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First rewatch in about twenty years & it has lost none of its power. Viewing this film is like having a layer skin taken off. But an absolutely vital reminder of the need to oppose war and fascism.

What this film does really well, is capture a cultural moment. The shift in comedy television & the frankly annoying of the original SNL
cast are the least of it. The bigger picture is a power shift between age groups, the changing entertainment economy & viewing tastes & the mainstreaming of the counterculture. JK Simmons killed as Milton Berle, whose character in some respects epitomises many of the broader themes portrayed in the show.

Competent heist film, only let down by not being as nasty & scuzzy as its predecessor.

What you see is what you get, Clooney & Pitt clowning it up as two rival criminal fixers in New York.

The revisionist western has been done so much over the last few decades, that it’s hard ask to bring anything new to it. A case in point is this. Nothing wrong with it. But, for me, nothing really stood out about it either, especially given its three hour run time.

I really liked this. Cliched at times. At others,  complex. Rises above any shortfalls by being sweet & funny. Also not afraid to have a lot of loose ends.

Very much liked the idea of a mainly black vampire film set in the 1930s American south. Apart from this, I can’t say there was anything strikingly new about it. Very much FROM DUSK TILL DAWN meets NEAR DARK sort of territory. But that’s okay, happy to watch a plot redone well. Of course, this being the time of subtext as main text, there was also bits and pieces shoehorned into the story about black identity & its expression through music, just in case you weren’t getting the message. I thought these parts were unnecessary and, TBH, a bit silly. But, given what is going on in the US at the moment I can also see a strong argument that you can never say this stuff too much.

An extra half a star for all the sex, particularly an excellent cunnilingus scene.

Watched on Sunday May 4, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 3, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 3, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 30, 2025.

Stylish and understated.

Watched on Saturday April 26, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 26, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 24, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday April 22, 2025.

Bring back the under 80 minute film.

A complete mess.

Watched on Sunday April 20, 2025.

A slightly revisionist take on the story but it works. One thing l loved about it is that it is very obviously made with a lot of love. The sets, the costume, the characters, the whole mis en scene oozes attention to detail in a way that reminded me of the best 1950s Hollywood blockbusters.

Plot wise does not quite hold together but such a good cast and wonderful to see New Orleans through the eyes of non-American director, Bertrand Tavernier.

Still thinking about last night’s viewing, THE SWORD OF DOOM (1966). Kind of does for the Samurai film what Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH did for the Western. Looking at director Kihachi Okamoto’s filmography, I definitely have to check out more of this guy’s work.

Watched on Friday April 11, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 10, 2025.

A wonderfully nasty fly on the wall tale of twisted love on the run. Almost an anti-New Hollywood film that utilises pulp, true crime & sexsploitation tropes and aesthetics to brilliantly skewer the lack of social mobility & prim sexual & social late 1940s/50s America. Recommended.

Watched on Wednesday April 9, 2025.

Being shouted at for two hours gave me a headache

Watched on Sunday April 6, 2025.

Watched on Friday April 4, 2025.

Watched on Friday April 4, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 3, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 3, 2025.

Train film. Spy film. Film noir. Pseudo propaganda film. A lot going on here. Apparently, the first American film to be shot in post-war .

Possibly the most beige film I have ever seen. I mean the colour scheme, not the content.

I love plastic surgery films and this is one of the best l’ve seen. The narrative constantly wrong footed me, right up the very end, as it moved between being a deeply, DEEPLY, twisted body horror, to a sort of queer Frankenstein, to a genuinely moving drama. As a bonus, I would never have guessed that Antonio Banderas could be so creepy.

Watched on Thursday March 27, 2025.

I still think this film is overrated but it was great to finally see it on the big screen.

The only good thing about this film is the presence of veteran character actor Mike Starr, who gives a gentle lift to pretty much everything he is in. Discuss.

Watched on Tuesday March 25, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 24, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

Possibly the darkest, bleakest spaghetti Westen I’ve ever seen. That’s saying something

This would’ve made a great Saturday afternoon film for Italian kids back in the day. Not the most incisive comment, I know, but my main take away from this was that I’ve never seen an army win so many battles having to charge up steep hills at an enemy dug in on top. Continually. How historically realistic is this?

Heartbreakingly beautiful film. That ending…

Watched on Saturday March 15, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 15, 2025.

Watched on Thursday March 13, 2025.

Definitely above average Krimi

Took me two sittings but finally finished Lindsay Anderson’s O’LUCKY MAN (1973). A total mix genres - satire, horror & even science fiction. Just adored the ending. One day I want to have a party attended by everyone I’ve ever had with & we all dance uproariously & joyfully to a live band.

Watched on Sunday March 9, 2025.

• Forty Guns
• The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson
• Brokeback Mountain
• Sweet Country
• Pocket Money
• Duck, You Sucker
• Red Sun
• Hannie Caulder
• Light the Fuse… Sartana Is Coming
• Compañeros

...plus 184 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Johnny Yuma
• Carson City
• A Time for Dying
• Face to Face
• Run of the Arrow
• The Tin Star
• The Deserter
• Bandido!
• The Ruthless Four
• Roughshod

...plus 374 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

War is always hell but sometimes it is also noir

• The Blue Max
• Dark of the Sun
• Play Dirty
• Hornets' Nest
• Army of Shadows
• The Dogs of War
• Went the Day Well?
• Ambush Bay
• The Train
• Cross of Iron

...plus 111 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The spies who came onto my screen: espionage/spy films I have seen

• The Day of the Jackal
• The Naked Runner
• The Living Daylights
• On Her Majesty's Secret Service
• Mirage
• The Jigsaw Man
• Three Days of the Condor
• Dr. No
• From Russia with Love
• Diamonds Are Forever

...plus 151 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

An ongoing tribute to one of my favourite cinema tropes, the heist, across many film genres.

