Isn’t this a rather unfortunate choice for a poster? #filmsky

2025 watch #3 - Léon (1994). Technically superb & fantastic performances, especially from a young Natalie Portman. Trying, however, to separate the artist Luc Besson from a film with this storyline, having just learned that he was dating a 15-yr-old at the time, is nigh on impossible. #filmsky

2025 watch #2 - Cloud (2024). Became a fan of Kiyoshi Kurosawa last year after watching Cure and Charisma. Cloud starts strong, about a robotic man scamming people, and the friends he doesn’t make along the way. Ends in a Freefire-like shoot out, with the joy sucked out of it. Not his best. #filmsky

2025 watch #1 - Passport to Pimlico (1949). In the London rubble, Ealing Studios make a superb absurdist comedy. One of their best, and apparently it was to be the plot of Wayne’s World 2 at one point.

Spoorloos (1988) - aka The Vanishing - is showing at the Prince Charles Cinema tonight. I can’t go but pretty sure I wrote it on their suggestion board some time in 2025. #filmsky

9 years, what a ride! Not all shows know how or when to finish, but #StrangerThings totally nailed the ending.

Happy New Year! I don’t know why I have 5 books on the go but resolved to read more and finish more books in 2026! - so same as the last 20 years then 😁 #newyearsresolution

2025 First Watch 5 Stars: - - Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai - Kneecap - The Innocents - The Brutalist - Smoking Causes Coughing - Black Bag - A Face in the Crowd - One Battle After Another - The Battle of Algiers - Night of the Living Dead - Double Indemnity #filmsky

2025 watch #220 - The Life of Chuck. A simple tale told delicately, with only a shadow of sci-fi (or is it a hint of horror?). The first act might make you think the trailer was deceiving, but stick with it for a life-affirming if not particularly moving carpe diem story from the master. #filmsky

A super cop hobbled for being too good High society shuns Mary for getting a divorce Frankenstein’s monster mostly in a hood Bad game adaptions: par for the course #lastfourwatched #letterboxdfriday #letterboxd #filmsky

2025 watch #219 - A Minecraft Movie (2025). “Let my hips guide you, it’s the only way.” I did not like this forced feeling film built for serious fans of the game only. (Of which there are millions, so I guess that’s why it was a summer hit). A shame because I kinda dug the aesthetics. #filmsky

2025 watch #218 - Frankenstein (2025). Guillermo Del Toro’s sumptuous fairytale telling of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece. More than any of his previous characters - besides Llewlyn Davis perhaps - I feel like Oscar Isaac was born to play Victor Frankenstein, and with such grotesque confidence #filmsky

2025 watch #217 - Downton Abbey: Women’s Ankles (2025). Felt rather like an extended episode of the show after the grandeur and intrigue of A New Era, set as it was in the South of France. Rented to make the wife smile of a Christmas Day, so Brownie points there at least, what what. #filmsky

2025 watch #216 - Hot Fuzz (2007). A veritable who’s who of British TV and film star in Edgar Wright’s follow up to the excellent Shaun of the Dead. Probably sacrilegious but I’m not a fan of the rest of the Cornetto trilogy, they’re style over substance. Bad Boys II has a better plot. #filmsky

2025 watch #215 - Sleepless in Seattle (1993). “That’s a chicks movie”. Slight romcom saved by Meg & Tom being at the top of their games. Keeps referencing a far superior movie - a risk - and it’s weighted more rom than com. Tom plays the straight man. He should never play the straight man. #filmsky

2025 watch #214 - Die Hard 2 (1990). “Just the fax, ma’am, just the fax.” Starts with naked William Sadler doing tai chi. Quickly escalates to Bruce Willis in the guts of another building & a bloodbath. Doesn’t have the same build to a crescendo as the first but it had a lot to live up to. #filmsky

