The Panic in Needle Park 1971
·
Director: Jerry Schatzberg
·
Cast: Al Pacino, Kitty Winn
·
Why? A classic
· Seen: Once before. Now 28 September 2025
Bobby (Pacino) and Helen (Winn) are
drug addicts, and in love. She’s an innocent from Indiana, he’s been in the
street hustling since he was nine.
It can’t go well and it doesn’t. It’s
grim but it’s also boring. It’s not as good as I remember it.
It’s Pacino’s first big role.
2 ½ * of 5
Companion 2025
·
Director: Drew Hancock
·
Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid,
Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guilléne, Rupert Friend, Jaboukie Young-White
·
Why? Sci fi AI
· Seen: 27 September 2025
Iris (Thatcher) and Jack (Quaid) are
spending the weekend with his rich friends in a remote mansion. Iris is uneasy
because she feels out of place.
Which she is because she’s an AI, a
robot. Only she doesn’t know it and the others do.
What an unexpected little gem of an AI film.
4 * of 5
The Life Before Her Eyes 2007
·
Director: Vadim Perelman
·
Cast: Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood,
Eva Amurri, Oscar Isaac, Brett Cullen, Gabrielle Brennan
·
Why? Possible interesting
· Seen: 25 September 2025
Diana (Ward and Thurman) survive a high school
massacre. Years later she has a husband, a little girl and flashbacks to the
massacre. She sees the victims everywhere.
It’s very low key, so low key that it’s hard to
engage in the characters. Thurman is good though, and it pulls together
strongly, if enigmatically.
Naked 1993
·
Director: Mike Leigh
·
Cast: David Thewliss, Leslie Sharp, Katrin
Cartlidge, Greg Cruttwell, Claire Skinner, Ewan Bremner
·
Why? The cast. Mike Leigh
· Seen: Once before. Now 24 September 2025
Considered by many to be Mike Leigh’s
masterpiece and David Thewliss’s best role.
Not by me. It’s too grim. Johnny (Thewliss)
is a philosophy spouting drifter, cruel, violent, abusive. He's a loser,
everyone is a loser. There’s probably a point to it all but it’s too rambling
and talky for me. Leigh’s other films are so much sharper.
Great cast though.
2 ½ * of 5
Primary Colors 1998
Who wants to see a film about an American election? Not me,
but Emma Thompson and Adrian Lester are in it and I remember it being OK.
Henry (Lester) gets roped into being campaign manager for
presidential candidate Jack (Travolta) because his grandfather was a famous
civil rights leader and Jack wants the black vote. Thompson plays Jack’s wife
who struggles to keep the obnoxious womanizing Jack on track.
It’s supposedly a satire on Bill and Hilary Clinton.
An odd film but, as we know, reality is odder still and we know how things went for the Clintons. The film is fiction, of course, interesting enough with a strong cast, but it’s still about an American election and it’s kind of boring.
2 ½ * of 5
Greenland 2020
Comet fragments are heading straight for Earth but nobody
takes it seriously even though life on the planet is threatened with
extinction. The story focuses on a white couple with a son who are chosen for
evacuation for some reason. They take off, get separated, forget the kid’s
medicine.
It doesn’t make any sense but it’s a little bit exciting.
2 ½ * of 5
Stowaway 2021
Marina (Collette), Zoe (Kendricks) and David (Dae Kim) are on
a mission to Mars. All systems go until they discover a stowaway on board,
Adams (Anderson), and the delicate life support balance is threatened.
Never mind the glitches in the logic and the unanswered questions. The premise is interesting, the cast is good and it’s low-burn exciting.
3½ * of 5
Fast Times at Ridgemont High 1982
Why do I think I’ll like this? I hate American high school mostly
white bourgeois films and the 80s is not my favourite decade.
It’s almost unwatchable. The only reason it doesn’t get 0* is because it’s somewhat fun to see all the young future stars.
1* of 5
28 Weeks Later 2007
A small group of survivors huddle in hiding from the zombies
out there. Then their shelter is invaded and they are forced to flee. Don
(Carlyle) abandons the others and gets away. The weeks pass, the infected
starve to death, refugees return to London and normal life begins slowly to
return.
Or?
There are flaws in the story’s logic but never mind. It’s exciting and scary and the cast is star-studded. It didn’t use its potential but it’s better than expected.
3½* of 5
Belfast
Girls 2006
· Director:
Malin Andersson
· Cast:
Documentary
· Why? The
subject
· Seen: September 2025
One girl
a Catholic, the other Protestant. Never the twain shall meet? Then they each
fall for a guy from the wrong side.
Unfortunately, it all comes across as shallow, offering little if any insight into the centuries old conflict.
