Jane Schoenbrun's TV Glow follow-up TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA is a surprisingly sweet and sensitive film about the validity of sexual fantasy and the cinema that sparks it. My review for @sightsoundmag.bsky.social: :

Japan's female filmmaking renaissance continues with Mieko Kawakami adaptation ALL THE LOVERS IN THE NIGHT, a shimmering, elusive film in which nothing happens but life itself. My review for @indiewire.com:

I spoke with Studio Ghibli cinematographer Atsushi Okui for @cartoonbrew.bsky.social about the film that made me fall in love with love, WHISPER OF THE HEART. We discuss constructing key sequences, location scouting at the crack of dawn, and the late Yoshifumi Kondo's directing style

The new album from Perfume Genius

Just deleted a post about Peter Jackson using VFX tools in Get Back because I couldn't remember where I read/saw the info. But I promise this is a real thing. Creating closeups from master shots, putting audio-only dialogue into musicians' mouths using footage from elsewhere, that kind of thing.

Now live on our Substack -- the great Michael Sicinski writing on the first in a series of independent Chinese films recently programmed @spectacletheater.com in Brooklyn. Subscribe now so you don't miss out on the rest of the essays in this series! inreviewonline.substack.com/p/a-past-we-...

this graduation speech moment is notable, and her amazed shock at having failed to read the room feels instructive. when you're inside the bubble, you think everybody else is. but everybody isn't.

A treasure trove of interviews with anime professionals is in the web archives of #Anime Style magazine - in Japanese and English. Have a look at the 2013 archives on Tengen Toppa Gurenn Lagann for starters. (Usual #Gainax boob obsession warning applies.) animestyle.jp/special/gurr...

In a pub toilet in Belfast and a guy just dried his hands by shadow boxing.

I enjoyed a brief chat with Katsuhito Ishii, whose cult classic THE TASTE OF TEA is restored and in US theatres now from Film Movement. I also asked him how that Funky Forest sequel is coming along.

For @sightsoundmag.bsky.social, I reviewed QUEER AS PUNK, a quietly urgent and remarkably charming doc which follows a Malaysian punk band and the community they represent -- on the road, at home, and abroad. Plus, the songs slap.

a lot of people wonder what Richard Kelly has been up to since 2009, but i wanted to know how he's been getting paid www.gq.com/story/richar...

also, a little scoop from Kelly: he's written a book! "I have a gigantic novel that I've written. It's gonna be published later this year. It's science fiction, is all I can say right now. It’s definitely big. It's epic, and I'm really, really excited." www.gq.com/story/richar...

last week, i called Richard Kelly while he was killing time at the airport to talk about how Southland Tales predicted the future

Curtain call: In the wake of record-breaking box-office success, I spoke with KOKUHO director Lee Sang-il one last time We discuss his unexpected journey with the film, the queerness of onnagata, and what's next for him

Devastated to learn of the passing of Tony Stella, a great fan of Japanese cinema and my go-to artist when commissioning for the blu-rays I'm working on. This is a real shock.

soooo when are we going to have a serious discussion of Spike's consistent caping for abusers, going all the way back to the way he shit on The Color Purple for being too mean to men like Mister to spending his social capital on Nate Parker Just wildly unrepentant anti-feminist. (I'm being kind)

My rundown of the Cannesimation titles heading to the Croisette this year. Thank you for keeping my horrible pun, @cartoonbrew.bsky.social

So excited to see this monolithic title finally getting an HD release - disc extras include a conversation between me and Joe O'Rourke, and a wonderful introduction from @dengerow.bsky.social - all filmed and edited by @sarahappleton.bsky.social

Need to write something on the British film industry's obsession with warslop I fear

NEW: A dispatch from iicon, the new event that kicked off today in Vegas from the organizers of E3 It's a meeting of captains of industry. At the EA CEO talk I went to this morning, for example, the heads of Ubisoft and Nintendo of America were in the audience www.gamefile.news/p/iicon-ea-a...

For the @financialtimes.com, I explored the recording-breaking domestic success of KOKUHO, and what it means for the industry at large

RESURRECTION is a film about canon asking to be brought into it. Whether or not it will depends on who picks up a barebones disk with a cover and title that communicate nothing. Time cops! Vampires! Spirits! Cinema! Breathtaking shot after breathtaking shot! Read the full piece at EoM.

