A director whose work sets your teeth on edge. My choice: Luc Besson.

shamelessly stolen from Face***k

Masterpiece

It's a pleasure and an honor to take part in this new BBC radio documentary about the great critic and curator Iris Barry (who, of course, founded the MOMA Film Library and made sure that its treasures were projected to museumgoers): www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

So who was raptured?

Exorcist II revisionism has to stop. It’s cack. It was cack in 1977 and it’s cack now. Stop it.

Haven’t been excited by weekly drop TV in a long time, but I’m counting the hours until Alien: Earth Episode 8 is released. It’s fair to say Noah Hawley has aced it.

ON THE BLOG: BABA YAGA & co. emmawestwood.net/2025/09/23/d...

I’m a committed atheist, but if the Rapture were real, I suspect that a lot of self-identifying Christians would be hilariously surprised to discover that they have been Left Behind

BBC News

The only Rapture I believe in

i've written some capsules on the three Sho Miyake films I've been able to track down and watch over the past week or so — an excellent filmmaker! thistheaterishaunted.blogspot.com/2025/09/sho-...

i like that part in Welcome to the Jungle when, after 20 minutes of being welcomed to the jungle, Axl is like "do you know where you are? the jungle!"

RIP Sergio Salvati (1934-2025) who shot this:

Kenny Dalglish – The new football documentary from Asif Kapadia is due out in October. Details here bit.ly/3Vi7alp #KennyDalglish #football #film #documentary #AsifKapadia #soccer

There are so many great Robert Redford movies but I’d like to shout out The Old Man and the Gun, which is one of those films that seemed like a nice little film at the time, and became one I realised I think about a lot and made really strong impression on me. Amazing supporting cast too.

Farewell to a heavyweight of cinema. His contributions to the medium were absolutely mammoth. Performance-wise, arguably has greatest turn was at the tender age of 77 in lone survival flick, All Is Lost. Truly amazing work in the twilight years of a Hollywood legend.

RIP to an absolute acting legend

I’ll tell you what we do need to get out on the streets about: the cost of living, greedy landlords and the catastrophic failure of neoliberalism. God, feels like the old days on Twitter.

feeling seen

When I was younger and had to scrounge together money for a bus ticket, I'd sometimes go alone to London to see films not showing in Oxford. Usually, it was disappointing. When it was Perfect Blue, it was mindblowing. Try to see it in a cinema if you can. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrWa...

Anne Francis in "Susan Slept Here" (1954), starring Dick Powell and Debbie Reynolds, and directed by Frank Tashlin.

Recently I got to record two commentary tracks for two John Huston crackers based on two all timer pieces of literature.

A trailer for Lucile Hadzihalilovic's The Ice Tower. www.youtube.com/watch?v=STQF...

The BFI doing a Fred Wiseman season is king shit. He has spent his career documenting America via its institutions. That’s his best stuff. Welfare (1975) is one of his masterworks and I’m glad they’re showing that.

Sad about Angela Rayner. She was much needed in government.

Who did it better?

Schrader said he would joke to his acters: "this is a low-budget film! All we can afford is Armani!"

Let me save you some time, Instagram: no, somebody has not posted something on Threads I might be interested in.

The eyeball monster in Alien: Earth needs a name. Like graboids or something.

This week’s Alien: Earth was a great exercise in old school horror dread. A homage to the original, sure, and the 1970s production design doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in a world where a guy with knives for arms exist like in T2, a minor gripe, because so far this show has been tops.

The absolute hypocrisy of the Tories over Angela Rayner. Tories hide their money and pay as little tax as humanly possible as standard.

Wuthering Heights is one of the greatest novels ever written. That new trailer for the Emerald Fennell version looks like an animated Mills and Boon cover. I’ll reserve final judgement, of course.

Happy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia S17 Day to all who celebrate.

Ridley Scott season begins at the BFI shortly. Here’s a thing I wrote about his career a few years ago for them www.bfi.org.uk/features/whe...

Movies are not manifestos. Unresolved dialectic and ongoing ambiguity in fact reflect reality. Mixed, messy messages are the stuff of life.

This album is greatness

New Deftones album day.

A thing from my free silent film Substack picturesthatmove.substack.com/p/poe-gothic...

Terence Stamp 1938—2025. an icon departs.

On comm duty with my darlst Kat Ellinger for this. The best American film of the 21st century to date. That’s an actual fact not an opinion.

If you are not watching this newly restored 1969 documentary about Greta Garbo, introduced by Joan Crawford, right now, you are missing out. Catch up on iPlayer www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Timothee Chalamet is playing me in a new film by Josh Safdie.

RIP Ray Brooks. Narrated Mr Benn, of course, but he also made three films with exploitation king Pete Walker, including The Flesh and Blood Show, and House of Whipcord.

I wrote a thing about Dougie Fairbanks for my silent film Substack picturesthatmove.substack.com/p/how-dougla...

Daniel Day-Lewis got all the praise and the Oscar, but Hugh O’Conor is also amazing in My Left Foot (1989). He’s forgotten, but he has something like 40 minutes of screen time before Day-Lewis properly turns up.