Actual thoughts from my actual child. What number is this movie for minions? Uhhh…I don’t really remember. I don’t either. What’s this one called? It’s called…Minions: The Rise of Gru. Is Gru an adult or a kid in this one? He’s a kid. Is it like a Darth Vader, Anakin thing? [laughs] Uh, sure. Tell […]

Approaching Hereditary, one was confronted with one of two realizations, seldom avoiding both: the hype and applause hurled first-time director Ari Aster’s way and Toni Collette’s defining performance. The first time I saw it, I knew I could be making a mistake watching it alongside two philistine family members, and I wasn’t wrong. For them, […]

Dying before he was sixty seemed like a fitting final action for the maverick film-maker Sam Peckinpah. Better to burn out than fade away and all that. For whenever Sam was in town the rage-filled stories of excess flew thick and fast, tales that included wild on-set bust-ups, legendary alcohol and coke consumption, budget blowouts, […]

1 hour 45 minutes, Rated R for autopsies, surgeries, weird groping of internal organs Fair Value of Crimes of the Future: $8.00. It sounds strange to call this the most essential and the most inessential of David Cronenberg’s films, but here goes it is the best Cronenburg primer, the best introduction to ‘here are the […]

“Lightyear” – That’s why Andy wanted a Buzz Lightyear doll? As I usually do for animated flicks, I interviewed my now ten-year old son to talk about the movie. In hindsight, I definitely should have done this before he played in a three-day baseball tournament and forgot half the movie. Stick around at the end […]

“Nice isn’t it? To see a bit of color.” So says Kelly (Stanley) as she looks at the green fields through a train window on the way from London to the seaside. It’s a banal observation and yet so telling. There is no color in Kelly’s life. No joy, no hope, no normality. Every day […]