2 ½ * of 5
Hesher
2010
· Director:
Spencer Susser
· Cast:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Devin Brochu, Nathalie Portman, Rainn Wilson, Piper
Laurie
· Why? J
G-L
· Seen: September 2025
Joseph
Gordon-Levitt as a long-haired, heavy metal psychopath has to be brilliant,
right? Especially when he helps young TJ (Brochu) deal with the loss of his
mother and alienation from his grieving father (Wilson). Nathalie Portman shows
up too, and Hesher moves into the garage.
What a strange film. But kind of cool.
3* of 5
Thunder
Force 2021
· Director:
Ben Falcone
· Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Octavia Spencer, Jason Bateman, Melissa Leo
· Why? The
cast
· Seen: September 2025
IMDb
warns me: do not take this film seriously. OK, I won’t. Lydia (McCarthy) and
Emily (Spencer) use their newly acquired superpowers to fight the evil
Miscreants.
Come on, sourpusses, it’s fun. Silly but fun.
3* of 5
65
(2023)
· Director:
Beck & Woods
· Cast:
Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman, Nika King
· Why? Adam
Driver
· Seen: 7 September 2025
Long ago
and far away Mills (Driver) leaves his planet Samaris, his wife (King) and
daughter (Coleman) to earn money to treat the girl’s illness. He will be gone
for two years.
His
spaceship crashes on an unknown planet. Only he and a young girl (Greenblatt)
survive. We are told that this is Earth 65 million years ago but for him it’s
just uncharted territory.
It’s quite cool for a while with dinosaurs and things but it goes on far too long and I lose interest. A pity.
2* of 5
The
Fugitive 1993
· Director:
Andrew Davis
· Cast:
Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, Julianne Moore, Joe Pantiliano, Andreas
Katsulas, Jeroen Krabbé, L Scott Caldwell
· Seen: Once, maybe twice before. Now 6 September 2025
I
watched this series religiously in the 60s and I remember the film as worthy of
the series. Dr Richard Kimble (Ford) is sentenced to death for the murder of
his wife though he is innocent. He escapes and is on the run from the
authorities, especially Samuel Gerard (Jones).
It’s exciting. I just ordered the DVD box of the original series. Over 1000 Swedish crowns.
4* of 5
Son
of Rambow 2007
· Director:
Garth Jennings
· Cast:
Bill Milner, Will Poulter, Jessica Hynes
· Why? I
liked it the first time
· Seen: Once before. Now 4 September 2025
Will (Milner)
lives with his religious fanatic mother (Hynes) and lives a very sheltered
life. Lee (Poulter) lives with his older brother and is the school’s worst
little hooligan. Fate brings them together and they decide to make a film, a
sequel till Rambo First Blood.
It’s not as good
as I remember it. It’s whimsical but shallow.
Doomsday
2008 update
· Director:
Neil Marshall
· Cast: Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, Alexander Siddig, Adrian Lester, MyAnna
Buring
· Why? Originally,
Adrian Lester. Now because my 19-year-old friend NM wanted to see it.
· Seen: Once before. Now 31 August 2025
2 * it got from me the first time I saw it but I think I was watching it with the wrong attitude. If seen as a parody or even an homage to all the silly post-apocalyptic films ever made, it’s hilarious, ridiculous, happily devoid of any logic whatsoever, and vastly entertaining, and the cast is great. NM and I had a great time. Upgrade to
4 * of 5
Ruby Jand's
Film Blog: Doomsday
Kirikou
1998
· Director:
Ocelot & Burlet
· Cast:
animated voices
· Why? Possibly
interesting
· Seen: 3 September 2025
Little Kirikou takes on the evil witch. Great visuals. Kids will like it but I find it a bit dull.
2 ½ * of 5
Jungle
2017
· Director:
Greg McLean
· Cast:
Daniel Radcliffe, Thomas Kretchmann, Alex Russell, Joel Jackson
· Why? Radcliffe
· Seen: 31 August 2025
Yossi (Radcliffe) leaves the Israeli army to escape normal life. He ends up in Bolivia. He and two friends are lured into the jungle by a smooth-talking but sleazy guide. Of course it goes badly or they wouldn’t have made a film about it. It’s a bit boring but Radcliffe gives a solid performance. He usually does. Too bad he’s turned against JK. As a whole the film is OK.
2 ½ * of 5
Midnight
Cowboy 1969
· Director:
John Schlessinger
· Cast:
Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro
· Why?
Nilsson’s ‘Everybody’s Talking’
· Seen: Once, maybe twice before. Now 29 August 2025
Sweet-faced
Texas hick Joe (Voight) heads for NY to service sex-hungry rich women. He’s
cocky but vulnerable and lonely. He meets up with crippled con man Ratso Rizzo
(Hoffman). It goes badly.
I’m watching it this time because I’m on a Nilsson kick and this was his first big hit. A great song. The film itself isn’t maybe as powerful as when it came out but it still packs a punch. It’s maybe Hoffman’s best role and Voight is terrific. Too bad he turned into a right-wing fanatic.
4* of 5
