REVIEW: Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary is destined to become one of my go-to feelgood films. A solid science fiction story, it packs in enough heartfelt emotion to have left me in tears repeatedly. While it's not the most original of stories, with the influences of previous sci-fi favourites easy to see, it combines these elements into a story that carefully balances human spirit, the wonder of the alien and the isolating vastness of the universe. There's a wealth of talent on this film. While I haven't (yet) read Andy Weir's novel, I understand that this adaptation follows it closely and that any significant plot points occur in both versions. Scriptwriter Drew Goddard also wrote the screenplay for the previous adaptation of a Weir novel, 2015's The Martian, but I'll always know him as one of the best writer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, as a director on Cabin in the Woods, The Good Place and more, and as the creator of the Netflix Daredevil series. The film-making duo Lord and Miller created the Spider-Verse series and The Lego Movie. What we have here is a group of people eminently skilled in creating visually arresting worlds that use visual and physical effects to tell entertaining and moving stories.

Ryan Gosling is exceptionally good as Grace, managing to sell the character as an everyman in spite of being a certified genius and, well, looking like Ryan Gosling. (As an aside, I never really fancied Gosling before, in spite of his obvious charms. But put him wonky glasses and a chunky knit and make him play a dork and it's another story.) It's not every actor who can convincingly share scenes with a team-operated puppet, especially one without any recognisably anthropomorphic features, but Gosling handles it perfectly. The multi-talented James Ortiz brings the alien Rocky to life with what seems like ease, and his chemistry with Gosling is palpable, in spite of their being no scenes in which they actually interact. Indeed, Ortiz wasn't originally intended to voice Rocky alongside operating him, but the bond that developed between the two actors clearly made it obvious they should be performing together as two best friends of entirely different biologies. 

Sandra Hüller might be even better than either of them as Eva Stratt, head of the project. She portrays Stratt as a reserved and driven woman dealing with impossible choices, with deep and heartbreaking emotion threatening to break the surface at any time. Even when we learn what she has done and might be expected to turn against her, she remains completely sympathetic. And the film wouldn't be the same without Lionel "L-Boy" Boyce as the restrained but incredibly likeable Carl.

Telling the story in a mixture of flashbacks and immediate events works well, although the extent of Grace's amnesia isn't always clear and we're not always sure if he knows more than we do at any given point. There are some shaky conceits that need to be accepted for the plot to work. Sending someone on perhaps the most vital mission in human history when they don't want to go is surely a gigantic risk; even with two others on the ship, he could refuse to help or even sabotage the mission, regardless of how keen he was to help on the ground. I loved that Rocky's species, the Eridians, were vastly ahead of humanity in technological matters but lacked certain areas of scientific understanding, but it's still hard to credit that they could build an interstellar craft without any knowledge of ionising radiation or relativity. The reason that the astrophage hasn't overrun Tau Ceti is so obvious, it's quite painful waiting for the two genius space travellers to realise it.

It's also true that Rocky becomes significantly less interesting an alien life form once we are able to understand him; however, he becomes a much more loveable character in the process. There's room for a film where the alien is not able to speak in a cheerful American voice but remains a full and sympathetic character. However, that may also be a film that is fully focused on the discovery of alien intelligence, rather than balancing this with other huge and interesting science fiction concepts. Similarly, there's an argument to be made that leaving the story's ending open would be more effective, rather than the feelgood, almost saccharine final scene we get. On the other hand, Earth's fate remains very much uncertain, and it's hard to argue with that ending when I'm smiling so much.

There's inevitably been talk of following Project Hail Mary with a sequel. While it's surely essential that Weir write the story first, it could work. There are, after all, plenty of other star systems being impacted by the astrophage, and surely some of them must also be home to intelligent life. But perhaps this is a film that better stands alone. If the balance between this film's component parts was even a little off, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as good. Trying to capture that again might be unwise.

2025 films of the year

It has been a bit of a year for me, and I haven't had the opportunity to see nearly as many new films as I'd have liked, let alone write up the ones I have seen. I've decided to run down through my top ten for the year, but there are plenty more films to catch that could shift the line-up, especially given the number of high-profile and acclaimed releases in late November and December. I may revisit this in another twelve months and see if it's changed. I'm going to appraoch these in order of lowest to highest rated, according to my own flawed opinions.

Honorable mention: Nosferatu (Robert Eggers)

Strictly speaking, Nosferatu is a 2024 film, but as it went on general release with only a week left of 2024, most of its run was in '25. A bleak and beautiful film, this updates the original Symphony of Horror into a vampiric epic. Lily-Rose Depp gives the star performance of a powerful cast, in a truly haunting production that's exquisitely realised. It loses momentum halfway and runs too long, and it's not nearly as strange as either the original or Eggers's best work, but it's still an exceptional film. If it had come out a week later it'd have sat at number three on this list. Full review here.

10) The Running Man (Edgar Wright)

I'm pretty sure this one wouldn't have made it into the top ten if I'd caught more films this year. This isn't a great film, but it is an entertaining one. The second film of the year based on a Stephen King novel with a title based on perambulation, The Running Man is the least stylish of all Wright's films, but still way more stylish than most action movies. The general consensus is that Glen Powell is miscast as the lead, and that's probably fair, but he's watchable enough to carry the adventure. There are occasional glimpses of Wright's unique style, and it's sure as hell better than the shitty 80s version starring Arnie. The film has a strong message against corporate greed and the rich's exploitation of the poor, but it's hard to swallow in a film that cost $110 million where the catering budget doubtless cost more than most people's annual salary.

9) Predator: Badlands (Dan Trachtenberg)

Amazingly, the second Predator film from Trachtenberg this year. Killer of Killers was better than I expected, but it was Badlands that I really enjoyed. We've had the popcorn movie approach with Predator before, with varying results, but Trachtenberg really has nailed three different takes on the concept in short order. This is Predator as a full-on comicbook-style action movie, with legions of CGI monsters. This should be crap, but it tremendously entertaining and surprisingly heartwarming film. Showing the film from the Predator's point of view was a bold move, but making him such a likeable goof makes the film. It's hard to say how much of Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi's performance actually makes it through the CGI, but let's give him the benefit. Elle Fanning's the star, though, as both Weyland-Yutani androids Thea and Tessa. Tying the film so heavily to the Alien series without actually including the monster works brilliantly, as well.

8) Wake Up Dead Man (Rian Johnson)

The third film in the Knives Out/Benoit Blanc series is not, sadly, the hoped for Muppet version, but a stylish and highly personal crime story from Johnson. Although he was raised as an Evangelical Protestant, he chose Catholicism for its potent imagery. It's just as appallingly hypocrytical an institution, after all. There's a potent story here about the conflict between the comfort that faith brings and the damage done by indoctrination, with excellent performances from Josh O'Connor, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close and, of course, Daniel Craig. The rest of the cast don't get the chance to show how good they are, sadly, and the actual mystery at the heart of the story isn't original or confounding enough to live up to the rest of it. Compels me, though.

7) 28 Years Later (Danny Boyle)

The follow-up that 28 Days Later deserved, with Boyle returning to the post-apocalyptic Britain he created, (frustratingly only 22 years later). The exploration of how society has adapted to a world infected by the Rage, both the isolated community on Lindisfarne, and to a lesser extent, the rest of Europe on the other side of the quarantine line. I can't quite decide who gives the best performance: 14-year-old Alfie Williams as the courageous young Spike, who's never known any other world but this; or Jodie Comer as his dying, mentally-distressed mother Isla. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is also very good as dad Jamie, pushed to understandable extremes by the stresses of his life, as is the great Ralph Fiennes as the isolated Dr. Kelson. Also fascinating is gradual revelation that the infected remain, if not intelligent in a human sense, then clearly sentient, with the sport-like hunting of them even more disturbing as a result. Judging by the final scene, the second part, The Bone Temple, is going to be bizarre.

6) The Penguin Lessons (Peter Cattaneo)

Although this premiered in 2024, it didn't go on general release until '25, so it definitely belongs on this list. Based on the memoir of Tom Michell, this is the story of how he arrives to teach English in a school in Argentina, in the middle of the 1976 military junta. Steve Coogan is funny, sympathetic, and surprisingly hot as Michell, who ends up rescuing a penguin from an oil slick, in a desperate attempt to get laid on a break in Uruguay. Adopting the penguin - Juan Salvador - and smuggling him into the school, he is able to inspire his students and find some purpose, but the military's abuse of power soon comes out of the background and begins to impact him and those he has become close to. The comedy is gentle, but not the drama. Disturbingly more topical each day in its exploration of life under fascism, this is an undersung success.

