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An absolutely killer anthology movie! A Viking, a ninja, and a WW2 pilot each take on Predator. Gives you exactly what you want from each, along with awesome action and great variety. The animation is excellent, with some really cool visuals, and seeing the bright green blood on a Viking axe is rad as hell.

Now give me a pirate, a knight, and an MMA fighter.

I’m always here for a John Wick movie, and even a spin-off has my attention. Thankfully, this rules! There’s everything here that I love about Wick. Awesome action scenes, with varied stakes or styles of combat each time. Crazy locations, from wild neon nightclubs, to old timey gun stores, to a family restaurant in a mountain town. Overly serious dialogue that is delivered with such sincerity that you can’t help but buy in. A surprising amount of humour in the action—my favourite in this was two people smashing plates on each other while they searched the gun hidden under one of them.

I imagine it’ll be difficult to decipher who brought what to the table—credited Director Len Wiseman, or the OG Chad Stahelski who had to do a ton of reshoots because Wiseman’s cut was so bad. While I’d probably lay most of the great action at Stahelski’s feet, everything tying it together is quite well done too, so Wiseman didn’t entirely whiff it. 

It’s also great because of Ana de Armas. A standout sequence in No Time to Die is probably what got her this role, and she doesn’t disappoint. Brawling, shooting, and emoting in between the two, she does an awesome job in this, fully selling the physicality of the character. A lot of the ing characters from the other Wick movies are here too, fully connecting her to that universe, and it’s truly a delight to see Lance Reddick briefly return as Charon. 

I had a blast with this, a very worthy addition to the universe.

A story about how people still get horny for musicians, even back in 14th century Japan. Loved the concert scenes and animation throughout this.

Defining why a film is your favourite film is a difficult task. What do I love about this that puts it above Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings? It’s hard to tell, but five minutes in and I’m already crying over Lakeith Stanfield asking if he can shave his head. 

I think part of it is how close the movie feels to me. Not in life experience, or work experience, but in how I first consumed it. I listen to the Filmcast podcast, and back in 2014 two of the hosts recommended the movie on two seperate weeks. So I was intrigued. And then the Astor Theatre had it in a double feature with Saoirse Roman’s How I Live Now (a fine movie, don’t really most of it). So I took myself off to see it, in a fairly empty theatre on a weekday. And it is so touching, and heartfelt, and I know how few people have seen it, and because it feels like the torch I hold for it burns so much brighter than the one I have for Star Wars with its millions of fans. And because of that, it feels more special. And yes, it means that when someone asks what my favourite film is, I have to preface it with ‘well, you probably haven’t heard of it…’, but I don’t mean it in a snobby way, but an excited ‘ooh, let me share this with you’ way. 

Everything is beautiful about this movie. Especially Lakeith, and Kaitlyn Dever, and Brie Larson.

Concrete Utopia was a morally grey examination of society in the aftermath of disaster, showing how good people can do bad things for what they think are the right reasons. 

Badland Hunters—ostensibly a sequel, though only the fact that’s its set in the same earthquake-ravaged wasteland—is a blood-soaked, gun-toting, sci-fi action movie with a literal mad scientist as the villain.

But it does have Ma Dong-Seok, the man whose fists hit harder than a freight train full of concrete, so you know, swings and roundabouts.

Second go-around. Same issues as last time. A messy first hour. Too much exposition. Too many flashbacks, both to other movies and within this movie itself. Too serious and reverential. This time I particularly noticed how little the team are given to do—would’ve loved more Paris & Benji interaction, give them something interesting rather than just sit in a plane/house/plane again. 

But. 

Same highs as last time too. The submarine exploration. The biplane duel. Seeing Katy O’Brian on a big screen. The insane commitment Cruise has to doing things for real. Hayley Atwell is the only team member with anything decent to do, and she’s great. 

I could honestly see this dropping to a 3.5 in the future. That opening hour really drags it down, but the action in the back half is so good that it lifts it back up. For now, it’s still a helluva time.

I’ve been sick the last few days, and the beautiful imagery and cozy vibes of this were just calling to me. This movie is just too good! The looks between Adèle and Noémie. The incredible costumes. The Orpheus & Eurydice parallels. The friendship with the maid. The diegetic-only sound. “You dreamt of me?” “No. I thought of you.”?!?!? Everything is just too beautiful!

After an earthquake devastates Seoul and leaves one apartment block standing, the residents band together to keep their building safe. Its pretty morally dark and rough, though it’s made easier by realising one thing:

They’re the bad guys. 

Normally in apocalypse stories, you follow a ragtag group, who inevitably come across a stronger group in a better position, and are evil (basically what happens in The Walking Dead each season). This time however, we’re at the very start of the apocalypse, and we get to see the terribleness grow slowly throughout the residents. What’s worse is that it also is so terribly human. You understand why they’re making these decisions—they’re scared, they could die, these people are a threat to their survival—even if you don’t agree with them. And Lee Byung-hun is great, as always.

I think what makes this epic, fictional war biopic really sing, is that you never see war. The impact is felt, and the film is never pretending there isn’t a war. It’s just not the true focus. Its focus is professional soldier Clive Candy, his friendship with a man on the other side, and their relationships with different women (all played by the same actress). It’s an incredibly beautiful piece of film that captures so much, and I doubt very much that you’ll regret watching it. 

Powell & Pressburger Ranked

Tarsem Singh really nails what dreams feel like in this. Places change, people speak without moving their mouths, the camera skips frames as awkward movement, it’s all very good and creepy. The visuals are bizarre and on point the whole time. Maybe not the deepest of mysteries, but a good time.

Tarsem Singh Ranked

This movie is just so goddamn fun. Heath Ledger is just beautifully charming. Paul Bettany is hamming it up and having an absolute ball with those glorious Chaucer speeches. Rufus Sewell is also having a lot of fun being the slimy antagonist. The anachronisms are very funny too, especially the songs. A great time, and an everlasting reminder that we lost Heath much too soon.

