One-line spoiler-free movie reviews for June 2026
This month featuring: spooky basements, cursed wishes, alien conspiracy and plenty of John Waters and Divine (plus one of the queerest sci-fi cartoons in history). Repo Man (1984), Alex Cox – Bar Trash at Beer Merchant’s Tap, Hackney Wick –…
Local characters, fake ads, and a woman with a bag on her head – Walthamstow International Film Festival 2026
At the weekend I spent a couple of hours at the lovely Walthamstow Trades Hall for the 17th Walthamstow International Film Festival, which was showing some 80-odd short movies over the course of a few hours. One of the things…
One-line spoiler-free movie reviews for May 2026
This month featuring: the perfect folk horror, a Brazilian mistake, Stevie Wonder stealing John Lennon’s show and road-trip horror going off the rails (plus why the “big light” ruins David Lynch). Power to the People: John & Yoko Live in…
One-line spoiler-free movie reviews for April 2026
This month featuring: a dreamlike internet horror, a ragequit at the BFI, a gleefully trashy Satanic romp, and a 4K anime masterpiece (plus some truly baffling nonsense). Arco (2025), Ugo Bienvenu & Gilles Cazaux – This was quite slow-burn and…
One-line spoiler-free movie reviews for March 2026
This is a bumper month – I saw a lot of cinema – featuring: a brilliant silent film built entirely from archive train footage, a promising AI nightmare that spectacularly lost its way, giant fuck off radioactive ants and a…
Thoughts on … Trains (2024) – Maciej Drygas
How archive footage of trains tells the story of a continent – and a century One of my favourite things I’ve watched in recent years is From the Sea to the Land Beyond, directed by Penny Woolcock and with a…
One-line spoiler-free movie reviews for February 2026
This month featuring: existential parenting panic, analogue Welsh folk horror, rock-history revisionism and the worst movie ever made (with additional UFOs wobbling on visible strings and themed cocktails). Rabbit Trap (2025), Bryn Chainey – Wow, I absolutely loved this. Creepy…
A one-line spoiler-free review of everything I watched in the cinema in January 2026
This month featuring, among others: Peter Hujar’s Day, Rental Family, Mercy, No Other Choice, It Was Just an Accident, Nouvelle Vague, Labyrinth, The Brotherhood of Satan and some Wallace & Gromit. Peter Hujar’s Day (2025), Ira Sachs – Resolutely nothing happens very slowly,…
A one-line spoiler-free review of everything I watched in the cinema in November and December 2025
A double helping as I’m back at work full-time which has slowed down my afternoon cinema trips, but nevertheless I got to see Bugonia, Palestine 36, Animalia, The Shining, The Alien Dead, Train Dreams, plus big screen music experiences from…
Quatermass at last: a day with Nigel Kneale’s sci-fi in Derby
To my shame, despite being a massive science fiction nerd, I had never seen a single second of any of the various Quatermass television serials or films. That changed earlier this month, when I spent a day at the Quatermass…