5) Superman (James Gunn)

Gunn's relaunch of the Superman movie franchise and reboot of the DC Universe is quite unlike any Superman film that's come before, and yet is the most satisfying film for the character since Superman II over forty years ago. This doesn't feel much like a Superman film, but it does feel like a Superman comic, which makes a huge difference. Skipping the origin story is standard now, but this feels deep into its universe even as a first instalment. Clark is just one of many powerful beings working as heroes, yet stands apart from the metahumans, something that works far better than I would ever have thought. Having him and Lois already deeply in love and managing their relationship is another plus. Yes, this takes a few hints from the CW but in a vastly more cinematic way. Clark is the giant Boy Scout he always truly was, with David Corenswet giving a wonderful performance, while Rachel Brosnahan is actually perfect as Lois. Nicholas Hoult is remarkable as Lex Luthor, and a special shout-out goes to Edi Gathegi for stealing his every scene as Mr. Terrific. Amazingly, this film manages to both be a bold statement on today's genocide-steeped world, while still being a wholesome live-action cartoon featuring Krypto the Superdog.

4) Thunderbolts* (Jake Schreier)

The second of three MCU films out this year, and while Brave New World was better than I expected, and Fantastic Four: First Steps was decent if unremarkable, Thunderbolts* was a genuine surprise. I did not expect Marvel's answer to The Suicide Squad to be a powerful examination of depression and mental illness. Florence Pugh is the standout as Yelena Belova, dealing with the unbelievable trauma of death and resurrection as well as a truly horrific upbringing. While superhero films can get too serious for their own good sometimes dealing with trauma in a realistic way, in the right setting it works. It's an ensemble by its nature, but the other dominant performance is Lewis Pullman as Bob Reynolds, whose journey through mental illness is powerfully expressed through the allegory of his good and evil superhuman personae. It'll be interesting to see how Bob/Sentry will be used in the future, being essentially Marvel's deliberate Superman ripoff; based on Thunderbolts* alone, his character is one of the best things introduced to the MCU in a good while. 

3) Sinners (Ryan Coogler)

Vampire films are such well-trodden ground, it's incredibly refreshing when one as original and unique as Sinners appears. It's unsurprising that Coogler took some inspiration from From Dusk Till Dawn, but this is far and away the superior work in every way. The direction, music and visual effects are impeccable throughout, but what sets Sinners apart from so many vamp-fests is that it's actually about something. The indelibly racist history of America, the ongoing abuse of Black people and other minorities in the West, the cultural and binding power of music, the strengths and weaknesses of Christian belief, the kinship between Black and Irish... this is a dense film worthy of serious analysis. Michael B. Jordan is predictably excellent as gangster twins Smoke and Stack, with Hailee Steinfeld and Miles Caton (the latter, astonishingly, in his film debut) also giving powerful performances. The fact that half the costuming and period material was bought from Disney after Marvel stopped production on Blade is the icing on the cake. This is how you make a modern vampire film when you know what you're doing.

2) Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro)

The film del Toro was surely born to make, the latest adaptation of Frankenstein blows so many others out of the water. While far from being a faithful interpretation, del Toro's script captures much of the spirit of Shelley's novel, with a strong focus on Frankenstein's selfishness and abandonment of his responsbilities. Oscar Isaac, one of today's great character actors, gives a riveting performance as Frankenstein, with able support from Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz. However, the real star of the film is Jacob Elordi as the Creature, giving a nuanced and powerful performance that is both deeply sympathetic and frequently terrifying. Del Toro remembers the oft-forgotten detail that the Creature was intended as a perfect example of human form, with the design and Elordi's performance elevating the monster to a thing of twisted beauty. Achingly sad in places and quite beautiful throughout, in its own gruesome way, this makes a perfect companion piece for Nosferatu as classic horror bookends for the year. It deserves a proper theatrical release, but at least having it on Netflix means plenty of people will watch it.

1) The Long Walk (Francis Lawrence)

In October I said this would be my film of the year, and I stand by it. I'll also likely never watch it again. The other Stephen King adaptation in this list, The Long Walk shares some notable themes with The Running Man, each story essentially being about the way the powerful exploit the masses through scraps of generosity, the promise of opportunity, and ever more twisted entertainment. It's a far more serious, brutal and emotionally honest story, though. Cooper Hoffman gives a strong lead performance as Ray, but it's David Jonsson, rapidly becoming my one of my favourite young actors, who is the heart of the film as Ray's friend Pete. A brutal production in both filming and presentation, The Long Walk is harrowing but a must-see. Full review here.

REVIEW: The Long Walk

 

Fifty boys walk in a straight line at three miles per hour for as long as they can. If they slow down or stop for too long, they’re shot dead. If they try to escape or even step off the road, they’re shot dead. The last boy walking wins untold riches and his heart’s desire.

It’s a grim premise for a story, and slim basis for a film. Frankly, that Stephen King managed to wring a novel out of it is impressive enough. The fact that he was nineteen when he did so is even more impressive, although it also explains a lot about the story, an angry adolescent polemic against society. Long dismissed as unfilmable, The Long Walk has actually been rattling round Development Hell for years, until finally being picked up by Vertigo with Francis Lawrence as director.

It's probably going to be my film of the year.

It’s one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time, albeit one that I will probably never watch again. It’s a harrowing experience as you are pulled along with the young men as they trudge painfully on. There’s levity there, but it’s gallows humour, the brutal laughing in the face of misery that so many of us learn in order to survive. The original 4 mph rule of the book was knocked down for being frankly impossible, but even keeping up 3 mph for hundreds of miles without rest is pretty unfeasible for all but the most immaculately trained superhuman. (You just know there are some hypermasculine pricks in the audience scoffing and insisting that they could win it.)

Cooper Hoffman is excellent as the central protagonist Ray Garraty, perfectly cast as a believable but damaged everyman, but it’s David Jonsson who really steals the film as the resolutely optimistic Pete McVries. The friendship between the two is the heart of the film, a friendship built in the most unfriendly of circumstances. We see the best of masculinity as well as the worst, with even the most unpleasant of the walkers (that’ll be Charlie Plummer’s Barkovitch) being sympathetic as we know they are all here out of desperation. Not one of them truly grasps just how brutal the Walk is going to be, with the possible exception of the stoic Stebbins (Garrett Wareing), and even he isn’t truly prepared for it.

Even with the novel’s hundred walkers reduced to fifty, there are too many to fully focus on. Tut Nyuot, Ben Wang and Joshua Odjick all give strong performances as Baker, Olsen and Parker, respectively. Olsen, one of the more unlikely contestants, is especially likeable, but in a way that only drives home how unsuited he is for the gruelling challenge. There’s an unpleasant complicity in the Walk from the audience, spectating from comfort just like the gawping onlookers at the roadside. The brutal Walk is fiction, of course, but the cast still walked for miles in order to get realistic footage, with Hoffman reporting that on some days they walked for up to fifteen miles in the heat.

While King wrote and seemingly set his novel in the 1970s, and the aesthetic of the time has been carried over to the film, there’s no real indication of when the film is set. This is to the film’s benefit, since the themes are timeless and can’t be pinned down to one era. Many have read an allegory for the Viet Nam War in the novel, and while there’s a clear parallel between signing up for the Walk and volunteering for military service (down to youngsters lying about their age to get in), it’s a broader story of desperation and hope amongst hopelessness.

Whenever it’s set, The Long Walk occurs in some distorted alternative history, where the USA has become a fascist dictatorship and undergone economic collapse after an unspecified war devastated the nation. The idea that it would take a war to inflict this on America is laughable; given what you people actually voted for last year, a lot of you practically volunteered for this dystopia to be delivered. As outlandish as the idea of the Walk is, it’s also depressingly easy to believe that it would be enacted, for inspiration or entertainment, and that desperate souls would sign up for it even knowing that it would almost certainly mean a painful death.

So much of the film is spent just waiting for the inevitable, a chilling feeling that makes it an uncomfortable yet compelling experience. None of it would work were it not for the depth of the cast’s performances. While the boys, particularly Garraty, are our way into this disturbing world, it’s brought to life by Mark Hamill’s gloriously loathsome Major, seemingly the head of the military junta in this reality and a snarling figurehead for the oppressive regime. In contrast we have the always wonderful yet still sadly underrated Judy Greer as Ray’s mother Ginnie, who essentially represents all that is good and all that is feminine and nurturing in this brutal state.