I finished The Disney Revolt book, and even though it wraps up long before this was made, I had a hankering for this one. Great vibes, great animal character designs (love the raccoons in their black & white prison garb), very enjoyable.

This is just so much fun to watch. The joy with which the musical numbers are shot is just exhilarating. The way the actors move, the way the camera dances through them, the way the dresses flare and twirl, it’s a dream to see.

Truly the only downside is Ansel Elgort. He’s not bad per se, but when you’ve got Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, and Mike Faist to compete against, most people are gonna come up short in the charisma department.

Steven Spielberg Ranked

I’m reading Jake Friedman’s book ‘The Disney Revolt: The Great Labour War of Animation’s Golden Age’, and it’s really good so far! I just finished the period where they were working on this movie, and it seemed worthwhile to view their efforts. It’s genuinely so impressive that this is all hand-drawn. The amount of movement in each frame, particularly with all the woodland critters, is beautifully done, and would’ve been a nightmare to make. Loved revisiting this.

It’s nice that this film depicts a bunch of different attitudes about the war, and the people involved. It’s also nice that the one unifying thing they agree on is ‘fuck Nazis’.

Well you can’t watch this and argue that Tarsem Singh didn’t have a vision. Whether you like that vision is of course debatable, but the man has a strong visual flair and ain’t afraid to show it. A cheesy Greek myth movie, full of 300-inspired gore & slo-mo, rippling Cavill abs, and Mickey Rourke as an evil king who just won’t stop murdering everyone on his own side that displeases him.

It’s an interesting experience to see your most anticipated movie of the year (in the biggest format possible) and come away entirely whelmed. Not over- or under-, just ‘whelmed’. It’s pretty great at several points, with some literally breath-taking action sequences. The characters are entertaining to watch, even if some of them have lost some of their shine.

But the movie itself is overwhelmed with something, and that’s its own legacy. I haven’t seen a movie in a long time that starts with a montage of events throughout its own series, including heroes, villains, set pieces, and more. The ing characters & even the score are equally reverential, trying to lend a sense of grandeur to everything (when what I really is the goddamn Mission Impossible music to be blasting and elevating my heart rate with its mere existence).

I also haven’t seen a movie in a long time that had quite so many flashbacks to within it’s own narrative. Cross-cutting briefings, flash forward hypotheticals, flashbacks to different parts of the same conversation at different points in the movie. In combination with an almost exhausting amount of exposition & goal-setting, it really feels like it takes this movie nearly an hour (of it’s 2.5hr runtime) to actually breathe. And not in a ‘so tense I can’t breathe’ way, but in a ‘this elevator is so full I literally can’t take a full lungful’ way.

But when the action does finally kick in, it’s pretty great. It’s tense, the immediate goals are clear, and it looks awesome (and I’m not just talking about Katy O’Brian’s hero shot in IMAX, but hell yeah I am). The key moments in IMAX look great, and some of the things Cruise does on screen are certifiably insane. The stakes throughout are clear ‘enough’, but with the villain being an evil computer, it really feels like it’s lacking in that department.

When the movie slows to spend time in a set piece, I’m locked in. It’s when it’s rushing from one narrative checkpoint to another that it struggles to be as cohesive and engaging. I still had a good time, and will probably see it again, but I won’t ignore its faults.

A dying Ben Kingsley puts his consciousness into a lab-grown Ryan Reynolds. Then he starts to have flashes revealing that maybe he wasn’t so lab-grown, and goes on to uncover the mystery.

This movie has two fatal flaws. First, the casting. At no point does Ryan Reynolds feel like he’s the same character that Kingsley was in the first 15 minutes of the movie. It’s a casting problem, because that’s Reynolds’ whole thing, he’s got an unshakeable persona, and he doesn’t bend it at all. Kingsley is doing something at least, bit gruff & selfish, and it really doesn’t translate otherwise. Second, there’s a vital plotting issue that I just couldn’t get over the entire time. I quite frankly don’t find it believable that an entitled rich person who got their mind transferred to a younger, hotter body, would ever give two shits if they found out the body belonged to someone else. Think of every billionaire on our planet, and just try to imagine them caring one tiny iota about some random guy’s family if it means they get to live on and enjoy their wealth. Utterly implausible.

Tarsem Singh does have a little fun here and there, mostly with montages involving New Orleans street musicians, but it’s not a particularly flashy movie which is disappointing.

This gives exactly what you want from a Final Destination movie: gory gory deaths, and long, tense sequences elaborately setting them up. It also gives an incredibly funny & dark joke about babies that made me laugh a lot, and a cabin in the woods so gnarly it could be a Mad Max fortress (if you ignore the aforementioned woods). Great time!

I think Jeff Bridges playing a drunk cowboy is like Geoffrey Rush playing Captain Barbossa—they both seem so perfectly at ease in the role that it seems absurd anyone gets them to play anything else. Good time, great Hailee Steinfeld kid performance, she’s awesome.

What I most liked was the character actors I love showing up, particularly David Strathairn, John Hawkes, and of course Walton Goggins. 

Steven Spielberg Ranked (I’ve now seen all his stuff. I only have to add West Side Story to this, but want to rewatch)

This review may contain spoilers.

Yes, I dove straight into this after finishing Andor season 2 (only 1 minor spoiler ahead). An absolutely incredible show that has truly changed how I view some aspects of Star Wars. The way that they wrote it to lead into this is so impressive—this is basically the season final of the show.

The way that Cassian reacts to his source repeating the name ‘Erso.’ He jumps on it, ‘do you mean Galen Erso?’ Before the show, that was just strange that he immediately knew. Now it’s like, wow, he just had his information verified from a second source. Such clever writing.

