Mike McCahill

Computer love: "Materialists" Whether you embraced it or not (and I couldn't quite), Celine Song's much-admired breakthrough film Past Lives  was a small, wispy affair, i...

On Celine Song's MATERIALISTS, which opened in the UK today: tinyurl.com/yc74zh3h

disco and beyond record of the day :

Steinski & Mass Media – We'll Be Right Back
(UK 4th & Broadway Records 4 track #vinyl 12" single 1987)

youtu.be/vJDclrl-lQg

#eighties #hiphop #CutUp #DJ #samples #breaks #80smusic
#45s #singles

The trigger effect: "Weapons" Zach Cregger is shaping up as the current American horror renaissance's narrative strategist-in-chief. His breakthrough film, 2022's Barbari...

On Zach Cregger's WEAPONS, now showing: tinyurl.com/mpnj56jr

That's why they call them lay-bys.

Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson), dressed in a schoolgirl's uniform, threatens to throw a multicoloured lollipop at an offscreen opponent in a still from Akiva Schaffer's THE NAKED GUN.

On THE NAKED GUN [below], AMADEUS and 40 ACRES, plus the weekend charts and picks: tinyurl.com/2atsxbkk

There's quite a good 2001 riff in there!

YouTube video by HansonVEVO Hanson - Weird

Never mind JURASSIC PARK and SCHINDLER'S LIST, tonight I learned that in the same year (1998), Gus Van Sant directed his PSYCHO remake and the video for Hanson's "Weird": youtu.be/32nlxQOe3tw?...

Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson), dressed in a schoolgirl's uniform, threatens to throw a multicoloured lollipop at an offscreen opponent in a still from Akiva Schaffer's THE NAKED GUN.

On THE NAKED GUN [below], AMADEUS and 40 ACRES, plus the weekend charts and picks: tinyurl.com/2atsxbkk

The Two Faces of January (2013) Thriller starring Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst and Oscar Isaac. In 1962, the charismatic Chester and his young, attractive wife, Colette, arrive in

Freeview (UK) #film of the day :

Hossein Amini's thriller The Two Faces of January(2013 92 mins.)
starring Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst and Oscar Isaac.

[BBC2 23.00 & iPlayer for 30 days]

www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/...

Special hat tip to Kristen Johnston for being the funniest woman on American television for some thirty years now.

YouTube video by Netflix Leanne | Official Trailer | Netflix

Look, streaming services, you can make all the envelope-pushing true-crime dramas with A-list stars you want, but this is the show that's giving me the most pleasure at the moment - light, funny, old-school and thoroughly professional: youtu.be/XHFFXU8-q7g?...

On demand: "40 Acres" Like M. Night Shyamalan's The Village before it, some tension exists in the Canadian-shot indie horror 40 Acres as to whether events are t...

On RT Thorne's 40 ACRES, now streaming: tinyurl.com/4uf9rucx

Couldn't he just get some boobs tattooed on his wrist? (His *other* wrist.)

Week 31: August 1-7, 2025 Bollywood crosses over, while Tame Impala goes long

New this week - including what I believe is the first ever Bollywood song to cross over onto the mainstream UK pop charts.
theeartrumpet.substack.com/p/week-31-au...

Double take: "The Naked Gun" The new take on  The Naked Gun  is broadly fine: fast and more often funny than not, it adds a welcome note of levity to a movie summer that...

On the new THE NAKED GUN, now showing: tinyurl.com/2eupj4cs

Magnum opus: "Amadeus" All the right notes, in almost exactly the right order. It was just over forty years ago when Milos Forman's Amadeus landed among us as one...

On Milos Forman's AMADEUS, back on UK screens: tinyurl.com/duwjyd74

Young hero Kenji gazes longingly at his teenage beloved Natsuki, sat at a computer, in a scene from Mamoru Hosoda's 2009 animation SUMMER WARS.

On THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS, BRING HER BACK, SAIYAARA and the reissued SUMMER WARS [below] and MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, plus the weekend charts and picks: tinyurl.com/59huhtut

I tell this story not infrequently, but my Soderbergh fan friends and I went to the brief theatrical release of 'Behind the Candelabra'. No-one else there but two old ladies sitting behind us. We are, perhaps, 15 minutes into the film when one of them cries out, scandalised "LIBERACE WAS GAY?!?!"

If last night's #TOTP reruns are a reliable index, pop music went very badly awry in early 1998. That all-fingers-and-toes-in-ears Catatonia x Space song remains the foremost example in my lifetime of two wrongs not making a right.

MY DINNER WITH ANDRE at The Sphere! See what everyone else in the restaurant is eating! Marvel at the dishes that have yet to be bussed! Thrill as gratuity is added!

Dexter's Laboratory.

Young hero Kenji gazes longingly at his teenage beloved Natsuki, sat at a computer, in a scene from Mamoru Hosoda's 2009 animation SUMMER WARS.

On THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS, BRING HER BACK, SAIYAARA and the reissued SUMMER WARS [below] and MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, plus the weekend charts and picks: tinyurl.com/59huhtut

Rinse and repeat: "My Beautiful Laundrette" at 40 Forty years ago, My Beautiful Laundrette  would have been the jewel in the crown (or, as one character in the film puts it, "the jewel in th...

On Stephen Frears' MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, back on UK screens from today to mark its 40th anniversary: tinyurl.com/5fkvtsek

Suffer the children: "Bring Her Back" 2022's Talk to Me  was distinguished by the emergent Philippou brothers' readiness to push a fairly stock multiplex-horror set-up (mummified...

On the Philippou brothers' BRING HER BACK, in cinemas nationwide tomorrow: tinyurl.com/5fdrthf9

Remembers... - Mick Jackson Remembers... Threads Director and producer Mick Jackson looks back to 1984 and shares the story behind the creation of the BBC’s apocalyptic drama Threads.

I occasionally have cause to wonder how Mick Jackson went from THREADS to THE BODYGUARD (via L.A. STORY), and his intro to BBC4's THREADS rerun last night provided the answer: he's a really skilled storyteller. Bonus: find out what connects THREADS to Bertie Bassett. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Toys: "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" Third time's the charm, or is it just that the two previous attempts to push the Fantastic Four as a cinematic proposition (2005, with Ioan ...

On THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS, now showing: tinyurl.com/bdzjxpkm

No small affair: "Saiyaara" A sensation in its homeland and a sizeable word-of-mouth hit here, Saiyaara  is the Hindi cinema trying to wipe the slate clean after its re...

On the snowballing Hindi sensation SAIYAARA, and the wildest public screening I've sat in all year: tinyurl.com/43j3cbvs