There are no punches pulled in this film. Injuries and illness are depicted graphically; there are no clean, screen-friendly gunshots here. Lawrence lingers on the violence just long enough to feel repulsed before forcing us to move on with the rest of the walkers. For all that the Walk is a deliberately contrived kind of brutality, it’s none too far removed from reality in the worst places on Earth. Right now, Palestinians are being marched through Gaza for miles at gunpoint, while men and boys have been forced to walk in front of tanks as human shields. It’s disturbing to think that in Gaza, Sudan or Congo, young men likely would sign up for a gruelling trek with a 1-in-50 likelihood of survival if it meant a chance of escaping and providing for their families.

The film marches along with the boys with a crushing inevitability until we are left with only two. The ending is somewhat predictable (although different to the original ending in the book), yet this only makes the sense of the inevitable more foreboding. Throughout, the cast force you to care about the poor bastards you know you’re going to watch die. And yet, like the best of King adaptations, The Long Walk has an uplifting message at its core: to never give up and to go down fighting.

REVIEW: The Substance

Having not had a chance to see it in the cinema but intrigued by the hype, I've signed up to Mubi specifically to watch Coralie Fargeat's The Substance. While the film has been out for a while, I'll try to be reasonably light on the SPOILERS here, but if you plan to see The Substance, I'd recommend watching it with as little foreknowledge as possible.

While I'm not as blown away by The Substance as some have been, it's undoubtedly an extremely powerful film, an evocative and lurid dissection of the cruelty of our shallow society. I am certain that a woman watching it would find it even more so, as while men are also subject to society's skin-deep judgment, it is women who must deal with it day in, day out. Nonetheless, it is interesting that the one other user of the Substance we meet in the film is a man, when the rest of the focus is so squarely on women.

The Substance is a thematically dense film, most obviously satirising the cut-throat world of Hollywood and its relentless exploitation of young performers. It also takes on themes of the cruelty and inevitability of ageing; parent-child rivalry; elder abuse; self-loathing and depression; self harm; cosmetic surgery; substance (small 's') abuse and addiction; the nature of beauty; society's reaction to disfigurement; the nature of identity, and more. Fargeat's direction is eccentric, exaggerating shots with extreme close-ups that magnify the grotesqueness of human life, yet this is shown to be, if not better, then at least more real than sanitised, airbrushed fakery.

Of course, she also delivers a stunning level of gore and revolting body horror, realised largely with practical effects – far more viscerally effective than endless CGI. (Although one of the most disturbing images of the film, the replication of eyes within eyes as the beginning of the Substance's process, is a brilliant bit of digital wizardry.) It's no surprise that Calgeat is a fan of David Cronenberg, in particular his masterpiece, The Fly; some moments are lifted directly from that film. More pertinent, though, is the shared use of extreme mutilation and deformation as a metaphor for disease and the ageing process. Like The Fly, The Substance is quite restrained in its use of gore and monstrosity, increasing it until the climactic and over-the-top finale. I'm informed that the film is equally indebted to Demi Moore's previous film, Requiem for a Dream; I've never seen that film, but I know enough about it to see that it shares with the The Substance a gruesome and uncompromising look at addiction and its effects on the mind and body.

You have to admire Moore for taking on such as role as Elisabeth, as someone who has been ridiculed for her own response to ageing, including not insubstantial cosmetic surgery, and having gone from the highest-paid actress in the world to someone whose career was largely considered to be over. Moore is astonishingly good in this, giving a painfully real and understandable performance as Elisabeth engages on her path of self-destruction. She has spoken of her discomfort in performing naked in the film, now that she is in her sixties (more than ten years older than her character), but, of course, she still looks incredible – which is, naturally, what the film is all about.

Even the remarkably beautiful Margaret Qualley isn't good enough for the perfection that Sue, Elisabeth's alter ego, represents, wearing false breasts for her own nude scenes. Qualley gives an equally strong performance, embodying Sue with a shallowness and cruelty that she hides beneath a marketable personality of naivete and Apple Pie Americanism. It's fascinating to watch Elisabeth's downward spiral reflected, and largely caused, by Sue's increasingly brutal treatment of her. Equally fascinating is Elisabeth and Sue's gradual emergence as separate identities, even though they are simply facets of the same person. When they finally separate, the event that kicks off their final descent into self-destruction, they are inevitably fused again, in the most horrific of ways imaginable.

Qualley, though, doesn't actually look particularly like Moore, which only serves to make the divide stronger and Elisabeth's story sadder. Sue presumably represents an idealised self-image; the person Elisabeth always believed she could be. That Sue instantly becomes a runaway success only furthers Elisabeth's feelings of inadequacy and low self-image. Elisabeth's binge-eating (judging by the amount of meat and eggs, largely driven by a need for copious amounts of protein to replace what was lost in Sue's “birth” and “weaning”) is a clear sign of her self-hatred. This manifests more blatantly in her rapid ageing and disfigurement as Sue's selfishly extends her own time, as well as both versions' increasingly vicious treatment of one another. (Never mind the events towards the end; the fact that neither aspect ever decides to put something down on the world's hardest bathroom floor for the bodyswap moments speaks volumes.)

The film comes close to being a two-hander, but it's impossible to overlook Dennis Quaid's performance as the loathsome Harvey. Also worth noting is Edward Hamilton Clark's performance as hopeful suitor Fred. Even though Fred seems a decent enough guy, both men are portrayed as physically off-putting – Fred with his yellowing teeth, Harvey with his shameless face-stuffing and constant shouting – yet they face no recrimination for their flawed, ageing appearances.

It's an intensely visual film, using colour, harsh lighting and extreme camera work to disorienting effect. Everything is extreme here, be it monstrously ugly or aggressively beautiful. Sue's “Call On Me” channelling erotic workout show is a case in point: relentlessly sexy but again using extreme close-ups to push this beyond its limits. Nonetheless, Qualley is incredibly hot in these scenes, forcing the viewer to become complicit in the sexualisation and exploitation of her character.

In reality, though, Qualley found filming these scenes traumatic, and could only bring herself to do them while high. Given that both she and Moore were injured somewhat by make-up and prosthetics, and that even Quaid almost made himself sick by devouring kilos of shrimp, it raises the question of when the depiction of exploitation becomes exploitation in itself.

Where the film falls down, unfortunately, is in the final act, which takes things too far into delirious horror. While there's some uncertainty as to how much we see is real and how much is hallucination, it seems we're meant to view the final, brutal events as actually happening. While it's certainly climactic, the final phase of Elisabeth and Sue's “treatment” and its aftermath takes the body horror into the absurd. Ultimately, it's too much, and sits poorly with the rest of the film, as heightened as it all is. It's a shame, as there were undoubtedly ways to complete the story in a similar fashion without going so ludicrously over-the-top. Still, even in this phase, the film is rife with blatant, in-your-face symbolism, almost screaming “Look at this! I dare you!”

Even as it pushes things too far in its final scenes, The Substance is one of the most powerfully satirical – if entirely unsubtle – films in years; a horror movie that relentlessly attacks its own industry and makes the audience question themselves for watching it.

My Ten Best films of 2022

 

In an especially busy year, I haven't been able to catch as many new films as I would have liked, nor find time to fully review all the ones I have seen. Still, I did manage to see a fair few, including some that really stood out. Here, then, are my choices for the ten best films of 2022. (Alphabetically to begin with, with my choice for the film of the year at the end. Details I consider too spoilerific I've hidden, you can just highlight them to read them.)

The Batman

(Matt Reeves)

I did manage to review this one when it came out. Long story short, this film justified rebooting the Batman franchise yet again with a powerful and impactful take on the hero and his rogue's gallery, with excellent performances from Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano and and almost unrecognisable Colin Farrell as the Penguin. Naturally, there will be a sequel, but whether it can have the impact of this scathing attack on male obsession remains to be seen. Flawed, certainly, but one of the best movies to come out of DC/WB in a long time.

Where to watch: available as part of a NOW TV subscription, and available to buy on DVD/Blu-Ray, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play and YouTube.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

(Ryan Coogler)

Following up 2018's seminal Black Panther was never going to be an easy job, but to do so after Chadwick Boseman's tragically early death seemed impossible. Marvel's decision to focus on his legacy rather than recast the T'Challa is a wise one, and while Letitia Wright's Shuri was an obvious choice for his successor as Black Panther, she really does elevate this film from a solid sci-fi actioner to something really special.

She's ably supported by Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira and the great Angela Bassett, who all give effortlessly classy performances, and while Michaela Coel and Florence Kasumba are underused, it's a great MCU debut for Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams. There's a risk with these films that putting the blocks in place for the next run of stories will overwhelm the one being told now, and Riri is here partly to set up Armor Wars and Ironheart, but she's is a perfect foil for Shuri, two engineering geniuses who happen to be young black women, but from vastly different backgrounds.