Almost too clever—the show has made me sympathise with Cassian so much that when Jyn tries to tell him off, I’m way more on his side than I used to be. Particularly when she’s saying stuff like ‘it doesn’t matter if you don’t look up’ and we’ve just watched an entire show proving that it does in fact matter.

There’s one thing that I particularly love in this movie that I don’t think I’ve ever seen/read anyone talk about: the young black soldier paired with Bohdi at the end. Bohdi needs to get the ship and is under fire. The soldier sees that, knows what’s at stake, and stands to open fire and give him the opening he needs. He’s cut down nearly instantly, but it’s such a small and important sacrifice that I adore. 

Anyway, watch Andor it’s probably the best thing Star Wars has produced in a long time, and probably the last for a long time as well. 

Also, I’ll say it again: I love the Darth Vader hallway scene, who doesn’t? I just hate how much praise it gets in comparison to the rest of this movie. A blind monk shoots down a TIE fighter! Ben Mendelsohn is crushing it! K2-SO bonks a guy on the head! There’s so much cool shit tied to the characters, and that Vader scene could be taken out and it wouldn’t affect the plot.

This review may contain spoilers.

Two queer couples try to solve their problems by having a sham marriage between two of them. I really loved this! It felt very similar to Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, in that it felt like a situation ripe for comedy, but prioritised the human emotions and drama at the centre of it (while still having some laughs). Youn Yuh-jung is beautiful as the grandmother of one of them. Spoiler, but I loved that she figured out the ruse immediately, and then spent the rest of the film quietly reflecting and understanding who her grandson was, while still helping him. She does so much with her silence and her facial expressions that it makes the words she does speak even stronger. Lily Gladstone & Kelly Marie Tran are both also great, and I enjoy that the film lets the characters be very messy.

Man, this slaps. Gentlemen spies kidnap a German general on Crete and sneak him across the countryside. The laid-back attitude of the men involved sets an excellent tone as they bicker and trade witty dialogue. It almost feels like Oceans Eleven at times. Even the German general is fun, seemingly happy to entertain their efforts, so sure is he if his rescue. 

Also, that title is awesome. Ill Met By Moonlight? Tell me that along doesn’t intrigue you!

Powell & Pressburger Ranked

Finally, a sports movie about board games! And a surprise Netflix/Lee Byung-hun drop! A great student vs master rivalry, and it both makes me want to learn to play Go—because it looks cool and tactical—and never touch a game of Go—because it looks incredibly tense and difficult. As someone who can occasionally suffer from analysis paralysis while playing board games, this really spoke to me. I loved the visuals as the players contemplated their movies, showing pieces appearing and disappearing as they thought through their tactics. And Lee Byung-hun is, as always, the best.

A fun western that actually centres women, which is unique.  Fun dialogue, some nasty ne’er-do-wells, and Joan Crawford being a snippy badass.

I’m doing a Cinejourney about Powell & Pressburger—it’s an online class discussing some of the themes in their work, very excited. The first class is about islands, and this is going to be discussed, despite it being Powell’s first major work, and Pressburger has yet to the scene. 

The story is simple, and very of its time. A small community on an isolated island struggle with their younger generations wanting to leave and the old wanting to stay, while the dangerous reality of their isolation keeps knocking at their door—plus there’s romance. 

The main thing I love about this is how the film captures the island life. Sheep drives over the rocky countryside, arguments settled by climbing the dangerous cliffs, going person-to-person to invite them to a funeral when the previous example goes poorly. And the island itself is beautifully captured, with its steep cliffs, roaring waves, and wide fields, it looks lovely (and cold). 

Powell & Pressburger Ranked (yes I know I said Pressburger wasn’t involved, but 1, it’s an important movie, and 2, it’s my list, suck it)

This was my May choice for Candice’s Christmas gift, chosen just because I wanted to watch an angry movie, and this delivers in spades. Love the little bits of character building we get, love the tense and propulsive score, love that this movie exists.

A very sweet & heartfelt story about a choir teacher helping a bunch of kids better themselves. The singing was beautiful, and I really enjoyed the teaching & bonding scenes amongst them all. The main performances were very good, conveying a lot of heavy emotion really well.

Unfortunately some storylines really weren’t that well integrated into the overall narrative. There were the reliable tropes—shy girl with trauma, sports boy who doesn’t want to sports anymore, evil school board targeting the unorthodox teacher—but most of them weren’t fleshed out enough to be as interesting, and didn’t have any impact on the plot outside of their direct scenes, so felt pretty empty.

Overall this was very enjoyable and sweet, there were just some rough patches that could’ve used some more work.

Also, there’s prejudiced white man at this upper class school who’s an absolute tosser, and does something so rude to these kids that I said ‘Jesus!’ out loud in the cinema.

Seeing this in IMAX was cool as hell. Seeing the car driving through the cotton fields looked beautiful as the screen opened up. And that scene was just as spectacular as the first time, fully engulfing you in the experience, visually and emotionally. 

I love the ‘putting the team together’ feel of the first third of this, particularly Smoke’s first visit to town. Helping the young girl learn to negotiate, then negotiating with the Chows, shooting the would-be thieves, all with such familiarity that this instantly feels truly authentic and loved. Speaking of authentic, the way Michael B Jordan plays both twins as distinct people is so damn impressive. I love the simple colour-coded clothes to seperate them, I love the intro when they the cigarette around, it’s all so good! Easily locked in as one of the top films of the year. 

Also, lol at the white man sitting next to my black wife who only started bopping his hands to the music when the vampires sung ‘Rocky road to Dublin’.

Hell yeah! I hadn’t even realised this was coming out, so it was delightful to find it. An absolutely awesome finale to the already awesome Lost Bullet 1 & 2. The fight scenes and car chases in this are brilliant, in large part because you tell the French maniacs that made this did a lot of it (if not all) practically. And director Guillaume Pierret shoots the shit out of it. The car chases are white-knuckle intense, and the geography of where everyone is is crystal-clear, with a lot of wide shots of these cars absolutely flying through the streets. Loved this, great conclusion.