Boosting this signal because writers need to stand together, now more than ever

This is an extraordinary, searing interview. In the context of the repulsive new Jackson biopic, it raises questions about why so many people just don’t want to know what he did. FWIW I saw Leaving Neverland before HBO pulled it, and I absolutely believe those kids.

Happy Birthday, John Waters, my one interviewee for The Face (RIP) theface.com/culture/john...

"My best ideas come to me on walks" I had a wonderful conversation with Sho Miyake about TWO SEASONS, TWO STRANGERS for @thefilmstage.com

"I’ll give you two examples of works that served as inspirations. The first is Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr., and the second is Tony Scott’s Déjà Vu." Sho Miyake talks with @blakethinks.bsky.social about his delicate, gorgeously picturesque Golden Leopard-winning Two Seasons, Two Strangers:

Check out a first look at Disney’s ASL re-animated songs from 'Encanto,' 'Frozen 2,' and 'Moana 2,' coming to Disney+ next week. The studio reworks key musical sequences using performance-driven signing. www.cartoonbrew.com/music-videos...

malcolm tucker level spin here

Why do the Japanese like their buns askew (2026)

Meiko Kaji's recent New York appearance flooded my timeline with clips and words of admiration. You were all equally complimentary of her interpreter. For the Substack, I spoke with beloved Japanese-English interpreter Monika Uchiyama about the craft in speaking for others:

We've exclusively debuted the U.S. trailer for Chie Hayakawa’s Cannes selection #Renoir, opening this May.

Yuiga Danzuka’s #BrandNewLandscape, making its New Directors/New Films premiere this week, is a deeply affecting debut that finds cinematic language for the complex pain of estrangement. Read @blakethinks.bsky.social's Critic's Pick review: thefilmstage.com/cannes-revie...

I went to visit Quantic Dream in Paris in the nadir of the David Cage era, when they were making that terrible Beyond game. I swear to you: the word EMOTION was written on the studio wall in big black lettering

That’s Smee in the corner

i guess he will

I am honoured, moved, and excited to share that I have been awarded a 2026 Daiwa Scholarship for my work writing on Japanese cinema In September, I'll be moving to Tokyo, where I'll undertake intensive language study and work placements in my field :) dajf.org.uk/scholarships...

New from me for Filmmaker Mag: Major Japanese film studios are bringing liminal horror indie games to the big screen, with more than adaptation on their minds. I spoke with EXIT 8's Genki Kawamura and THE CONVENIENCE STORE's Jiro Nagae to find out more filmmakermagazine.com/133576-inter...

The new VERY hagriographic Michael Jackson biopic starring MJ's nephew is out at the end of the month. But back in 2004 an unauthorised and EQUALLY flattering biopic was made in Canada. Here is a clip and I promise you have NO idea where it's going. I haven't done a single edit here.

My lead review of FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER for @lwlies.com is now online. Out Friday in the UK from MUBI

For @animag.bsky.social, I spoke with Oddtaxi's Baku Kinoshita about his refreshing and reflective character drama THE LAST BLOSSOM. I really love this one. In UK cinemas now from @alltheanime.com

For @soundspheremag.bsky.social, I spoke with @danielpemberton.bsky.social about scoring space sensitively in PROJECT HAIL MARY

I had a blast speaking with artist-turned-animator Yoshitoshi Shinomiya about his journey to bring Berlinale debut A NEW DAWN to the screen. For @cartoonbrew.bsky.social www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film...

“I believe many of you know my age but I’m full of life because as you know, a Scorpion never dies.”🦂 Meiko Kaji ending her NYC trip by making us all emotional 🥲 What a beautiful experience, thank you @japansociety.org for making this happen

Often separating the art from the artist is separating the abuse from the abuser, and that isn’t the rock solid logical superior intellectual position to have. The Death of The Author means the authors intent doesn’t negate people to having an oppositional decoding of a piece of work.

Japanese independent cinema is proliferating in London's repertory cinemas. Who's programming it, and why? In the first of a series of curator chats, I spoke with Kano Matilda, whose '21st Century Japan' strand at @riversidelondon.bsky.social brings us Super Happy Forever and more

Here’s an article I wrote! In the Rebecca Riots, men wore women’s clothes as disguise, not to undo gender, but to move through it. Sometimes identity becomes something systems can and will absorb (even rely on), without anything really shifting underneath