It's Tenoch Huerta Mejia who perhaps has the hardest job as Namor. While the mutant is one of Marvel's oldest and most important characters, he's also one who really skirts the line between super and silly, and it's to the credit of Huerta and Coogler as director that a man with tiny wings on his feet remains a serious and formidable presence on the big screen. While changing Namor's origin from Atlantis to an offshoot of the Mayan civilisation doubtless owes more to not wanting to be compared to closely to Aquaman, it works thematically, with both Wakanda and Talokan representing fantastic versions of cultures threatened by western imperialism. (Wonderfully, Huerta couldn't swim before this, learning specifically for the role.)

Martin Freeman's Everett Ross still seems out of place, and the film is at least half an hour too long, but it remains the best comicbook movie of the year, a thrilling and visually stunning story of two vastly powerful forces meeting explosively.

Where to watch: still out in cinemas, and coming to Disney Plus on 20^th January.

Elvis

(Baz Lurhman)

One of two singer biopics in the list, although they couldn't be more different. Elvis sees Baz Lurhman regain his standing as the master of musical spectacle, but more importantly, restores the life of Elvis Presley to the legendary status it deserves. Presley's death long after his prime, and the decades of cultural familiarity since, has left him as an archaic figure for many, and a joke for many more. The film puts him back into the spotlight to remind us just how exceptionally talented he was, and how important he was to the history of popular music.

Austin Butler is truly exceptional in the lead role, and is definitely one to watch (a tenner says he's cast as Clark Kent in the latest Superman reboot), but holding much of the film together is Tom Hanks in a truly unforgettable turn as the self-serving Colonel Parker. While Presley comes off a little too innocent here – laying the blame for his addiction troubles purely at Parker's feet is unrealistic, and the film rapidly skirts over his preference for much younger girls – ultimately it's a largely accurate and heartbreaking look at one young man so swept up in his own success that he couldn't see how he was being exploited.

The decision to have Butler sing his own songs, untouched, in the early scenes, then to very gradually blend in Presley's own voice as the film progresses, was an ingenious one. The final scene, where Butler finally shifts into Presley himself in his final performance, is powerful.

Where to watch: available to buy on most streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video, YouTube and Google Play, and out on DVD/BluRay.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

(Rian Johnson)

2019's Knives Out was a joy, and from the outset Johnson had hoped to continue Benoit Blanc's adventures in successive films. Setting it during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic should have made the film feel dated (a testament to our ability to pretend the damned thing isn't actually still happening), but by luck it's been released perfectly in time with Elon Musk's catastrophic self-own, making this tale of billionaire idiocy absolutely on point.

Edward Norton is a perfect choice for Miles Blon, the Musk-like antagonist, not least because apparently very few people actually like working with the guy. As obnoxious as Miles is, his hangers on are somehow worse, particularly men's rights activist Duke (the ubiquitous Dave Bautista) and the near mindless model and influencer Birdie (Kate Hudson). We've also got brilliant turns from Kathryn Hahn and Leslie Odom Jr, who play somewhat more balanced characters, but still just as amoral as the others. Janelle Monae is even more impressive, but I really won't spoilt why here, as this is a compelling mystery and to give any more way would spoil it. It's not quite on the level of the original Knives Out, but it has a re-watchability that means I'm certain to revisit it.

Daniel Craig, as well as being the best Bond ever (no, I will not change my mind), is a truly brilliant character actor. Benoit Blanc is an irresistibly watchable character, an Craig is clearly having a ball playing him. Netflix have bought the rights to one more Blanc film, but I could see the character continuing for years, or at least as long as the current vogue for murder mysteries lasts.

Where to watch: available on Netflix with subscription, with a limited cinema release coming.

Nope

(Jordan Peele)

Peele's third horror film, and perhaps the most divisive, not for its content but its style. Yes, it's undeniably slow to get going, but every element is so essential to the story and its themes that it's essential to pay close attention. Bizarrely, some commenters have struggled to identify the themes of the film or the need to include the flashbacks to the brutal events with the chimpanzee in the TV studio. The major theme of the film – that of exploitation and underestimation of animals – is so clearly written that it seems impossible to miss.

While there are other themes involved, such as the racial element, and the power of media exposure illustrated by various characters' obsession with getting footage of the creature, it's this that is the most essential. Animals, be it OJ's horses, the suddenly violent chimpanzee Gordy, or the mysterious and unearthly Jean Jacket, must be treated with respect and understanding, and to assume they can simply be used without such care leads inevitably to tragedy – for the human handlers and bystanders, and the animals themselves.

More than that, though, the film is an ingenious take on the UFO phenomenon, albeit not an entirely original one. Whether Jean Jacket is a previously unknown terrestrial animal (which seems to be the intention of Peele according to interviews) or an extraterrestrial organism (which was my interpretation – it's nature as a cloud-living creature and the prominently named “Jupiter's Claim” convinced me it's Jovian in origin) doesn't really matter.

Aside from a couple of moments, Peele has managed to create a horror film that is both full of spectacle and truly disquieting without being gory or over-the-top. It also works as a truly modern neo-western, with a thick atmosphere of isolation and hopelessness from the get-go. Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun and Brandon Perea are all excellent in their roles.

Where to watch: available to buy on DVD/BluRay, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play and Curzon home cinema.

Pinocchio

(Guillermo del Toro)

There are, somehow, three adaptations of The Adventures of Pinocchio out this year, and while I'm sure to watch both the Disney remake and the Russian animation at some point, this is the one that caught my attention and had to be considered a must-see. You know that any film from del Toro will be a visual extravaganza and a chilling fantasy, so yes, to some extent you know exactly what you're getting from a film marketed as Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. Yet the directions he has chosen remain surprising, with the story shifted from the late 19^th century to interwar Fascist Italy to provide a historical lesson that has uncomfortable implications for the way politics is moving today.

The voice cast is excellent. Gregory Mann is a charming, mischievous Pinocchio, with David Bradley giving us a flawed but sympathetic Geppetto. Ewan McGregor gives a solidly entertaining performance as the cricket (Sebastian J. Cricket in this version), who is also our narrator. It wouldn't be a del Toro film without Ron Perlman turning up, but the most surprising casting is Cate Blanchett as abused performing monkey Spazzatura (“garbage” in Italian, the poor thing). She gets one chance to speak, as Spazzatura performs through puppets, and otherwise communicates in screams and grunts. It's a stop motion film that stars a puppet and other characters that talk through puppets, which has a certain surreal genius to it.

Tilda Swinton is haunting as the two main supernatural beings in the film, the Wood Sprite and Death. The former is still the blue fairy we'd expect, but rendered more as a terrifyingly Biblical angel, while Death is sort of sphinx or chimaera, who has many meetings with Pinocchio as he repeatedly dies and is resurrected. It's a quite astonishingly dark take on the story (although less terrifying than the Disney classic's donkey transformation scene), but one that is ultimately very beautiful and hopeful.

Where to watch: the cinematic run seems to be over, so on Netflix with subscription.

Prey

(Dan Trachtenburg)

I've never been the biggest fan of the original Predator, brilliantly done through it is; it's altogether too macho for my tastes. So this reworking of the central concept appeals to me greatly, with Amber Midthunder captivatingly cast as the Comanche hunter Naru. Having a woman in the central role gives the film an entirely different feel and verve to the previous instalments (including AVP, which was really just a huge videogame cutscene), and the period setting means that a forty-year-old franchise manages to feel fresh again. It's not the first time this has been tried (there are some extraordinary fanfilms out there), but it represents a different direction for the series on film proper.

Trachtenberg's direction is taught and nerve-wracking, and there is some truly gorgeous cinematography. Comanche/Blackfeet producer Jhane Myers was responsible for ensuring much of the historical accuracy of the script, and the resulting film is an intelligent discussion of traditional gender roles as well as the brutal treatment of Native populations by alien invaders (not just the Predator, but the dreaded French). Notably, this is the first feature film to be released in Comanche. Plus, there are some satisfyingly gruesome kills and a great update on the Predator design.

Where to watch: available to buy on DVD/BluRay, or to stream on Disney Plus with subscription.

Six Years Gone

(Warren Dudley)

Among all the big names and blockbusters, there's still room for indie films to make a huge impact. Six Years Gone might well have passed me by if I didn't have a fleeting connection to its star, Veronica Jean Trickett (my partner Suzanne was in the short film The World Can Wait with her). Trickett has risen from such shorts to starring in this multi-award-winning, Cannes Award Trophy-nominated drama, and she gives an astonishingly strong performance.

Written and directed by Warren Dudley, Six Years Gone is the unflinching story of Carrie, whose daughter disappears from outside school on day. Six years later, Carrie is in emotional and financial ruin. While the early scenes are a little clunky in terms of exposition and dialogue, the film rapidly tightens up to become a disturbingly real insight into loss and desperation. Carrie's life unravels as her situation worsens in a chain reaction of impossible choices, but there is, ultimately, some hope to be found. Powerful, upsetting and moving, largely down to Trickett's performance.