Absolute cooker! Just 90 minutes of tension as a small group of people are stuck in an isolated diner, while some are armed with guns. Jim Cummings once again living up to the title of ‘most tense man imaginable’. Richard Brake also living up to ‘creepiest man on screen’. This was great, it did a good job of establishing just enough about each of the characters to make things interesting & engaging. Very fun time.

This is a horror movie, and I can’t begin to imagine how much more relevant it is now than 6 years ago. When a black woman is sexually assaulted, her white boyfriend drags her to multiple hospitals to get a rape kit, where they’re met with multiple levels of failure. This movie made me squirm so much, it feels real and horrific in an incredibly visceral way. Very impressive.

A nice series of vignettes, tied together by character actors and a pretty good horse. Some cool stuff, like the first cavalry charge and the barb wire scene, though nothing earth-shattering.

Steven Spielberg Ranked

Hey whaddya know, they made a good one! Having Florence Pugh as a lead makes it pretty hard to make a bad movie I suppose.
I liked a lot of this:
- John Walker’s still an ass. I couldn’t if/how much he was redeemed, so it was nice that he was still a dick. 
- Despite only seeing Ant-Man & The Wasp once, I really liking Ghost as a sympathetic antagonist. She’s very underrated, and her powers are pretty cool.
- It finally felt like a lot of the stuff was shot in real places! Sure there was still a few obvious CGI bits, but a lot of it felt like they had an actual set/location, which genuinely added to the feel of the film.
- There was actually an emotional core that felt real & earned, and actually paid off. The way it connected to the antagonist was very cool, and made their powers actually scary (and the VFX for that were great)
- Florence Pugh really sold the trauma her character was going through.
- Also, Geraldine Viswanathan is there! I love her! Her character was less convincing, but I don’t care, put her on my screen!

The second-best post-Endgame MCU movie after Shang-Chi. 
MCU Ranked

The biggest problem the first movie had was Anna Kendrick. I get that casting her was to contrast with Affleck’s stoicism, but it just went too far the other direction—no shade on Kendrick, she’s basically fairy floss personified. But in this one the got the balance perfect by bringing Jon Bernthal in as a proper ing character. His brashness and brotherly relationship makes for an excellent combo, and anytime the two of them are on screen it’s a blast. Laughed multiple times throughout this, almost all Bernthal’s fault—though watching Affleck line dance was a winner too. The action in this was a lot of fun too, and quite tense at the end. I also really enjoyed seeing how the set-up for the voice at the end of his phone had evolved—ludicrous and silly, but charming and fun nonetheless.

The making-of is much better than the film. This bizarre fantasy road trip was shot over five years, exclusively at night, and even more exclusively only by the light of the full moon. Pretty cool.

Sadly, the movie doesn’t live up to that cool fact. I’ll preface the rest of this review by saying I did doze off a few times in act one (because there is an act two, by definition of there being an intermission in this 108 minute movie), so I missed some stuff, but I’d already started to dislike it before then. Our lone warrior strides slowly yet purposefully across the landscape. The various people he meets are freaks—sadly not fun freaks that you like to watch, but freaks where you can tell they wanted to give ‘Mad Max side character’ energy, but without any charm, and even more annoying Australian accents. The protagonist also doesn’t have any personality or characteristics that make him engaging. The sound effects they use for his subtitled voice is kinda cool though. 

Full vibes-only movie, might’ve been a little better if it hadn’t put me to sleep, but maybe only just. I enjoyed the ambition of it, even if it didn’t do what I was wanting to.

I wasn’t planning to see The ant 2 until I saw a trailer and Jon Bernthal was in it! I couldn’t a damn thing about this one, so I thought I’d revisit, and lo and behold, he’s in this one too! And he’s pretty fun, albeit in a minor role. This movie is surprisingly good for what it is. It’s simple, but executes really well. It is ittedly leaning into the ‘autism is a superpower’ trope, though there are elements that it seems to represent well, like stimming (as a non-autistic person, the blowing on the fingertips seems reasonable. The flashing lights, loud music, and leg-bashings seem less so), and Affleck does try to make him a real character. I had fun, looking forward to the sequel.

May the 4th be with you! Had some friends over for Baird games today, and with dinner we watched an appropriate movie for the day! This is a pretty enjoyable romp! Sure there’s some weaknesses, but Lando’s great, Woody Harrelson & Phoebe Waller-Bridge are both awesome, and the action scenes are great. Alden Ehrenreich is very fun and charming as a young Han, and I wish Disney hadn't taken this movie’s failure as a sign they can never recast, only de-age, because he was not what laid this movie low. That goes to the excessive amounts of call-backs, and especially the moment when he gets the name ‘Solo’, a moment so bad I chose to forget it exists.

Also, Enfys Nest rocks. Awesome character design—sick cape, kick-ass spiky helmet, vibro-glaive that can blast people around, hover bike—and just a lovely homegrown rebel. I’d happily watch a movie or tv show focusing on them.

The journalism stuff? The secretive sources, the translating of information, the decision to print or not? Great, interesting stuff. 

The stockmarket stuff? Going public, investors, etc. Bored me to tears. 

Steven Spielberg Ranked

It’s bonkers how many iconic banger lines are just scattered throughout this. Absolutely killer stuff from go to whoa, with a finale that just doesn’t let up. Michael Biehn’s Hicks is my MVP, mostly just for falling asleep on the dropship entry.

Seeing this on the big screen just reinforces how fucking good this movie looks. Why don’t they make things that look like this anymore?!