2025 watch #213 - Gremlins (1984). Back when a cert between PG & 15 didn’t exist, this was released as a PG in US, 15 in UK. I must have caught this on TV in the 80’s. It’s a mix of fantastic puppetry, absurd plotting, and swings from full horror to mad cap comedy. Not as good as I remember #filmsky

The Lincoln Lawyer coz that’s where he figures out the lies Black Christmas coz it oozes from their eyes Wake Up Dead Man coz resurrection is the prize The Grinch coz it’s Jim Carrey in disguise. #lastfourwatched #letterboxdfriday #letterboxd #filmsky

2025 watch #212 - How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). A chaotic Christmas creation only Carrey could carry! Nicholson was a possibility though surely too old, and John Stamos might be a household name outside the US had he not been allergic to the prosthetics. But Jim is perfection in the role.

2025 watch #211 - Wake Up Dead Man (2025). Third Knives Out has the most forced idea to put together a “family” - the only parishioners left who will put up with Monsignor’s bully pulpit - but arguably it’s also the best. Part down to Josh O’Connor, part down to a very well written script. #filmsky

2025 watch #210 - Black Christmas (2019). Finally getting into the Christmas spirit! Never saw the original so can’t compare. This is the kind of film where every male character is a suspect, and the clues as to who is the killer/killers are few. Themes aren’t subtle but the cast is great. #filmsky

2025 watch #209 - The Lincoln Lawyer. Second Matthew McConaughey film this week, a solid Grisham-esque courtroom crime thriller with a stellar cast. It doesn’t quite hit the emotional heights of something like A Few Good Men, but it’s pretty meaty and very watchable.

2025 watch #208 - Killer Joe. When you live in a trailer park with your deadbeat family, and they practically sell you to a killer cop, you’d think you’re already pretty near the bottom of the barrel. But for Dottie (Juno Temple) there’s further to go. One relentlessly mean-spirited movie. #filmsky

A boy and his toy A girl and her femjoy A girl in the spirit realm A boy called Bill who isn’t at the helm Okay, this one’s a bit forced! #lastfourwatched #letterboxdfriday #letterboxd #filmsky

2025 watch #207 - Kill Bill: Vol. 2. The better half of Kill Bill, restrained action, full of character motivations, and twists worthy of a Coen Brothers film. Uma Thurman continues to amaze, it’s by far Daryl Hannah’s meatiest role, and David Carradine’s menacing Bill is finally on screen. #filmsky

2025 watch #207 - Kill Bill: Vol. 1. It has its moments, notably the first fight, O-Ren Ishii’s animated backstory, and the Okinawa comedic reprieve, but it’s a long ass movie to set up what you really came to see, Vol. 2. Which means The Whole Bloody Affair really is the only way to watch. #filmsky

You will be visited by 3 spirits.

You will be visited by 3 spirits.

2025 watch #206 - Bottoms. To avoid being expelled but mostly to meet girls, two girls form a Fight Club. The funniest high school film since Heathers. Rachel Sennott co-wrote so you’d expect her to be good, but the rest of the cast are equally impressive, especially The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri. #filmsky

@knowledgefight.bsky.social what's the count on emails teaching you how to pronounce Leicester [and Edam]? 😅 Keep up the good and important work, chaps!

2025 watch #205 - Dear Mr. Watterson (2013). Found out about this project when I listened to 2000’s movie podcast Scene/Unseen & one of the hosts - Chris Browne - was leaving to work on this. It’s a love fest but ultimately hollow without the great man himself. Like a Bowie film without the music.