Where to watch: available to buy on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube and Google Play (only £3.49 in the UK).

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

(Eric Appel)

Unusually bankrolled and released by Roku, Weird is a biopic presented the only way that Weird Al could do it: as an ingenious parody. Eric Appel co-writing, Yankovic has done something genuinely clever: taken as many liberties with the truth as acclaimed films such as Rocket Man and draw attention to them. The result is baffling and hilarious. Daniel Radcliffe, who has grown into the choice actor for weird roles, is perfect in the lead, while Evan Rachel Wood is a great choice for Madonna. The singer, who actually did suggest that Yankovic parody “Like a Virgin” with “Like a Surgeon,” has been the source of Weird Al rumours, including suggestions that she disapproved of his work and tried to get the single pulled. It seems fitting, then, that this film has led to a spate of internet searches to see if she and Yankovic really did have a relationship, when in reality they barely know each other. Madonna's real life opinions on being made into both the love interest and villain of this film remain unknown.

Where to watch: only via the Roku Channel, so you'll need a Roku device. However, there's no subscription needed. Alternatively, Weird Al himself has mentioned that there might be a TORRENT of alternative channels on the DOWNLOad.

Finally, my film of the year:

Everything Everywhere All at Once

(Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)

That rarest of things: a genuinely original film. While the multiverse is, of course, the in thing at the moment, Everything Everywhere is the first film I've seen that really runs with the concept and does something worthwhile with it. As much as I enjoyed Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man: No Way Home (which would have made the list if had been released a few weeks later), their use of the multiverse was primarily as a source of fan-pleasing in-jokes. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and No Way Home in particular married it to a meaningful story, but it's shallow water compared to this.

Michelle Yeoh continues to show that she's a true star of the modern era of film-making, with a subtle and very real performance as the unwitting heroine Evelyn combined with some spectacular martial arts. Originally it was conceived by the Daniels as a vehicle for Jackie Chan, and yes, I can totally imagine that, but he wouldn't have given it the depth that Yeoh does. And how amazing to have a sixty-year-old woman as the lead in an action movie?

It's also a joy to see Ke Huy Quan back on screen after so long, with a performance so assured you'd never think he took a decades-long break from acting. Really standing out is Stephanie Hsu as Evelyn's daughter Joy and her nihilistic alter ego Jobu Tupak, an absolutely stunning performance that elevates the long series of confrontations into something truly special. It's a treat to see Jamie Lee Curtis again, in a very different role to what we're used to – at 64 she's now allowed to be old, grim and frumpy, and she's still allowed a romantic subplot. Well, one iteration is anyway.

The film is a wonderful examination of Asian American identity, family dynamics, the agonising loss of hopes and dreams and deeply philosophical questions of reality and identity. It's also a surreal, truly unpredictable action comedy, which goes beyond the normal twists of parallel universe fiction to present some unforgettable images. You won't get hotdog fingers world out of your head for a while. A brilliant, affirming, hilarious, smutty, cosmic, ingenious adventure, an absolute must-see.

Where to watch: available to buy on DVD/BluRay, and on YouTube, Google Play and Curzon home cinema. It's currently included as part of an Amazon Prime Video subscription, but that could change to a paid ,purchase-only option at any time.

REVIEW - Ghostbusters: Afterlife

SPOILERS after the break! 

Well then, it's finally here. Ghostbusters: Afterlife (or Ghostbusters: Legacy in some regions). I saw it on opening night (three evenings ago) but have taken a little while to collect my thoughts. As some of you might have noticed over the years, I'm rather into Ghostbusters, the film and the whole franchise. Ghostbusters II is great, sorely underrated, I thoroughly enjoyed the 2016 reboot (these days referred to as Answer the Call) and am still a bit annoyed the fan backlash damaged its performance so much that it didn't get a sequel. A third movie of any kind seemed unlikely for years, and at least the reboot made it clear there was still an appetite for the film. Finally we get a third instalment of the original continuity and... I liked it. I didn't love it. But I liked it.

For the bulk of the movie, this is a solid adventure with some nice comic touches. Taking the route of a coming-of-age/kids fight the supernatural story is a different direction to what we might have expected, which is a straight-up remake, but still very evocative of eighties classics. Focusing on a new generation allows the story to continue while updating and refreshing it, and while this is very much the same world as the original Ghostbusters, there's a distinctly different feel to most of it. Taking the action away from New York and out into the country makes a huge difference. There's a distinct tone to the majority of the film which is very unlike the previous ones. While the original wasn't the laugh-a-minute gag fest some fans make it out to be, it was very much a comedy. The reboot went hard into the comedy route, whereas this is the least comedic of the four, focusing a lot more on character drama. This isn't to say it's not funny, but it's a more sparing type of comedy. 

REVIEW: Last Night in Soho

There are few directors who combine such a wit and visual invention as Edgar Wright, and his latest film takes him in a new direction, tackling a horror-thriller without the backing of comedy. The Cornetto Trilogy went further with violence and gore, but the jokes took off much of the edge. Last Night in Soho, although not without laughs, is a serious film tackling serious themes of abuse and exploitation.

In interviews, Wright talks about listening to his parents' record collection, listening to their stories of their youth in the sixties. Whereas this period is now fondly recalled in most popular media, Wright's recollections of his parents' stories paint a different picture, of harsher experiences. Films actually made in Britain in the sixties often show a darker, more dangerous side of the London experience. Last Night in Soho revives this genre, a look at the cruel and dirty side of the sixties acting as an antidote to the rose-tinted nostalgia of theme park history.

A contemporary setting puts the experience at a further remove, with heroine Ellie a generation-and-a-half further from the lived experience of the sixties than Wright himself. Thomasin McKenzie, a Kiwi doing a decent South Western accent (although the missus informs me she sounds far more Somerset than Cornish), is a hell of a find as Ellie. Embodying a real vulnerability but never weakness, Ellie's experience among the snobs and bullies of the London College of Fashion could break a less strong person even before the bizarre psychic experiences start.

One thing I love about this story is the complete lack of explanation given for Ellie's abilities. She's briefly mentioned as having “a gift,” and we share her visions of her late mother, but that's all. We're thrown into her unprompted memories and dreams of Sandie, building from the glamour and excitement of the sixties nostalgia to the abject horror of Soho's seedy underbelly. Anya Taylor-Joy is, as usual, absolutely captivating, combining real movie star beauty with powerful acting. Early plans had Taylor-Joy as Ellie, and while I don't doubt she could have played it beautifully, that just seems entirely the wrong aesthetic. She's the very picture of sixties glamour and optimism, and that makes her fall all the more powerful.

In the film surprisingly little is Matt Smith, but god, does he make an impact in his scenes. Dominating, sexy and frankly terrifying, as Sandie's lover-turned-pimp he is incredible. Rounding off the big-name cast are Terrence Stamp as one creepy old bastard and the late, great Diana Rigg in her last ever role, the harsh and damaged landlady of Ellie's bedsit. A striking newcomer is Michael Ajao as John, the gentle and caring fashion student who becomes Ellie's love interest. Definitely one to watch. Classy old hand Rita Tushingham makes the most of her scenes as Ellie's grandmother, while there are further clasy turns by Pauline McLynn and genuine sixties icon Margaret Nolan (also filming her last role). Another one to watch is Synnove Karlsen as the queen bitch Jocasta.

Events turn disturbing in both past and present, twisting into a murder mystery/ghost story. There's a decent twist, with the story leading us down the wrong path, but it's hardly the most difficult one to guess and most people will get there before the big reveal. We're teased into thinking that Smith's Jack is still at large in the present day, but by casting him and Taylor-Joy Wright has two actors with such distinctive looks it's impossible to have anyone convince as their older selves. This, oddly, works in the story's favour, better hiding the contemporary characters' identities. Still, the film isn't going to win any awards for shocking heel-turns.

What it deserves awards for is atmosphere, combining the look, feel and sound of the sixties with a genuinely unsettling dreamscape. As the more stylised world of Ellie's dreams encroaches on her waking life, McKenzie's naturalistic performance becoming more heightened as her link to Sandie becomes more powerful. Spectacular style combines with some exceptional performances to make this one of the most potent films I've seen in a long while.

