The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (2020): A Twitter post sent me on a Bee Gees trip that culminated in watching the recent documentary that came out about the band, directed by Frank Marshall – famed Hollywood producer, who has just directed a few docus of some success. I doubt any can touch this Bee Gees one though – beautifully assembled, culturally all-encompassing, musically inebriating and completely understated to the great tragedy of the eldest brother surviving his younger siblings, it’s a movie that goes beyond itself as a testament to the serendipitous craft of music making. It is informative, sure, but it’s also got a lot of character and succeeds in establishing The Bee Gees as one of the most influential and versatile bands of the 20th century. 8
Ghostlight (2024): For whatever reason, I kept thinking of CODA while watching this one – in the sense that it’s a similar human-experience kind of story, with an ailing family at its core. Here, an amateur staging of Romeo and Juliet proves to be a platform that allows the father, wife and daughter to communicate over their incredible loss. It’s a movie that doesn’t go very big, but rather tells of its pain and that of its characters with restraint, while avoiding melodrama. Hard not to get the feels with this one, thanks to equally adept performances from its lead actors, which makes Kelly O’Sullivan’s debut feature (co-directed with Saint Frances director Alex Thompson) something special indeed. 8
Alien: Romulus (2024): The Alien saga is back, baby! And it’s back with a solid entry – but don’t take that from me, I already (really) liked Prometheus and got enough of a kick out of Covenant. This one feels like a mesh between the first two movies of the series, with so many reverences that it gives off a sense of trying a bit too hard. Starring a gen Z (ish) cast for the first time and set between Alien and Aliens, it’s not a very ambitious movie in terms of furthering the lore, but what it does, it does very well – most of the time. The highlights are the amazing scenes in space and the synthetic person, here powered by Rye Lane‘s David Jonsson. With some awesome set-pieces along the way, as well as some highly unlikely moments very much in the vein of the more recent Alien movies, Romulus has a solid pulse – until the last act. It fails to really up the ante for the last twenty or so minutes, content to not only be inspired, but rather copy elements from the previous films, all executed in a workmanlike fashion. It’s a shame, because a hair-raising finale elevated Prometheus for me, but here the conclusion is a let-down – in spite of said amazing space vistas. All in all though, a satisfying addition to the face hugger empire. 7
28 Weeks Later (2007): Maybe I started too early preparing for next year’s release of 28 Years Later, but I had fond memories of the second movie in the series. I’m afraid they don’t hold up so well. Sure, there are some solid scenes that bring a sense of dread and visceral violence, in a departure from the considerably more even-tempered original. But beyond these and a likable cast of familiar actors, there are quite a few things that don’t work so well – the plot is middling, the world building and the characters are paper thin, and some visual choices are overbearing. It’s not a terrible zombie movie, but on this rewatch I was left with the sense that it could have worked its way higher, after a promising set-up. 6
Settlers (2021): Set against the beautiful backdrop of Martian vistas, this story of interplanetary colonisation gone bad is not uninteresting, but very frustrating. It embarks on a cycle of retribution that has no end, applying Earth logic to Mars circumstances, which might make for a reasonable commentary, but overall felt forced to me. With little to go around in terms of plot, there isn’t much to keep you very engaged here, so if you’re not on board with the vengeful logic, this will not hold much (emotional) water. 5
tributary stu 