A one-line spoiler-free review of everything I watched in the cinema in October 2024

I’ve ditched the usual blurb about “not being a movies person, but anyway…” because since I started going to the cinema regularly in 2022 I’ve turned into the kind of guy who downloads the London Film Festival brochure and meticulously plans what to see. You can find all my one-line spoiler-free reviews here.

Gamera: The Giant Monster (1965), Noriaki Yuasa – Who doesn’t love a giant prehistoric flying fire-breathing radioactive turtle, eh? This was an absolute atomic blast at a relaxed screening in the bar at the Finsbury Park Picturehouse being run by Token Homo, and it had a lovely vibe, a quiz, a Space Invaders machine, and far too much red wine was drunk for a Monday night.

Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), Todd Phillips – Box office takings and critics be damned, I really enjoyed this. I watched Joker for the second time the night before cos it was streaming on ITVX which may have helped, because the design callbacks were chef’s kiss and something I maybe wouldn’t have noticed so much if I was relying on my memory of seeing the original once in 2019. Joaquin Phoenix is magnetic in the role, I would happily run away and do a singing crime spree with Lady Gaga’s Lee Quinzel, and Brendan Gleeson puts in a fantastic turn.

[Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix in Joker: Folie à Deux]

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920), John S Robertson – This was accompanied by a semi-improvised live soundtrack from Grok and I have to confess I was rather more gripped with the music than the film, which seemed, to me, to be inferior to the 1931 Rouben Mamoulian version I saw earlier this year.

[John Barrymore as Dr Jekyll]

Timestalker (2024), Alice Lowe – I enjoyed this, with some brilliant laugh out loud moments and a great supporting actor role from Tanya Reynolds, but tonally it was a bit all over the shop, and I came away wondering if it would have been better structured as a five-part TV series with each era in a different episode rather than as a slightly uneven movie. There is a great interview with writer and director Alice Lowe here.

[Alice Lowe, the mastermind of Timestalker]

The Outrun (2024), Nora Fingscheidt – Saoirse Ronan is rightly getting praise for her performance in this, she’s essentially in emotional close-up for virtually every scene for the whole movie, but I found it all quite harrowing and depressing and I didn’t really get the “there is light at the end of the tunnel” emotional uplift that I think was intended to be there. It did make me redouble me resolve to visit Orkney though, and it has some really nice seals in it, the dogs of the sea, who were all very good boys and girls.

[Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun]

Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara (2024), Erin Lee Carr – I didn’t go to see this at the cinema but had access to a preview at home, and it was very interesting and I wrote a piece specifically about it: The Tegan and Sara internet culture and fandom documentary is worth 100 minutes of your time.

[Tegan (L) and Sara in Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara]

Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), Todd Phillips – I liked it so much I went again, thus single-handedly making up 2.3% of the movie’s disappointing box office take in the UK. I also just can’t get my head round people calling it “a musical”. It isn’t “a musical”. It is a movie that has some weird delusional fantasy sequences with songs in them. And it is, I believe, absolutely 100% guaranteed to be viewed as a misunderstood cult classic in five years time.

Oxide Ghosts – The Brass Eye Tapes (2022), Michael Cumming – It isn’t quite Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap level of secrecy required, but they ask that people don’t reveal too much about this. Suffice it to say if you have even a passing interest in the work of Chris Morris, this is a brilliant evening if you get the chance to go to a screening.

Read more of my one-line spoiler-free reviews of everything I’ve watched in the cinema.