Television Heaven Magazine Issue 3 now available

 

The third issue of TVH magazine, TVH Goes to the Movies, is now available to download for free in PDF format. This issue Laurence Marcus and his team of telly addicts look back at TV series that spun off to film and vice versa. With articles on Callan, Casablanca, Morecambe and Wise, Dragnet, the David Croft sitcom films and more, there's a wealth of classic material covered. Also on offer are articles by myself on the two Doctor Who Dalek movies starring Peter Cushing, and a bit more recently, the wonderful animated series The Real Ghostbusters which followed the 1984 movie. 

You can download and read the issue here.

REVIEW: Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood

Tarantino's ninth, and supposedly penultimate, film is a love letter to the heyday of Hollywood and the strain of actor that once made its films and series such a great success. It's his latest exploration of America's dark history, and features many of the elements we've come to expect from him. There's a cast of favourite faces, historical revisionism, nostalgic Americana, a spectacular soundtrack, long scenes of dialogue, non-linear story elements, graphic violence (although less than usual) and lingering shots of female feet (even more than usual, not that I'm complaining).

As much as Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood is typical Tarantino in many respects, there's a unique feel to the film when seen in his career. In spite of being announced as his take on the Manson murders, Once Upon a Time is, surprisingly, quite the feelgood film, ultimately quite uplifting. In reality, it's not the Manson film that many were expecting. The Family cult and the build-up to the infamous murder of Sharon Tate and her houseguests are treated as part of the scenery of 1969, vital to the story but not actually what it's about. Charles Manson himself, played by Damon Herriman, appears only briefly, although his presence is felt throughout the lengthy Spahn Ranch sequence.

Equally, Sharon Tate is an underserved character, for all of her screentime. Margot Robbie is magnetically beautiful onscreen, but is given remarkably little to say or do, something that's not gone unnoticed by critics. There's a single scene in which she shines, where Robbie watches the real Tate at the cinema, revelling in the audience's reactions to her character. While there's a sense of trying to remind audiences that Tate was more than her death, she serves primarily to represent the glamorous, desirable side of Hollywood that so many wish to be part of, not least the film's hero. Like the Manson family, Tate is part of the landscape.

The real story is that of Rick Dalton, Leonardo DiCaprio's ageing movie star, and to a lesser extent, his faithful friend and stuntman Cliff Booth, played by a deeply tanned Brad Pitt. Although inspired on a variety of actors from the period, Dalton is predominantly based on Burt Reynolds, who famously has a close relationship with his stuntman Hal Needham. DiCaprio is exceptional as Dalton, once the star of Gunsmoke-esque Western series Bounty Law, an actor who's becoming more and more aware that he is long past his prime and that his fame is fading fast. Struggling with alcoholism and depression, we see Dalton go from the worst lows of his career to brief highs, all the while knowing that his era is over.

A generous use of classic TV and film footage helps complete the illusion, with material tweaked and twisted so that DiCaprio can appear in classic films - be it a fantasy version of The Great Escape where Dalton won out over Steve McQueen or altered versions of TV episodes that cast Dalton in new, fictionalised versions. The occasional minor anachronism doesn't seem to matter, when we're watching what's clearly a diversion from reality - seemingly the same one as seen in Inglourious Basterds, which Tarantino references in most metatextual moment in the film.

Pitt's performance as ex-stuntman Booth is just as impressive. A laconic, almost impossibly laid back characterisation hides an individual who is incredibly dangerous. One troubling element is the revelation that Booth probably murdered his wife and got away with it - based on the dubious circumstances of Natalie Wood's death while in the company of Robert Wagner - and yet he is never called on it by anyone outside of one TV set scene. By the end of the film, we never know if this man - who is capable of extreme violence - is actually guilty of the crime, or how we should feel about either him or Dalton if it's true.

The film is packed with recreations of real stars, be it Damien Lewis's brilliant turn as Steve McQueen or Luke Perry playing Wayne Maunder, who both died during the period of post-production. While not always entirely flattering, the portrayals of real life individuals are at least respectful - with the exception of Bruce Lee, with Mike Moh forced to play him as a complete prick, something that has drawn a lot of criticism from Lee's family.

There lies the difficulty of making a film like this. I'm often uncertain just how acceptable it should be to make films of events that happened so recently. A number of the people portrayed, or loosely adapted, in Once Upon a Time are still alive, although a surprising number of them died off during production, and the families of those deceased are still here. How Tate's family must feel seeing her recreated onscreen, yet again, is hard to imagine. As with so many people who lived in just-about living memory of the core audience, there's an element of distance. They're people whose lives, and deaths, have become mythic, part of a seemingly long lost time that, really, wasn't that long ago at all.

My All-Time Top Five Christmas Movies

In reply to my friend @kayjoon 's blog post, here are my top five Chrimbly films. His list is very good, and his choice of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is fine and good, but he shall forever disagreed with for not putting the Muppets at the very top.

5. Gremlins (1984)

Perhaps the grimmest, certainly the nastiest Christmas movie that isn't an out-and-out horror, although it comes close. It came out in the middle of summer, something that went down poorly with writer Chris Columbus and director Joe Dante, but it is undoubtedly a Christmas film, being not only set at Christmas but very much about it. People have argued for years about who or what the gremlins are meant to represent, but for me it seems clear that they stand for the crass commercialism of the modern Christmas and the potential damage it can do to a true family Christmas.

Spielberg got the film made, and his influence toned down the horror elements and made it into a just-about-family-friendly movie, albeit one that helped reconfigure the film ratings system (along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg used it to campaign for a new rating between PG and R, which led to the adoption of PG-13 in the US and the UK rating 15 in its stead). The original script had cute little Gizmo turn into the murderous monster; instead he produces already pretty nasty offspring that become worse after their transformation. The film loses some of its point because of this, but it's unlikely it would have been the same hit if the one cutesy and marketable character became a demonic killer. Still, they did manage to keep in Phoebe Cates's horrible soliloquy about her character's tragic history with Christmas, which Dante fought with Spielberg to keep. It's the indicative moment that combines the joy and misery of family to blackly comic effect.

4. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

OK, this is as much a Hallowe'en film as a Christmas one, and was released as such, but it provides the perfect intro to the Christmas' movie marathon. Both festivals are the modern evolutions of ancient pagan festivals that ushered in the dangerous winter months, so they go together, and ghosts always work well at Christmas (see below). Nightmare might also be taken as an attack on the commercialism of Christmas, on how it doesn't matter if you get the look and trappings right, if the spirit isn't there (Christmas spirit, not Jack Skellington).

Although one of the most Tim Burton-esque films, people tend to forget it was Henry Sellick who directed it, and the stop motion style is absolutely perfect for the childishly spooky setting. The songs are pretty brilliant too  - the opening song "This is Hallowe'en" is clearly the best, but "Oogie Boogie's Song" works very well too, and is eminently coverable. Nightmare was perfectly designed to appeal to nine-year-old me, with just the right level of monsters and ickiness. Christmas isn't Christmas unless you feel a bit sick once it's over.

3. Trading Places (1983)

The eighties really were a good time for darkly comic Christmas movies. Basically a modern take on the 19th century novel The Prince and the Pauper - something so much part of American literary culture that even Mickey Mouse starred in a version, as with A Christmas Carol (see below). Trading Places has Dan Aykroyd's up-and-coming Harvard graduate Louis Winthorpe cast out of his home and job, while Eddie Murphy's street-living beggar Billy Ray Valentine is given his old position, all as part of a social experiment by the money-grabbing Duke Brothers. Aykroyd and Murphy are great, but the film belongs to the side cast, with Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche the stand-outs as money-grabbing modern Scrooges the Dukes. Jamie Lee Curtis plays her most likeable character in Ophelia, Winthorpe's unlikely love interest, and Denholm Elliott is perfect as manservant Coleman. Often overlooked, though, is Kristen Holby, who is utterly spot-on as Winthorpe's snooty, icy fiance Penelope.

Winthorpe's descent into social hell culminates in his taking a desperate position as the most wretched Santa Claus ever committed to film, very nearly ending in violence, suicide and stolen smoked salmon. It's on the edge of being a Christmas film, general social commentary, particularly racial stereotyping and privilege being its main concerns, but setting it in the run up to Christmas and New Year makes the cruelty all that stronger. Also, it's got more tits in than the rest of this list.

2. Scrooged (1988)

Frank Cross is Bill Murray's second greatest role (the first being, of course, famous parapsychologist and date rapist Dr. Peter Venkman, and no, Ghostbusters II is not a Christmas film, it is a New Year's film). The second greatest screen version of A Christmas Carol, Scrooged is brave enough to give a genuinely modern take on the story, albeit one that is now overdue for another treatment. You could easily remake Scrooged with updated settings every twenty years or so. Making the Scrooge analogue a heartless TV exec was a stroke of genius. Murray and director Richard Donner did not get along at all well, but this tension reflects well in the production and there's even a hint that Murray carried some of Donner into his performance.

