the more the public ingest banal popular entertainment the more banal it gets. The diet of banality is the new Atkins’. Banal popular music with little or no originality is played on rotation in shops, when waiting to be put through to a human on customer helpline and it assaults our ears via the medium of mobile phones used without headphones. 

Singers’ voices seem to me, at least, to be indistinguishable from each other. There was a time, a time that still has resonance, when a unique voice, a distinguishable voice and identity was prevalent in the world of popular music. The once venerable TOTP would feature singers with diverse and recognisable voices such as Annie Lennox, Pete Shelley, Kate Bush, John Lydon, Larry Blackmon, George Michael, Kevin Rowlands, Siouxsie Sioux, Phil Oakley, Martin Fry, Enya, Sinead O’Connor, Paul Young, Lena Lovitch, Luther Vandros, The Bee Gees, Bono, Terence Trent Darby, Fergal Sharkey… the list is a long one. The point being, that it was okay to have a USP.

The banality of current popular music is clearly a byproduct of saturation, polished production techniques and most of all commerce “if it works don’t change it”. Production houses and labels with something about them are merely a memory. The sound of Two Tone, Jam & Lewis, Trevor Horn and the many self-produced acts has given way to ubiquity. the Spectrum is narrow instead of broad 

There's a lack of heart these days, a lack of appreciation of the beauty of difference in the mainstream of music.

It's obvious to me that there are still artists making good music, underground, on small labels plying their trade gigging and honing their art. But the mainstream of popular music, at its best says something about the times and it’s possible that the current blandness is a reflection of a time where the ideas that float around are less interesting and more transient. More product needing less attention rather than the other way round

FLYING THE FLAG

 

A man or woman going about their daily work. Working to earn money to put food on the table, have a purpose and generally contribute to society. A fine thing. Obeying the rule of law, looking to be left alone to carry out their tasks.

Men (generally men) spending time hoisting union flags made in China on lampposts owned by the local authority. Breaking the law. Prioritising their thoughts over and above all else. The men (yes, it’s usually men) of Raise The Colours. An organisation (sort of) dedicated, it seems to the importation of plastic flags and the harassment of the employed.

If you disapprove of this flag fluttering overhead outside your house you are labelled a traitor. If you try to take down this flag you are threatened both with quotes about the law that are not actually the law and with physical harm. All done with mobile phone recording for dubious posterity.

The local authority sends a couple of staff to remove the flag, costing the taxpayer money, and these ordinary people doing what they need to do to fulfil their job role are harassed and harangued. The police who arrive on the scene carrying out their duty receive the same treatment.

It is almost as if the men (it’s mostly men) of Raise The Colours have nothing better to do with their time. Shouldn’t they be at work?

The Union flag is our flag, and when I say “our” I am referring to everyone who lives in the United Kingdom. When the Lionesses won the world cup, people got their flags out. When Mo Farah won gold medals at the Olympics people got their flags out. The Who and the Jam celebrated the Union Flag, so did Stormzy and Ginger Spice. 

A flag is a symbol; we all understand that right? But the use of symbols is all about intent. A symbol can be celebratory, but it can also be frightening. A symbol can be unifying, but it can also be divisive. A symbol can be welcoming, but it can also be threatening.

Here in London, one doesn’t see many, if any, Union flags fluttering atop lampposts. Maybe because Londoners are too busy getting on with things, maybe because intimidation and bullying won’t wash or maybe because London has been through the Blitz, 7/7, riots, terrorist attacks and American Tourism so perhaps a couple of blokes attempting to climb a ladder with cheap flags is the least of our worries.

Or maybe it's that rage is not as misdirected in communities in a metropolis as it is on the outskirts where other reasons for self loathing are easier to fixate on?

WHOSE LAUGHING NOW?

 

"Whether you do stand-up comedy or write a story, you have a duty to deliver. As a comedian, you walk out on stage, and you have a minute to hook them, or they'll start booing." Mark Billingham 

BBC New Comedy Awards is a competition come showcase for new British comedians that features five stand ups performing for the delictation of a non paying audience and three fellow comedian judges, I say "fellow comedians" but they invariably prove to be as funny as a thing that isn't funny at all, like sciatica.

