Hey, Rambo prequel director Jalmari Helander, gimme a quote showing your lack of understanding of the character. “It won’t be as dark as the last two Rambos. It’s going to be a little more adventurous, and I hope to inspire a new generation of 10-year-olds to go into the forest to play Rambo."

Japanese jazz biopic Between the White Key and the Black Key does not quite manage to pull itself together, but the ambition in its structure is admirable. fictionmachine.com/2025/11/07/r...

If you ever question if your fanfic is too self indulgent please remember that’s actually the point of fanfiction

Japanese jazz biopic Between the White Key and the Black Key does not quite manage to pull itself together, but the ambition in its structure is admirable. fictionmachine.com/2025/11/07/r...

Oh waiter, a shot of your finest plum wine - I need to clean some coins.

RIP Pauline Collins.

Doctor Who's "Closing Time" tries to repeat the success of "The Lodger", but fails to achieve the same results. fictionmachine.com/2025/11/04/t...

Very sad to hear of Peter Watkin's passing. Here's a review I wrote of his revolutionary docudrama Culloden. fictionmachine.com/2020/07/21/r...

What I read was "disability access nightmare".

Let's keep it short and simple: Chinese fantasy adventure The Girl Who Stole Time is the best animated film I have seen in 2025. fictionmachine.com/2025/11/02/r...

RIP Tchéky Karyo.

Filmed in 2021, released in an early form in 2023, and then finally in cinemas in 2025, Vital Signs bears all the hallmarks of a deeply censored work. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/31/r...

I don't think its controversial to name Peter Weir as Australia's finest film director, but I'd be interested in your alternative picks. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/28/r...

Yep yep Naarm 13 November I'll be at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image how you say ACMI to moderate a chat with Adam and Sam after a screening of their Sitges and SXSW Sydney award-winning super-8 shot experimental bogan gothic magnum opus A GRAND MOCKERY. Join us!

A love for John Candy and his work pours forth from Colin Hanks' new documentary, but it has very little to actually say.

RIP Nabil Shaban, Jordanian-British actor and iconic performer with disability. Founded the Graeae disability theatre company. Appeared in City of Joy, Wittgenstein, and Children of Men. Famously played the capitalist alien banker Sil in Doctor Who.

What?

Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart headline the 2016 comedy Central Intelligence, but when the outtakes are funnier than the film you know you have problems. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/23/r...

How the fuck has Yamada gone until 2025 to win the Lifetime Achievement Award? The dude is 94 years old, and his 90th film is screening at the festival. variety.com/2025/film/fe...

Budget cuts were always expected on Tron 4.

Celebrating the late, great Diane Keaton with a look at one of her films for Woody Allen. He made her reputation, and she made his. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/21/r...

"It's a home invasion film from Leatherface's point of view" Film Critic @horrornonna.com on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in CHAIN REACTIONS. What CHAIN REACTIONS at home now: buff.ly/9aSdCtG

99c eBook sale at Cemetery Dance, including my latest novel, BLOOD COVENANT!

Sam Fuller's thriller ‘The Crimson Kimono’ (released on this day in 1959) begins as a sordid police procedural, but morphs into something far more unusual and compelling. crookedmarquee.com/classic-corn...

Moth Paulson examines @annleckie.com's Radch novels in this new subscriber essay, pointing out both the seeming importance of 'justice' and its actual absence. Subscribe to read: AUD30/year (~ GBP15 or USD19) gets you this and 11 other essays! www.speculativeinsight.com/subs

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory are trapped in the hotel from hell in Doctor Who's "The God Complex", reviewed now at FictionMachine. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/21/d...

Moth Paulson - @adorkablesmile.bsky.social - draws parallels between real-world present and past (in)justice, and @annleckie.com's Radch novels, in this new subscriber essay. Subscribe to read: AUD30/year (~ GBP15 or USD19) gets you this and 11 other essays! www.speculativeinsight.com/subs

Robocop is a movie about a guy who gets killed on the job and they still made him go back to work

Dean DeBlois' How to Train Your Dragon (2025) is pretty enjoyable stuff, but then it was when he made it the first time in 2010. This is probably the most unnecessary enjoyable film ever made. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/19/r...

Sonia (not on Bluesky) and I have been talking about setting up a blog where we can review the music CDs that we buy. Consider this a soft launch, and nothing so doggedly regular as FictionMachine is. I expect the reviews will be shorter too. discfrenzy.com

I continue my revisitation of Doctor Who's sixth season with a look at "The Girl Who Waited". fictionmachine.com/2025/10/18/d...

Have been watching some Diane Keaton, in memory, etc. First Love & Death, and now First Wives Club.

As depicted in this film: fictionmachine.com/2024/07/03/r...

They don't make them like they used to - except when they do, with Nick Hamm's surprisingly old-fashioned medieval action film William Tell. It's out on DVD in Australia. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/16/r...

ICYMI: a new essay is up today at FictionMachine, taking a look at David Fincher's 2002 thriller Panic Room. It's 4,700 words of criticky goodness. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/15/d...

RIP Dead or Alive creator Itagaki Tomonobu. I was a particularly keen fan of Dead or Alive 2 on the Sega Dreamcast.

That Taylor Swift Ophelia song is giving very strong Lady Gaga Papparazi vibes.

Listening to Taiwanese radio while I work. Slightly surprised to hear them play Icehouse's "Electric Blue".

In the latest FictionMachine essay, I examine David Fincher's hugely underrated 2002 thriller Panic Room: the challenges in making it, the unexpected cast changes, and why it works as well as it does. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/15/d...

I would not even be slightly surprised. This is what making a tentpole feature while changing directors and constantly changing the script will buy you.

RIP Drew Struzan. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/14/d...

The more I see of Shinoda Masahiro's remarkable body of work, the more I believe he may be the most underrated director of 20th century Japanese cinema. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/14/r...

Danny Boyle's belated sequel 28 Years Later plays by its own roles and ignores or subverts a lot of sequel expectations, and this is to its tremendous credit. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/13/r...

2025 thriller Companion is an excellent film debut for writer/director Drew Hancock. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/13/r...

One of my all-time favourites films: Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days. 30 years old, right here, right now.

RIP Diane Keaton. Will probably want to write more later.

FictionMachine's long-running series of 1955 western reviews continues, with a look at the Sterling Hayden b-movie Top Gun directed by Joe Nazarro. This was the third of four westerns Hayden made in 1955 alone. fictionmachine.com/2025/10/12/r...

Former lostprophets singer Ian Watkins has been shivved to death in prison, where he was serving a 29-year sentence for horrific child abuse crimes. This one's not so much mourned as simply noted.

No one seems fussed that Tron Ares doesn't actually include Tron. It's like the Waiting for Godot of franchise sequels.