This felt like Gareth Evans doing a throwback to 80’s action movies. There are:
- Corrupt cops
- Corrupt politicians 
- Chinese triads
- Unlimited goons
- Unlimited ammo to blast said goons (unless it’s more dramatically interesting for the gun to be empty)
- So. Much. Blood. 
- A large amount of cocaine
- Even minor characters being able to briefly become a violent death machine
- Also it’s a Christmas movie.

Quite frankly, it ruled. Sure, there’s some janky CGI in the cityscapes, but the action set pieces are crazy enough to make you forget as you cackle at the insanity.

I always wonder about the back half of Grievous’s ship that falls off over Courascant. Did it decimate an entire city block when it fell onto the surface of the planet that’s entirely made of city blocks?

When three mercenaries end up in an isolated desert resort run by an old man, and one of them is having mysterious flashbacks to a traumatic childhood, you think it’s pretty obvious where this is going. You’re right—and then you’re so very drastically wrong as well, and it’s a great thrill to see the shift. 

There’s so much to love about this. It’s shot on location, and filmed so well and interestingly that every moment of this film feels fresh, and looks beautiful. There’s also a banger of a score keeping you hooked in. The three mercenaries have such cool visual design, as well as being written and played so well, with a real emotional bond between them that adds weight to a lot of the proceedings.

I had a great time with this. It reminded me weirdly of two films. Tarsem Singh’s The Fall, mostly because of the practical, unique locations, and the stylised way of capturing them on film. And Jeff Barnaby’s Rhymes for Young Ghouls, which also deals with childhood trauma affecting someone’s life, and is as equally rooted in its cultural identity as this is, such that neither film could be made outside of the world its portraying without losing something vital.

There's a one-shot musical sequence in this that is so transcendently beautiful I nearly cried. It is stunning in its technical execution, and thematic resonance, and in the audacity of what it is showing. Just an absolutely staggering moment of genius from Coogler, executed perfectly.

The other thing I loved in this is the cast of characters. Most horror movies, there's at least one turd of a character that you can't wait to watch die horribly. Not so in this. The 'getting the team together' sequence is so effective at tying the characters to each other (and the audience) emotionally, so that when the blood starts to fall, you're scared for every single one of these people. It's because of the writing, but also obviously the performances across the board. There isn't a weak link, and Michael B Jordan pulls double duty in a dual role, where the two twins feel distinct from one another—but not too different, they are brothers who grew up together. The humanity shown in the bonds between all the characters is so believable, and it's a delight to watch everyone interact.

If this doesn't make it into my Top 10 of the year, all that that means is we've had an INCREDIBLE year of cinema. As it stands, probably my favourite of the year so far.

This is basically Competency Porn: The Movie: Military Edition. Theres only a few mistakes the characters make, and it’s mostly the situation around them that goes FUBAR, through no fault of their own. Well, except being there in the first place, but that’s barely an argument this movie is thinking about. Instead you get to watch them plan and execute tactics, make radio calls to each other and their overseers, and it’s all very satisfying.

The fact that this movie opens by saying it is ‘based on the memories’ of the soldiers, rather than ‘based on a true story’ makes this more engaging. Every strange little thing that happens doesn’t feel like choice by a filmmaker to humanise a character—it’s something a specific soldier re happening, which lends it an almost greater level of authenticity. 

On a technical note, I like that, for the view through a sniper scope, the camera moves nice and smoothly for us, but the scope itself is wandering around the screen. The ‘sound goes weird after an explosion’ trope is used to really good effect here, selling the disorientation quite well. 

Also, if you want to easily establish camaraderie before throwing everyone in the shit, just have your army boys bop to the ‘Call on Me’ music video, very funny opening. 

Alex Garland Ranked

This film is incredibly impressive. It shows some truly horrific moments from history, sometimes with such a sense of authenticity that it feels like actual footage. And it takes its time, dragging this torture out for over three hours. And yet there’s never a moment where you’re bored, or find your gaze wandering. It’s completely immersive, and drags you in with engaging characters and brilliant scenes. 

Part of the engagement is also because this happened. It’s impossible to refute that, and seeing it depicted here is haunting. There are multiple scenes where Jews are forced to give their names, and each scene seems to stretch forever, reminding you just how many people this atrocity affected.

A very difficult movie to talk about, but some phenomenally good filmmaking here. 

Steven Spielberg Ranked

This was the April pick for Candice’s Christmas Gift, and the first movie on the list this year that I hadn’t seen. I’d heard a lot about it and sadly missed it during a brief theatrical run last year, but this was a lot of fun. Combing Buster Keaton slapstick with Wallace & Gromit wackiness, this is such a bizarre and hilarious romp! I loved that the animals (humans in suits) also just kept falling over. Anytime one died and was instantly replaced by a dummy was hysterical to me. The multitude of inventive jokes throughout this was really well paced and clever. Just an insane fun time.

This is slow, but in a good, immersive way. It’s also maybe the coldest a movie has made me feel for a long time. Beautiful, sad. I love Cillian Murphy.

1. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
2. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
3. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
4. Mission: Impossible
5. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
6. Mission: Impossible III
7. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
8. Mission: Impossible II

1. A Matter of Life and Death
2. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
3. The Red Shoes
4. A Canterbury Tale
5. Black Narcissus
6. Ill Met by Moonlight
7. Peeping Tom
8. The Small Back Room
9. 49th Parallel
10. The Edge of the World

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Fall
2. The Cell
3. Immortals
4. Mirror Mirror
5. Self/less

Listening to both of Blank Check’s Spielberg series while doing this list, so I’ll be jumping back and forth a lot as I add things.

1. Jurassic Park
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. Schindler's List
4. Jaws
5. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
6. Minority Report
7. West Side Story
8. Catch Me If You Can
9. Saving Private Ryan
10. Duel

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

For the third year in a row, my wife has trusted me to pick a movie each month to show her. 