Being a regular and avid atendee at the wonderful Edinburgh festival I have seen an awful lot of stand up over the years (very little of it being awful) and I can honestly say, or rather I can honestly ask "Where do they get this lot from?"

I understand that of all the arts comedy is the most subjective. Some find humour in a cusratd pie in the face, others in a sketch about philosophers playing football; different strokes. But there is a universal truth that some people just don't have funny bones. For some people stand up comedy is not for them, despite what their mates from work say. These people need to take heed that when Tracy from HR and Gavin from marketing crack up at their humourous anecdotes and tell them "OMG, you are hilarious, you should try stand up mate" my advice is, don't listen to them, pause to reflect.

Trying your hand at an open mikes is the best way to see if youve got it, audiences at these events will soon let you know. writing and writing and writing, performing, performing and performing is the best way to hone an act. You know, hard work. even then its a long way to the O2 Arena.

Which brings me back to the BBC New Comedy awards. How did some of these brave/foolhardy contestants get a slot on national television? The only logical explanation is producers.

The modern day Television producer has a degree in media studies and like their burgers smashed they grew up on reruns of Red Dwarf and Father Ted and think that Michael Macintyre is "actually dissentient". These are the arbiters of comedic taste with a healthy slice of  box ticking thrown in for good measure.

Yes we no longer have Bernard Manning on the big screen, which is a good thing but some of his contemporaries were funny, for example a regular face on TV  Frank Carson had funny bones, regardless of changing tastes he was funny. Not everyne is or can be

Now, before you start to think I'm off on one again, there are some funny acts that I have seen from stand ups with genuine talent but, by and large there seems to be an identikit to being one of the other ones, the ones that are there to make up the numbers. The standard operating procedure appears to be-

1. This is something that I am

2. These jokes are all about that something

3. That's it

An abrupt end to this post, but I wanted t give you a flavour of what it's like  watching one of these acts when you are left with the feeling "is that it?

THE NAME'S FRANKENSTEIN, BARON FRANKENSTEIN

 

"Monster, you Plonker"

Gothic here gothic there gothic everywhere. There has been a rise in mainstream gothic horror. Recent and upcoming movies such as Nosferatu, Werwulf, Dracula, The Bride!, Wolf Man and the just released Frankstein all dig this rich seam. Some find gothic horror over the top or overly demonstrative (Emphasis on the demon) I find that it allows for interesting costume and set design, inovative character concepts and lashings of heaving bussoms, lust, tragedy and blood.

I have always found Victor Frankenstein and his monsterous creation fascinating and it is one of the stories strengths and longevity that the question it poses is "which one is the monster?"

Victor is clearly a narcissist with a god complex, while the monster is pretty much angry most of the time; let's be honest, wouldn't you be? They have a fraught father and son relationship and they both need each other. Victor knows that without the monster he is a one man band. A Laurel without a Hardy, a Ray Allen without a Lord Charles, a Del Boy without a Rodders.

The portayals of the monster have been similar, by and large he's presented as an abomination with a face only a mother could love, but surely Frankenstein would have wanted to create a perfect specimen and in that case wouldn't he have been on the lookout for heads with faces that have good bone structure or cheek bones to die for? Wanting to improve on God wouldn't he have made the monster akin to David Gandy? wouldn't he want his creation to be more like Superman than a shambling oaf?

These questions are answered in Guilermo Del Toro's adaptation of The Modern Prometheus as his monster is a cross between Wolverine and a very tall Brad Pitt.

Were he to exist today, Victor Frankenstein would have been on social media as he would probably have had a weekly podcast about makeovers. He would be the celebrity scientist on BBC, he would have written some books about self improvement and he would most likely have had a serial killer character based on him.