2025 watch #204 - Spirited Away (2001). A movie this sumptuous and packed full of inventiveness and humour doesn’t need to make much sense. Blew me away in 2001 when I first moved to Japan, so it holds a special place in my heart as the gateway drug to all things Studio Ghibli. #filmsky

2025 watch #203 - Him (2025). When the protag gets a brain injury at the start of a movie already showing demonic symbolism, anything subsequent should be anything goes! Plus this is Monkeypaw, who’ve given us Us, Get Out & Nope. It was a high bar to get over, but it doesn’t take a run up. #filmsky

A week of problematic masculinity: Joe wants to put America in a burning tire Gilda’s in a triangle of toxic desire Martin thinks he’s a living vampire Affliction passed down from sire to sire #lastfourwatched #letterboxdfriday #letterboxd #filmsky

2025 watch #202 - Affliction (1997). Great adaptation of a great modern American writer - Russell Banks - who sadly passed in 2023. I guess not many of his books are palatable to movie audiences but I’d take more if his material produces performances like these from Coburn and Nolte. #filmsky

2025 watch #201 - Gilda (1946). Fan of film noir but didn’t know until today that Gilda was one. It ticks all the boxes except one: the title. Which influences the poster. Which makes it look less noir and more Gigi… Gilad (sic) I discovered this hidden [from me] cutthroat gem.

2025 watch #200 - Martin (1977). Another glorious Romero horror with a cute twist on vampire lore. Is Martin a vampire? His elderly cousin seems to think so, and Martin sure has a taste for red Mountain Dew. Yet daylight doesn’t bother him and crosses don’t burn. It’s vampirism as addiction #filmsky

2025 watch #199 - Joe (1970). "Joe, don't it make you wanna go to war, once more?" Watched on the recommendation of Quentin Tarantino's Cinema Speculation. Feels like a snapshot of 70's America with it's TV dinners & man cave-dwelling psychos. Joe walked so that Travis Bickle could drive? #filmsky

Unfortunate nomenclaturing

2025 watch #198 - The Running Man (2025). Makes adaptation of The Long Walk look like dystopian Shakespeare. The camp lazerquestness of the 80’s film never felt like a right fight for the source material, but this is possibly worse. A strong first third, but then it’s a meandering mess. #filmsky

Hard drive is a macguffin to show off Jade’s abs Went back to watch Marty get confused over tabs Mia Wallace has to take her jabs And a penguin helps Coogan’s character find his gonads…? #lastfourwatched #letterboxdfriday #letterboxd #filmsky

2025 watch #197 - The Penguin Lessons (2024). “I have no wish to harm the penguin…” Steve Coogan is perfect as the jaded and sarcastic school teacher forced to take care of a penguin when he rescues it from an oil spill. A gentle way to spend a couple of hours. #filmsky

2025 watch #196 - The Collapse (2025). Eddie Pepitone, the comic’s comic’s comic has stood up again, and his latest stand up is one of his best. It’ll stand the test of time, if we make it. Eddie doesn’t think we will 😁 #filmsky

2025 watch #195 - Pulp Fiction (1994). Hard to describe the anticipation we had for Tarantino’s second feature, especially as here in the UK we’d spent two years wearing out our bootleg copies of Reservoir Dogs as it wasn’t released on VHS until 1995. I love this film.

2025 watch #194 - Back to the Future (1985). Rebel with a cause Marty McFly must help his mum and dad fall in love in 1955, so that he can travel back to the future in Doc’s DeLorean. All time Spielbergian classic that made Michael J Fox a movie star and Universal a box office smash hit. #filmsky

Twin Peaks rewatch and I need to know everything there is to know about this scene…

A writer who meets a killer A killer who commits matricide A writer who turns into a killer And Christian Slater’s killer gets stuck in his ride #lastfourwatched #letterboxdfriday #letterboxd #filmsky

2025 watch #193 - Psycho Therapy. “Then one day you decided to talk to her… about potatoes.” This kind of indie mumblecore lives or dies by two things: the dialogue and the cast. And I liked both. Script is low key funny, Buscemi is great, Magaro always delivers, and Britt Lower is a Severance star.

2025 watch #192 - House By The River (1950). “Now isn’t he like a child, he wanted his picture in the paper.” Not so memorable but still a solid thriller from Fritz Lang, with the narcissistic killer front and centre played admirably by Louis Hayward. #filmsky

@thunderlevin.bsky.social Sharknado Seven: The Return of Levin has a nice ring to it 😁