January: The Iron Giant
February: Bound
March: t Security Area
April: Hundreds of Beavers
May: How to Blow Up a Pipeline

• The Iron Giant
• Bound
• t Security Area
• Hundreds of Beavers
• How to Blow Up a Pipeline

• Run Away
• The Harmonium in My Memory
• t Security Area
• Bungee Jumping of Their Own
• Addicted
• Everybody Has Secrets
• Three... Extremes
• A Bittersweet Life
• Once in a Summer
• The Good, the Bad, the Weird

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Black Panther
2. Iron Man 3
3. Captain America: The First Avenger
4. Avengers: Endgame
5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
6. Iron Man
7. The Avengers
8. Spider-Man: Homecoming
9. Thor: Ragnarok
10. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

...plus 25 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Ambulance
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• Blade Runner
• Brotherhood of the Wolf
• Deep Blue Sea
• Dune
• Dune: Part Two
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Ex Machina

...plus 38 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• 10 Things I Hate About You
• 12 Angry Men
• 1917
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• 27 Dresses
• 28 Days Later
• 28 Weeks Later
• 2 Fast 2 Furious
• 3:10 to Yuma
• The 3 Worlds of Gulliver

...plus 785 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Ex Machina
2. Annihilation
3. Civil War
4. Warfare
5. Men

1. Nosferatu
2. The Lighthouse
3. The Northman
4. The Witch

The individual years are ranked in the comments, with a 🏆 (trophy) denoting who won the award.

Final stats:
Lowest Ranked Oscar Winner: Happy Feet (96)
Highest Ranked non-Oscar Winner: Wolfwalkers (2)
Lowest Ranked #1: Monster House (90)
Highest Ranked Last Place: The Triplets of Belville (49)
Average Range: 67
Largest Range: 2001: 95: 8 to 103
Smallest Range: 2006: 8: 90 to 98
Highest Average: 2021 & 2022: 4.7
Lowest Average: 2006: 2.16

1. WALL·E
2. Wolfwalkers
3. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
4. Spirited Away
5. Finding Nemo
6. Rango
7. Moana
8. Monsters, Inc.
9. The Incredibles
10. Song of the Sea

...plus 94 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• sex, lies, and videotape
• Kafka
• King of the Hill
• The Underneath
• Schizopolis
• Out of Sight
• The Limey
• Erin Brockovich
• Traffic
• Ocean's Eleven

...plus 25 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This’ll take a while.

1. Ocean's Eleven
2. Out of Sight
3. Contagion
4. Black Bag
5. Kimi
6. Ocean's Thirteen
7. No Sudden Move
8. Haywire
9. Magic Mike's Last Dance
10. Presence

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Not long ago I realised just how few Australian films I’ve really seen. So I decided to dive back through film history, and watch the winners of the AACTA/AFI Best Film awards, and rank them. Enjoy my opinions of these films!

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Sweet Country
3. Animal Kingdom
4. Ten Canoes
5. Breaker Morant
6. Babyteeth
7. Gallipoli
8. Strictly Ballroom
9. Rabbit-Proof Fence
10. Red Dog

...plus 43 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• About a Boy
• The Weather Man
• A Single Man
• Clash of the Titans
• X-Men: First Class
• Warm Bodies
• Jack the Giant Slayer
• Young Ones
• X-Men: Days of Future Past
• Dark Places

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Arrival
2. Sicario
3. Dune
4. Dune: Part Two
5. Prisoners
6. Incendies
7. Blade Runner 2049
8. Enemy
9. Polytechnique
10. Maelström

For Christmas 2023 my wife gave me the gift of picking a movie a month. These are now ranked by her preference, the order we watched them in is listed below.

January: My Neighbour Totoro
February: I, Tonya
March: Stranger Than Fiction
April: Children of Men
May: Fantastic Mr Fox
June: Moonlight
July: All That Jazz
August: Gosford Park
September: Gladiator
October: Mississippi Masala
November: The Good, The Bad, The Weird
December: The Breadwinner

• All That Jazz
• Children of Men
• Moonlight
• The Breadwinner
• Gladiator
• The Good, the Bad, the Weird
• I, Tonya
• Gosford Park
• My Neighbor Totoro
• Fantastic Mr. Fox

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Batman Begins
2. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
3. Serenity
4. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
5. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
6. King Kong
7. War of the Worlds
8. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
9. The Island
10. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Alright, I've seen everything I need to see, so here's the Top 10 with some notes inside. A good year!

1. Mars Express

   This managed to lock itself into #1 straight away (and this after seeing Dune Part Two!), and rewatching it later confirmed that. I love every aspect of this, especially the world-building.

2. Dune: Part Two

   Pretty hard to deny that every aspect of this is spectacular.

3. Challengers

   The way the score starts blasting over certain scenes would just randomly pop into my head throughout the year. A wild choice that pays out like a slot machine.

4. The Seed of the Sacred Fig

   Captivating and terrifying. Looking forward to rewatching when it gets a major release.

5. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

   Can't touch Fury Road, and was never going to, but is one of the most unique things I saw on screen this year.

6. The Promised Land

   Stunningly beautiful.

7. The Wild Robot

   Everything I wanted it to be.

8. Rebel Ridge

   Also everything I wanted it to be, and more. Intensely good performance from Aaron Pierre.

9. Love Lies Bleeding

   Horny and great! Love Katy O'Brian.

10. Getting LOST

    The LOST bias is real on this one, I won't deny, but seeing such a well done documentary about my favourite show of all time was really affecting.

Time for the precursor list to my Top 10 of 2024 (still gotta see Anora). As always, have a lot of fun making this, as it spans decades, genres, styles, and countries, almost more effectively than the end of year list. And I always try to base it more on my emotional reaction to the film, more so than its critical regard. There's reviews for all of these, but there's also comments in the notes, so feel free to have a read!