Victor and his monster are the ultimate odd couple and I await further takes on these two amazing literrary characters conjured up from the mind of  the 20 year old Mary Wollstonencraft Shelley 

SCANNERS

If our fingers were athletes they would win Olympic gold medals. The reason being that they have so much daily excercise scrolling that they would be a cross between Daley Thompson, Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt. The average person in the UK has a smart phone and the average person in the UK spends an extraordinary amount of time looking at it. An inordinate amount of time scrolling for soundbites and visual stimuli. An overwhelming amount of time sending out meaningless words into the ether.

That's not the worst of it though. Living in the moment is a defunct concept. If the phone isn't out held aloft recording the moment then the moment didn't happen. What if a tree fell in the forest and no one was there to film it on their Samsung Galaxy?

There was an eighties TV film called Max Headroom:20 Minutes Into the Future (which spawned the eponimous AI presenter) set in a corporate owned dystopia and one of the marketing tools that was used to sell to the masses was called a 'Blipvert' a new high-speed, concentrated, high-intensity television commercials lasting about three seconds. Their purpose was to prevent the channel-switching that may occur during standard-length commercials, but they had the side-effect of making some viewers explode like those unfortunates in Scanners

We now live in the world of the Blipvert on the much smaller screen via Tik Tok, Snapchat, Reels and other short form video platforms, except people don't run the risk of exploding but the risk imploding mentally.

It seems we are too busy absorbing information to actually diferentiate what is meaningful and process that information for our benefit.

To say that all mobile phone use is negative would be churlish. Good technology should be embraced and utilised in the service of mankind not to promote somene that can put 11 golf balls in their mouth, light their farts, jump over an icy puddle without falling in, or have Bolton's larget collagen lips.

Having just been on holiday in sunnier climes I reintroduced myself to the pleasures of putting my phone away. I read some books, closed my eyes, watched some cats playing, listened to the sound of the sea and people watched. If that sounds boring you aren't doing mobile phone detox right.

To scroll or not to scroll? that is the question. I would like to put things simply. Think to yourself "what do I need to see?" "what do I want to see" and "what don't I need to see?" I think you will find that the answer is staring you in the face.

CELEBRITY GUESS WHO?

 

"I think celebrity is the biggest red herring society has ever pulled on itself"

-Jude Law

What constitues a celebrity these days? I asked myself this existential question when casting my eyes upon the line up of one of the never ending celebrity reality TV shows that seem to forever be on rotation on terrestrial channels. I understand that its a question of supply and demand and that, due to that demand there is a need for 'filler', which means that TV producers inevitably cast their collective reel into the world of the content creator and influencer.

I always thought of a content creator to be a writer who fills a book with words and an influencer as a hypnotist, but that was then and this is now. 

Being good at something, that most other people couldn’t do was the minimum requirement for celebrity status. Being interesting, funny, erudite and desirable were just some of the intangibles that created an appetite, that along with salacious gossip.

We've seen takes on the world of celebrity from Fellini's La Dolce Vita and Andy Warhol's famous quote. We've seen Dennis Pennis and Ali G pricking the balloon of celebrity pomposity but still they endure as figures whose role, it seems, is to provide opium for the masses

Now it seems that simply being seen or heard by others is enough to have have an agent, a brand and a following that equates to income.

One must, of course, move with the times but I suspect we are about to reach saturation point of celebrity culture; if you can call it culture.

Will the public gorge themselves like Mr Creosote, to bursting point on celebrity or will an "enough is enough"  sensibility prevail. I doubt there will ever be a time when the fascination wanes, I don't think we are near a tipping point when peole start to realse that all that glitters is not, in fact gold; far from it, if anything its generally plastic.

A GOLDEN AGE OF CINEMA?