The subject of Frank's callous disregard for human life is low-level team member Bobcat Goldthwait (whatever happened to Bobcat?); Scrooge's nephew becomes Frank's brother James, played by Bill's real-life brother John Murray; John Glover makes a memorably fake and vacuous "LA slimeball" after Frank's position. Karen Allen has her best role as do-gooder Claire, the Belle figure of this Scrooge's life, albeit one who isn't so lost to him as in the original. Most affecting, of course, are the always brilliant Alfre Woodard as the Cratchit figure Grace, and her mute son, played silently Raphael Harris in the potential future and almost silently in the present by Nicholas Philips. If you're not buoyed up when he says, "God bless us, everyone," you have a heart of stone.

Then there are the ghosts. With even the deliberately obscure Ghost of Christmas Past often portrayed in similar ways on screen, and the Ghosts of Present and Future being straightforward, we often know what we're getting with the ghosts. Not with Scrooged, which from John Forsythe as the ghost of his boss (Lew Hayward, the man who invented the miniseries!) take new, imaginative, hilarious and terrifying forms. David Johansen of the New York Dolls is the revoltingly unlikely Ghost of Christmas Past, Carol Kane is truly brilliant as the gleefully violent Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Future is the most terrifying ever put to screen (with the exception of Mickey's Christmas Carol). For all the cynicism on display, the story moves to a rousing and moving conclusion, and there should not be a dry eye in the house. Thanks to Scrooged, "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" will forever be a Christmas song, and we'll always know the name of the ship that took them all to Gilligan's Island.

1. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Hands down, the greatest Christmas movie, the greatest screen version of A Christmas Carol, and the only film on this list which would be on my overall top five. Although made by Jim Henson Productions, this was made after Jim Henson's death by his son Brian and from the initial idea by Bill Haber, who saw the original novel as the greatest story ever and one ripe for adaptation. As with previous Muppet movies, the decision to make it as a mixture of human actors and puppets must have led to all sorts of logistical problems, but works brilliantly. The greatest respect has to go to Michael Caine, who gives a career-best performance as Scrooge, acting with Muppets without blinking an eye and absolutely selling the character's transformation. Casting Muppets as legendary characters, such as Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit, could have failed badly, yet somehow fits perfectly. It's best not to think too much about a world where frogs and pigs sit down to eat roast goose, and vegetables can sing.

Surprisingly, this adaptation is among the most faithful to the original text, not least because Charles Dickens is a character, thereby allowing his voice as narrator a part in the film. The fact that Dickens is played by Gonzo the Great is neither here nor there. The new Muppets created to be the ghosts are remarkable, not least the ethereal spirit that appears as the Ghost of Christmas Past, realised by filming a puppet in a tank of oil/water mixture and superimposing the footage, translucent, onto the film. The greatest idea, however, has to be making Statler and Waldorf the brothers Marley ("It's good to be heckling again!" "It's good to be doing anything again!"), so that somehow, "The Marleys were dead, to begin with," sounds perfectly correct and natural.

The songs are perfect to sing along to, the lines are endlessly quotable, and if you ever get the chance to watch it with Gonzo and Rizzo's commentary, I recommend it. It's a truly uplifting film, perfect for the whole family, at any time of the year - because wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas.  Although I do suspect the entire thing came about so that they could use the Fozziwig gag.

Honorable mentions:

As mentioned above, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation narrowly missed out and is an absolute classic of the often poorly realised Christmas comedy genre. Mickey's Christmas Carol was left out for not really being a feature film, at only twenty minutes long, but my, it's an epic twenty minutes. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Die Hard, but it's never going to make my top movies list, however good an actioner it is. I have fond memories of the Dudley Moore vehicle Santa Claus: The Movie, but I recognise that this is nostalgia and it is in no way a good film. The 1991 Raymond Briggs film Father Christmas also deserves a mention - it's far superior to The Snowman, although both are TV films and not really applicable to this list. The 1999 ITV production The Flint Street Nativity would probably top my Christmassy TV movies list.

Crazy like a Fox

So, Fox has sold it's huge catalogue of creative properties to Disney, leaving it to focus on sport, news and other propaganda opportunities. This isn't particularly surprising, in some ways. Disney has been hoovering up properties over the last ten years, acquiring Marvel and LucasArts among others, making it the heavyweight in the tentpole blockbuster game. Fox's TV and film output has been increasingly at odds with its far right, conservative news output; The Orville is a good example of a show that doesn't always get it right but at least tries to show strong women, same-sex relationships, interracial relationships and gender fluidity in positive lights. Fox News, on the other hand, is world-famous as the most right-biased news network in the United States and a major factor in the proliferation of homophobic, transphobic, racist and misogynistic opinions held by the contemporary Republican party. There's a weird schism there.

Soon, 20th Century Fox will, bizarrely, no longer be owned by 21st Century Fox, but by the Walt Disney Company. Rupert Murdoch will be another fifty billion dollars richer and Disney's movie empire will stretch even wider. Unsurprisingly, it's genre fans who are talking about this aspect the most, seeing that many of the most popular fantasy franchises will now be owned by Disney. Having already acquired Star Wars and Indiana Jones, Disney now own the Alien and Predator franchises. Most notably for comicbook fans, Marvel studios now have access to all of the properties previously owned by Fox, including the X-Men and all associated characters such as Deadpool and Cable, plus the Fantastic Four and their associated cosmic beings.

Although Fox will be releasing its immediate output including Deadpool 2, New Mutants and X-Men: Dark  Phoenix, any further productions for these characters will involve Disney/Marvel, including around a dozen TV and film productions already in various stages of progress. Fox's plans for the FF have been in stasis since the dreadful 2015 movie, and presumably Marvel will be making the most of having their first family back in their creative hands. Marvel still don't own the screen rights to all their characters. Spider-Man is still owned by Sony and is used by Marvel Studios under agreement, with movies focusing on subsidiary characters, such as the finally-happening Venom movie, wholly under Sony's purview. Marvel will continue to use the Hulk as a supporting character, but a Hulk-focused movie won't happen unless Universal agree to a new deal on the character; currently, Universal hold the distribution rights on any Hulk film and will not let up on this, while Disney will never let another studio distribute one of their tentpole movies. There's been a long interest on both sides in making a movie for Namor, the Sub-Mariner, one of Marvel's oldest properties, but the rights situation there is complicated (and any Namor film now would look like it was ripping off Aquaman anyway). While Marvel own the Malibu comics rights, film rights to Men in Black, their only real hit, still rests with Malibu's former owners, and they're probably not letting them go, although it's easy to see how keen Disney would be to get their mitts on those.

One area of concern amongst fans is that Disney is not known for R-rated movies, but for more family-friendly affairs, which doesn't bode well for the future of the Alien and Predator franchises, nor the more adult-oriented direction that has made such a hit of Deadpool and Logan. This isn't something that I'm too worried about; Disney have already announced that they've no plans to take the R-rated franchises in the other direction, and they're canny enough to make the most of what works, for maximum exposure and profit. We just won't see "Walt Disney" splashed all over these films' posters.

I am, like most Marvel fans, hugely enthused that we might finally get the movie the Fantastic Four deserve. I actually quite like the first two films - they weren't good, by any stretch, but they were fun, goofy movies, and some risible miscasting aside, they were enjoyable. Still, the FF should be getting huge, cosmic crowd pleasers like Guardians of the Galaxy, not small, moody affairs like Fant4stic. No, what I'm not keen on is the idea of the X-Men coming into the MCU.

This might seem odd. This is what every Marvel fan has been dreaming of, right? Wolverine joining the Avengers! Spidey and Deadpool! Iron Man fighting Doctor Doom! The thing is, Marvel's comic universe is hugely overstuffed, with increasingly unwieldy crossover events involving every-single-bloody-title making any series hard to follow and franchise involvement overly expensive. I barely buy Marvel comics anymore because of this. The MCU is already reaching breaking point, and the announcement that the fourth Avengers movie will signal something of a cut-off point for the interconnected approach is no bad thing. The X-Men movie universe has been its own thing for the last seventeen years, playing fast and loose with its own continuity and trying new things. It messed it up as often as it got it right, but at least it's been interesting. Moreover, the X-Men mythos is rich enough and diverse enough to maintain its own universe. Bringing all this into the MCU, recasting most of it again, no doubt, making mutants just another group of super-people like they are in the comics will actually be creatively damaging for the franchise.