1. All That Jazz

   This blew me away when I first saw it, and then again the second time. I've watched the final number several times on YouTube, it's so catchy and absolutely morbid. A brilliant musical with some visually arresting dance numbers.

2. Pride & Prejudice

   Sincerity is apparently something that will get me to love a movie. This director's Cyrano, or Paddington 2 for example. The genuineness on display in this movie completely sold me, and I loved every sumptuous minute.

3. The Hidden Fortress

   The first of two Kurosawa's on here, out of four possible entries. This inspired A New Hope, which was very fun to see, but is an absolute blast on its own. The spear duel in the middle is epic.

4. The Place Beyond the Pines

   I don't think any other film this year made my blood boil quite like this. The police injustice in this had me up off the couch, stalking around the lounge, fists clenched. Just viscerally upsetting. Loved this.

5. Millennium Actress

   The last of Satoshi Kon's films for me to see, and definitely my favourite. The way the history of this famous actress is explored is delightful, and I loved the way it blurred reality with fiction.

6. A Matter of Life and Death

   Now, normally I try to avoid repeat placements for this non-202X lists, and this was number 2 in 2021, after I watched it for the first time. But this gets a special exception, as this year I was able to see it on the silver screen, and it was magical. Truly my favourite theatrical experience this year. I'd love to see it on the screen again someday, but if I never do, even just once was wonderful.

7. The Parallax View

   I loved this political thriller! Don't actually have anything more to say, but it fuckin' rips!

8. Seven Samurai

   This is one that I'll probably be willing to rewatch somewhere down the road, be it in a cinema or at home. It was fantastic, but I didn't whole-heartedly love it, though it was fantastic. Would love to revisit and see what changes.

9. Strictly Ballroom

   This was one of the films I watched in my AACTA ranking project, and it was a delightful surprise! Very energetic, cool dances, I had a great time, and it ended that list at #8.

10. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

    As someone who generally doesn't like musical biopics, this was perfect. Absolutely skewers every trope to the wall, and with a 100% hit rate.

• Citizen Kane
• Cyrano
• Elvis
• Ice Age
• Inception
• Juror #2
• The Kid Detective
• Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
• Monkeybone
• The Raid

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Kiki's Delivery Service
2. Spirited Away
3. The Wind Rises
4. Princess Mononoke
5. My Neighbor Totoro
6. Howl's Moving Castle
7. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
8. Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro
9. Ponyo
10. Porco Rosso

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Seed of the Sacred Fig
• Black Dog
• Kneecap
• Sing Sing
• Memory
• Flow
• My Old Ass
• Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
• Lee
• Bookworm

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Jolene
• The Debt
• Take Shelter
• Coriolanus
• The Tree of Life
• The Help
• Lawless
• Zero Dark Thirty
• The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
• The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him

...plus 19 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. X2
2. Logan
3. X-Men: First Class
4. X-Men: Days of Future Past
5. The Wolverine
6. X-Men
7. X-Men: The Last Stand
8. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
9. Dark Phoenix
10. X-Men: Apocalypse

1. WALL·E
2. Toy Story 2
3. The Incredibles
4. Monsters, Inc.
5. Finding Nemo
6. Toy Story
7. Ratatouille
8. Coco
9. Inside Out
10. Luca

...plus 18 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Whiplash
2. Babylon
3. La La Land
4. First Man

• Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
• Alita: Battle Angel
• The Nice Guys
• Dredd
• The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
• Shadow in the Cloud
• Guardians

God, this is a difficult list to build. Arrival vs Aladdin. Deep Blue Sea vs The Dark Knight. John Wick vs Jurassic Park. LOTR vs The Lion King. Some brutal choices. Thanks to cine_matic for encouraging me. Surprisingly Q wasn’t too hard, if a bit limited in options—it was V that I really struggled with, and just picked the best of a mediocre batch.

• 3:10 to Yuma
• Arrival
• Brother Bear
• Children of Men
• Deep Blue Sea
• Ex Machina
• The Fall
• Game Night
• How to Train Your Dragon
• Interstellar

...plus 17 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Die Hard
2. Last Action Hero
3. Predator
4. The Hunt for Red October
5. Die Hard With a Vengeance
6. Basic
7. The 13th Warrior
8. The Thomas Crown Affair
9. Rollerball
10. Medicine Man

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Millennium Actress
2. Paprika
3. Tokyo Godfathers
4. Perfect Blue

It's about time I tried one of these Showdown lists. Women directed, with under 25k views.

• I'm Your Woman
• Girlfight
• Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts
• Fast Color
• The Body Re When the World Broke Open
• Proof
• The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson
• Hala
• Japanese Story
• Down to the Bone

1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
2. Petite Maman
3. Water Lilies
4. Tomboy
5. Girlhood

• The Spy in Black

  archive.org/details/SpyInBlack

• Contraband
• 49th Parallel
• One of Our Aircraft Is Missing
• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
• A Canterbury Tale
• I Know Where I'm Going!
• A Matter of Life and Death
• Black Narcissus
• The Red Shoes

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I had a very fun year of film this year. Watching all the Best Animated Feature nominees, and starting through the AACTA Best Picture winners, going to MIFF, just a great time all round. Anyway, here’s my top 10 of the year!

1. John Wick: Chapter 4

   I kept waiting to have a better time than this movie, and it just never came. An incredible conclusion, mind-blowing action, and a fascinating world. The stair sequence with Donnie Yen is amazing.

2. Oppenheimer

   Yes, I’m a Nolan fanboy, I can’t help myself, but seeing this in IMAX was truly awesome. I still think about the sequence where he gives the speech after the bombing, haunting. 

3. Past Lives

   A wonderfully tender movie that showcases so many emotions. Insane that it’s a debut. 

4. Babylon

   Just an absolutely wild swing from Chazelle that struck gold for me. Grandiose, excessive, grotesque, and just enrapturing the whole time. And a 2023 Aussie release, for all you sticklers. 

5. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

   This was my most anticipated movie of the year, even knowing it couldn’t top Fallout. It was still an exhilarating watch, and sets the table for more excitement in the future. 

6. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

   Like its predecessor, one of the most visually stunning films of the year, just gorgeous. And a great plot that pulls it all together as well. 

7. Godzilla Minus One

   A surprise late entry. Just a staggeringly good monster movie that explores Japan’s post-war trauma in a way that I’d never expected of a monster movie. Absolutely beautiful. 

8. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

   This was my second-most anticipated movie, based purely on the directing talent of the duo behind Game Night, and it absolutely delivered the experience I wanted, and I’m delighted it was so well received.

9. Riddle of Fire

   Watching this at MIFF was such a special moment. I really had no idea what to expect, and the joyful reaction from both myself and the audience overall was wonderful. Such a bizarre, fun movie that I hope gets some wider distribution soon. 

10. Barbie

    A brilliantly funny movie event. I keep having to remind myself of the things I loved—Barbieland, Ken, Margot, the songs—because I sometimes get too focused on what I don’t—Will Ferrell & Mattel, Margot not singing—and I forget just how much damn fun this movie is. 

I was gifted the ability to show my wife one movie a month of my choice. This list is ranked, and by month it was:
January: Ex Machina
February: The Man from UNCLE
March: Speed Racer
April: Muru
May: The Nice Guys
June: 12 Angry Men
July: Searching 
August: Decision to Leave
September: Pig
October: The Father
November: Kiki’s Delivery Service
December: Riders of Justice

1. Ex Machina
2. Pig
3. The Raid
4. The Father
5. 12 Angry Men
6. Kiki's Delivery Service
7. The Nice Guys
8. Decision to Leave
9. Searching
10. Speed Racer

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• 12 Angry Men
• Stage Struck
• That Kind of Woman
• The Fugitive Kind
• A View from the Bridge
• Long Day's Journey Into Night
• The Pawnbroker
• Fail Safe
• The Hill
• The Group

...plus 33 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Thing
2. The Empire Strikes Back
3. Kiki's Delivery Service
4. Back to the Future
5. Die Hard
6. Aliens
7. Raiders of the Lost Ark
8. Return of the Jedi
9. Back to the Future Part II
10. First Blood

• The Matrix
• The Lion King
• Jurassic Park
• Titanic
• Mission: Impossible
• Toy Story 2
• Princess Mononoke
• L.A. Confidential
• The Shawshank Redemption
• The Mummy

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2. WALL·E
3. The Fall
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
5. The Dark Knight
6. Children of Men
7. Ocean's Eleven
8. Memento
9. Pan's Labyrinth
10. Spirited Away

1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. Parasite
4. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
5. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
6. Ex Machina
7. Arrival
8. Paddington 2
9. Inception
10. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

I think I do have more fun compiling this list rather than the year’s top 10. I get to think about movies without the weight of everyone’s expectations and criticisms, and just focus on what movies hit me the strongest throughout the year and stuck with me. So here they are!

1. Titanic

   I only watched this in full for the first time this year, and was blown away by how much I loved it. Deserves all the praise it gets, incredible filmmaking.

2. Sweet Country

   Definitely the best new watch of my AACTA winners ranking, an incredibly powerful Australian western. 

3. First Blood

   Way better than what I expected. Loved the way Rambo’s trauma is explored. 

4. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

   This was a 2022 Boxing Day release, and I didn’t see it until after I’d done my Top 10 for that year, but this was just amazing—both as a movie and as a glow-up from the first Puss movie. 

5. Kiki's Delivery Service

   A movie about creative burnout, wrapped in a soft coming-of-age story about a young witch striking out on her own. Also, the grandma makes me cry, I love it. 

6. Steve Jobs

   I was blown away by how different this was to my initial expectations. Energetic performances and direction made for a really engaging experience. 

7. Ten Canoes

   A movie that celebrates storytelling as an art form is always going to be something worthwhile to me. This has the added bonus of engaging with Aboriginal history without any aspect of colonialism, which is incredibly rare. 

8. The Social Network

   A rewatch of a movie I barely ed is always fun when it surprises me. The way the narrative evolves and twists is so good. 

9. Paprika

   Stunning animation, truly unlike any western animated films I’ve seen, and very engaging. 

10. Fantastic Mr. Fox

    Just a delightful stop-motion adventure that adapts Roald Dahl’s classic in such a fun manner. 

1. Riddle of Fire
2. Past Lives
3. Drift
4. How to Blow Up a Pipeline
5. Anatomy of a Fall
6. May December
7. Cobweb
8. Afire
9. Medusa Deluxe
10. The Rooster

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Three Thousand Years of Longing
2. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
3. Il Buco
4. Decision to Leave
5. Emily the Criminal
6. Broker
7. Fire of Love
8. Dual
9. A Love Song
10. Navalny

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Social Network
2. Gone Girl
3. Zodiac
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
5. Se7en
6. Panic Room
7. The Killer
8. Fight Club
9. The Game
10. Alien³

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Thing
2. The Fog
3. They Live
4. Prince of Darkness
5. In the Mouth of Madness
6. Halloween
7. Dark Star
8. Assault on Precinct 13
9. Christine
10. Ghosts of Mars

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Gone Baby Gone
2. The Town
3. Air
4. Argo
5. Live by Night

1. The Prestige
2. Memento
3. Interstellar
4. Inception
5. Oppenheimer
6. Dunkirk
7. The Dark Knight
8. Batman Begins
9. Tenet
10. Insomnia

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. t Security Area
2. The Handmaiden
3. Decision to Leave
4. Oldboy
5. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
6. Thirst
7. Lady Vengeance
8. Stoker
9. I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK
10. Trio

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.