"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them" -Andy Bernard

Quentin Tarantino certainly made his mark on cinema when he made his debut in the 1990s with Reservoir Dogs (a remake of City on Fire). Since then, he's made movies heavily influenced by the likes of Lady Snowblood, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The Dirty Dozen and The Thing. He has recently gone on record as saying "The current era of filmmaking, along with the 1950s and 1980s, is one of the worst in Hollywood history"

I would say that I don't agree with QT. This year has been a pretty good year for films released in the UK, going by those that I have seen. We’ve seen new offerings from some great directors operating in the mainstream. In fact, this could be a golden age of directors, on par with the 1970s

Paul Thomas Anderson, Kathryn Bigelow, Yorgos Lanthimos, Ryan Coogler, Danny Boyle, Spike Lee, Alex Garland, David Cronenberg, Steven Soderbergh (x2), Mike Leigh, Benny Safdie, Bong Joon-ho and Robert Eggers have all produced interesting, compelling and thoughtful movies 

With more to come from the mercurial Lynne Ramsay, the talented Park Chan-wook and the singular Guillermo del Toro the rest of 2025 looks like having rich pickings.

Foremost in the 2025 cinematic output are three films: One Battle After Another, A House of Dynamite and Bugonia. Each film different from the other, each film with compelling female performances and each film with the signature of their director firmly imprinting.

Many of this years movies have featured inventive stories and a resurgence of a non formulaic approach. That established directors are being given a bit more artistic freedom is also encouraging and maybe the streaming platforms (that, should be the enemy) that are broadcasting their films soon after release are inadvertanty allowing that freedom from the law of the box office.

What we are seeing, I think, is an increasing interest in experiencing movies in their natural habitat, a growth in quality directors showing individuality to counter the blockbuster superhero trend. There is also a rise in independent films getting exposure and the popularity of foreign language films (and TV). As cynical as I am about a great deal of popular culture I do believe that this year has, so far, been a positive year for cinema and,the year ahead looks promising. Who knows, one day we may look back on this time as "the good old days"

TILTING AT HOTELS

"The fault lies not with the mob, who demands nonsense, but with those who do not know how to produce anything eles"- Miguel, de Cervantes Saavedra

So, whats new? actually I dislike sentences that start with "so", hence why I just did that. Having said that, I also dislike the word "hence" at the start of a sentence. Yes, It's pedantic, but being a pedant is the least if it when one pauses to consider the avalanche of inaccurate, agenda driven, troublesome and down right idiotic content we are subjected to on a regualr basis (yes, you guessed it, I dont like the term "content, but I used that joke twice earlier).

It was Dan Ahshcroft of Sugar Ape infamy that coined the term "rise of the idiots" two decades ago when he was refering to the narcisitically  ironic Hipster Hoxton scene that has become mainstream since then. Now we have the new order, the idiots have beome the illiterati©

Don't worry though, it's not an exclusive club, they'll allow anybody to join, particualrly those that lack a grasp of fact, context and, let's be honest, common sense. If it's in writing or spoken on social media then it must be true; this could be the club motto, not sure what that is in latin though.

Everyone seems to be at it, we truly are living in the age of misinformation and as is well known, knowledge is power, except, is that actually the case anymore?

The richest man in the world comes out with some baffling observations that seem to be based on an opium induced long dream laden sleep. The so called leader of the free world's utterings are increasingly no more than gibberish, which his devoted followers lap up as the astute observations of a genius. But it's not only on the other side of the atlantic where ignorance equates with bliss. We've got our own band of boneheads. Flags, Small boats and shaven heads are their passions as is shouting at hotels. If Cervantes wore a stone island jumper, Reebok Classics and quaffed Stella Artois then Don Quixote would have tilted at hotels on the coast. instead of windmills.

There is a growing list of people that appear to be clones created from Nigel Farrage's DNA merged with a test tube of righteous indignation; Yaxley-Lennon, Middleton, Hopkins, Fox, Connolly et al. are increasingly being heard, and more alarmingly, taken seriously.

The growth in mysogny and racism, and many other 'isms' is fed by algorithms, self interest and a delusion that everyone else is to blame for one's own troubles.

Let not this missive, gentle reader, leave you thinking that all is lost, because it isn't.

When asked if I hold any beliefs I often say that I am a Humanist because, broadly speaking, I believe that while humans have the tendency for truly shocking things, we also have the capacity for great things, meaningful and wonderful things. All of us. So hold on to that thought when you scroll, read a paper, hear the news and open your eyes each morning.

(yes, I started that final sentence with "so". Nobody's perfect you know)