His House (2020): Most horrors movies have some kind of social theme to them, but the recent crop seems to be creating very convincing and hard-hitting allegories to the horrors of various social traumas. His House is about a refugee couple that is provided a home in the UK, but adapting to “normal life” and… Read more

The Kid Detective (2020): It’s hard not to relate with the ageing kid detective of yesteryear, the embodiment of endless potential turned into a husk of a human being. Director/writer Evan Morgan takes a simple idea that could easily have turned into something ridiculous and miraculously keeps finding the perfect nuance to allow the realness… Read more

Automated podcast here. Bo Bunrham: Inside (2021): This month’s top performance on Netflix is Bo Burnham’s one-man-show created during the pandemic. I am inherently skeptical of social media stars turned mainstream, but Burnham is pretty close to swaying me – which, I’m certain, offers him the peace of mind he’s been missing during lockdown. Instantly… Read more

Automated podcast here. Little Fish (2020): A sci-fi romance is usually a tasty treat and Little Fish is no exception. Starring Olivia Cooke and Jack O’Connell, it’s set in a world where a virus destroys people’s memories and their love story is a bit of a tragic mess. Playing around with the timeline, Tomlin’s adaptation… Read more

Automated podcast here. The Duke of Burgundy (2014): Peter Strickland wowed me with his 2018 feature In Fabric, but his best received movie was this surreal relationship drama starring Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara D’Anna. The two play a pair of lovers with a tendency towards roleplay and domination, but the story really plays to… Read more

Automated podcast here. My Octopus Teacher (2020): This year’s best documentary Oscar winner tells a touching story about the connectedness of nature and our ability to draw from that. Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed worked with Craig Foster, filmmaker and diver, in capturing the latter’s journey of rediscovery within the kelp forest, situated in the… Read more

Tropic Thunder (2008): To be fair, I didn’t really rewatch the movie – I rewatched the director’s commentary, which is definitely a first for me. Tropic Thunder itself is a phenomenally fun ride that most likely would not be made again in this day and age, but it stands out as one of the best… Read more

Another Round (2020): I shied away from watching Thomas Vinterberg’s Academy Award nominated movie because of it’s predictably…sobering subject matter – “Four friends, all high school teachers, test a theory that they will improve their lives by maintaining a constant level of alcohol in their blood.”. As expected, the “experiment” creates more problems than it… Read more

This week’s automated podcast is available on Anchor. The Father (2020): Dementia (particularly Alzheimer) has been a theme in many successful movies during the last decade or so, clearly a significant concern for our ever-aging Western society. These movies are never easy to watch. What sets The Father a apart is its nonlinear storytelling and… Read more

Check out the automated podcast here. The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2020): If you’ve followed this blog at all, you know by now that I’m a sucker for time-loopy-rom-coms. What that in mind, I was surprised to come across TMoTPT, a time-loopy movie starring Kathryn Newton and Kyle Allen. The two make for a… Read more

Automated podcast here. Nomadland (2020): Chloe Zhao’s The Rider was a revelation and I’m glad to write that Nomadland is an equally accomplished piece of filmmaking. Telling the story of people living on the periphery of what most of us consider society to be, often the tales of actual people, playing versions of themselves, it… Read more

Listen to the (automated) podcast version of this week’s review at Anchor. Fourteen (2019): This is a powerful, lesser known drama about two friends, Mara and Jo, one sober and pragmatic, the other exuberant and quirky, and the frustrating dynamic between them. It almost feels like I am spoiling what the movie is about by… Read more