Still, it will probably keep Disney off Universal's back for a while

Inescapable truth

Of late, the news has become an ongoing name-and-shame of predatory men in positions of power, and particularly in Hollywood. In the UK, we already had our watershed moment, when the not-remotely-surprising news that Jimmy Saville was a serial child sex offender began a rush of such revelations and accusations, and in time appeared that almost everyone who worked in entertainment in the UK in 1970s was involved in one way of another. In the Premier League, accusations, and occasionally convictions, of rape and sexual assault, are so commonplace that they barely make the news anymore. It's just taken time for the US media to react to their own series of top-level assault claims.

None of this is really a surprise. Power corrupts, yes, and more than that, power attracts deeply corrupted individuals. The sudden rise in accusations, and the rise in coverage and acceptance, is a consequences of Weinstein being big enough, important enough, and revolting enough that he has forced open the floodgates. It's not as if this hasn't been happening for as long as our civilisation can remember. It's that the world at large doesn't care about the victims of these crimes until the media decides they are reportable. Until a steady stream of headlines and clickbait can be generated, it's just more "unimportant" news.  Suddenly, we're allowed to care.

However, as the #metoo phenomenon has made very clear, this shit has been happening for a long time, to virtually every woman in every walk of life. The fact that it has become clear it's the norm in Hollywood (and television, and music, and theatre) doesn't mean that it's not the norm everywhere. It is endemic. Yes, men suffer from it too, and all sorts of men - Anthony Rapp and Matt Smith experiencing it as youngsters seems less surprising than Terry Crews dealing with it at a party a few years ago, which only goes to prove that it doesn't matter who it is, everyone is potentially at risk. Nonetheless, the fact remains that women suffer from this crap all through their lives, from the mildest verbal harassment to brutal rape, and disproportionately so.The backlash against powerful men in Hollywood may indicate that western society is finally starting to look at things differently.

The smallest, least relevant problem to come from this is how people like me can discuss films and television. It has now become impossible to separate art and entertainment from a criminal culture that has thrived for decades. And while Bryan Singer and Kevin Spacey get kicked off current projects, it can't erase the many, many productions of the past retroactively tainted.

I don't know what the solution to this is, other than to approach things individually and take the background of productions into account where I can.

How a white guy sitting behind his computer deals with this news is the least important thing about it, but I wanted to at least make it clear that I recognise the situation.

For now, I'll leave the commentary to people who actually have a real stake in the matter.

TREK REVIEW: STAR TREK BEYOND

Following the exhilarating reboot of 2009's Star Trek, the franchise was set for a bold new direction. Star Trek Into Darkness squandered that promise, relying on shallow rehashing of better material. Early trailers for Star Trek Beyond suggested that the latest movie would be more of the same; a fun sci-fi actioner, but with little of the spirit or thought of Trek. It's a huge relief that the finished product, although far from perfect, proves to be one of the best Star Trek features to date, balancing action and excitement with strange new worlds and a message of hope and unity.

The movie begins with an unexpectedly humorous scene, one that has, with its comical CG creatures, more in common with Star Wars than Star Trek. There's no denying the influence that Star Wars has had on the current version of Trek, and while this opening is very enjoyable (and genuinely funny), I'm glad that it soon settles down into more Trek-like territory. Three years into their five-year mission, the crew of the Enterprise have become a close-knit family, but Kirk is questioning his role within Starfleet. While it's gratifying that the script acknowledges both the tedium of a long voyage, and the strengths and strains of a crew living together for so long, it does fall a little hollow. We've jumped directly from the launch of the mission at the end of Into Darkness to questioning its worth, without seeing any of that mission. Kirk notes to himself that his life has become “episodic,” and while that's a fun gag, it doesn't quite work without any actual episodes to to fill the gap.

Still, this is a better, nobler version of Kirk that we've previously seen in these films. Having finally gotten past his recklessness and irresponsibility – the lesson he learnt in both the previous films – Kirk is now wiser and more capable as a captain. However, with this new awareness has come a questioning of his role in life. As with his older self in the primary universe, Kirk is considering leaving shipboard action and taking a desk job, something we know he will come to regret. Much of this comes from his defining trait: his need to live up to his father's legacy. With the announcement that Chris Hemsworth has been signed to appear in the next movie, it's clear that this will continue to be a major part of the character. Chris Pine excels at portraying this more mature, more thoughtful version of Kirk.

It doesn't take long before the action kicks into high gear, with an astonishing sequence that leads the Enterprise to be torn apart by a fleet of “bees;” one-man fighter ships that rip through its hull and allow it to be boarded. Destroying the Enterprise is old hat now – this is, what, the fourth film to do that? - but by enacting it so early on, rather than as the climax, the dynamic of the story is changed. The Enterprise is a character in this movies, and her loss is felt keenly throughout. It brings another level of jeopardy and vulnerability to the characters, while splitting them up into small groups over an unknown planet gives us an interesting mix of interactions. Kirk is paired with Chekov for much of the action, allowing him to play the father figure to Pavel's young ensign. It's achingly sad to see Anton Yelchin playing the part, knowing how soon after he was killed. Obviously the creators of the film couldn't put anything in the script to commemorate him, in the way they so beautifully did for Leonard Nimoy, but there's a moment at the end, where Kirk mentions absent friends, that seems to linger on Chekov for a moment longer than everyone else.

Pairing Spock and McCoy is a stroke of genius; so obvious in hindsight, but the previous two instalments have failed to make the most of the fractious relationship between the two. Both Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban are spot on in their roles, making the most of a script that plays up to fond memories of the characters without ever descending into parody. John Cho's Sulu and Zoe Saldana's Uhura don't get as much of the limelight as their co-stars, but each owns their scenes. The new aspect of Sulu's character – his same-sex relationship – is actually a very minor part of the story, but a very welcome one, although I do understand why George Takei disagrees with it. I'm equally pleased that, while Uhura and Spock's relationship is a part of their story, it is not the dominant part of that story.

The surprising standout team of the movie is Scotty and new addition Jaylah. There's the definite impression that, making the most of his script-writing duties, Simon Pegg has given himself most of the best lines. Scotty is on top form throughout the film, with Pegg giving his best performance in the role, and has great chemistry with Sofia Boutella. Jaylah is a revelation; she could have been nothing more than an ass-kicking alien, but Boutella brings great sympathy and depth to the character, as well as excelling at the ass-kicking. What's especially gratifying is that this attractive female alien has no romantic subplot, and Kirk doesn't once come on to her. Another cast member worthy of special mention is Shohreh Aghdashloo, the Persian-American actress who plays Commodore Paris. It's good to see such a variety of ethnicity throughout the cast, with the production team taking the opportunity to cast non-white actors in major new roles.

The villain, though, lets the film down considerably, which sadly seems to be a pattern in recent blockbusters. There's no question that Idris Elba is an excellent, classy actor, who has a talent for rousing speeches, but as Krall, he spends too much time growling through overwhelming make-up. Krall had sounded, from initial descriptions, like a potentially interesting villain. The writers had described Beyond as an examination of the Federation, questioning whether it is in fact a force for unity, or a colonising power. Sadly, very little of this comes through in the finished film, with Krall's anti-Federation stance having a more prosaic and straightforwardly militant root. The villain's identity brings with it some twists, but even as more unexpected elements are revealed, the plot meanders in the action-oriented final third. That's if you've managed to avoid the final trailer, which blows much of the impact of the film's final twist. Even without that, it's underwhelming.

Visually, the film is an absolute treat. Most impressive is the gigantic space station, Yorktown, a vast city in space. It's a quite remarkable visual experience, and gives the film a major setting to put in peril without going back to Earth for the nth time. Both Yorktown and the Enterprise are populated by crowds of new aliens; indeed, apart from recurring characters and a couple of Vulcans, I don't think there's a single recognisable alien species to be seen. It's wonderful to see strange new worlds and new civilisations again. Combiningsome remarkable location work and visual effects, the planet Altamid that provides much of the setting for the film is also visually impressive. I'm also keen on some of the new conceits in Starfleet's technology. The new warp drive effect, while a departure from the star streak of the past, gives an impression that the ship is actually warping space. I also like the new universal translator, which translates and plays over alien languages instead of simply magically making the aliens speak English.

The script is peppered with references to the original series, and the series Enterprise (the history of the film's setting), but they are infrequent enough, and subtle enough, to not feel intrusive or contrived (apart from, maybe, the giant green hand). I'd be interested to read the original treatment, which was considered “too Star Trek-y” by the studio, and I'm still holding out for a modern take on the more thoughtful, philosophical side of Trek. (The just-announced Star Trek: Discovery may provide this wish, of course.) Nonetheless, Star Trek Beyond is a beautiful, exhilarating movie, brought to life by some excellent performances. While occasionally muddled, it has a strong, worthwhile message: that unity is better than division, and that we should embrace our differences, and that is Star Trek.