• The Asphalt Jungle
• Money Movers
• Thief
• Robbery
• Dog Day Afternoon
• Across 110th Street
• The Split
• A Cop
• The Killers
• Straight Time

...plus 280 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I could not find a decent list of British crime films, so I decided to make one myself. A work in progress of the films I have seen, so it will be updated as see more titles.

• Time Without Pity
• Get Carter
• Pulp
• The Long Haul
• The Reckoning
• They Made Me a Fugitive
• No Orchids for Miss Blandish
• Never Let Go
• The Criminal
• Robbery

...plus 121 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A list dedicated to films about westerners in serious trouble or way out of their depth in the global south of the border. A work in progress.

• Stars at Noon
• Far East
• Saint Jack
• City of Ghosts
• The Year of Living Dangerously
• Ride the Pink Horse
• Salvador
• Midnight Express
• Brokedown Palace
• Revenge

...plus 199 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Zone of Interest
• Ashes and Diamonds
• The Woman on the Beach
• Paris, Texas
• Black Gravel
• Red Angel
• Black Narcissus
• Kes
• Barry Lyndon
• Anora

American film noir up to 1960 - a list to help me keep track of what I have watched.

• Don't Bother to Knock
• Detour
• Mildred Pierce
• The Woman in the Window
• Double Indemnity
• Scarlet Street
• Gilda
• The Postman Always Rings Twice
• The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
• The Big Sleep

...plus 209 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Woman on Pier 13
• Obsession
• The Housemaid
• Red Fish
• Fear No More
• Mr. Soft Touch
• Hollow Triumph
• State Secret
• The Dark Corner
• Jungle Street

...plus 572 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Naked City
• Coup de Torchon
• The Getaway
• The Night of the Generals
• I, the Executioner
• The Rats
• The Scarlet Hour
• Native Son
• Private Hell 36
• Undertow

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A list that explores American noir cinema that appeared after the end of the classic period of film noir in the late 1950s and the advent of the neo noir in the 1970s. Inspired by my piece on the US site CrimeReads, '10 underappreciated American noirs of the late 1950s and the 1960s'. You can read the original article here:
crimereads.com/10-underappreciated-american-noirs-of-the-late-1950s-and-the-1960s/

• The Crimson Kimono
• City of Fear
• Private Property
• Johnny Cool
• Who Killed Teddy Bear?
• Mickey One
• Seconds
• The Boston Strangler
• The Detective
• Uptight

...plus 105 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I am a big fan of plastic surgery noir, both on the screen and in my own writing. A list dedicated to my character Gary Chance and, who appears in my novel GUNSHINE STATE & my new one ORPHAN ROAD, and his own botched face job.

ORPHAN ROAD is available here: downandoutbooks.com/bookstore/nette-orphan-road/

• Suture
• Eyes Without a Face
• Johnny Handsome
• Dark age
• Seconds
• Face/Off
• The Skin I Live In
• The Hands of Orlac
• The Hands of Orlac
• Circus of Horrors

...plus 70 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Fellowship of the Frog
2. The Red Circle
3. The Terrible People
4. The Green Archer
5. Dead Eyes of London
6. The Devil's Daffodil
7. The Forger of London
8. The Strange Countess
9. Secret of the Red Orchid
10. The Door with Seven Locks

...plus 22 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Every film mentioned in the book, REVOLUTION IN 35MM: POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND RESISTANCE IN CINEMA FROM THE ARTHOUSE TO THE GRINDHOUSE, 1960-1990, co-edited by Andrew Nette and Samm Deighan. The book is published by PM Press pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1656

• A Bullet for the General
• Duck, You Sucker
• The Mercenary
• Compañeros
• El Bandido Malpelo
• What Am I Doing in the Middle of the Revolution?
• Don't Turn the Other Cheek
• Tepepa
• A Fistful of Dollars
• For a Few Dollars More

...plus 343 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Le Cercle Rouge
• Mr. Klein
• The Hunter's Diary
• Assault on the Pay Train
• Oppenheimer
• The Card Counter
• Rebels of the Neon God
• Cairo Station
• TÁR
• Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable

• This Gun for Hire
• Female Jungle
• Mr. Klein
• Three Men to Destroy
• Larceny
• Black Widow
• The Hunter's Diary
• Shakedown
• Human Desire
• Marlowe

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Every film that is mentioned in the book I co-edited,
Girl Gangs, Biker Boys & Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, published by PM Press in 2016. The book is available at the link below
pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=892

• City Across the River
• Rumble Fish
• The Boys
• The Wild One
• Teen-Age Crime Wave
• Untamed Youth
• Blackboard Jungle
• The Young Savages
• The Birds
• Hot Rod Girl

...plus 68 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
2. Vertigo
3. Citizen Kane
4. Tokyo Story
5. In the Mood for Love
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7. Beau Travail
8. Mulholland Drive
9. Man with a Movie Camera
10. Singin' in the Rain

...plus 254 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Dark of the Sun
• Code Name: Wild Geese
• Mercenaries
• Mercenaries
• The Dogs of War
• McBain
• Uncommon Valor
• Commando
• The Losers
• Tough to Kill

...plus 70 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Night Has a Thousand Eyes
• Scream Blacula Scream
• Nightmares
• What Have You Done to Solange?
• Dead of Night
• Mark of the Vampire
• Demons of the Mind
• Experiment in Evil
• The Ghost Galleon
• Quatermass 2

...plus 38 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films mentioned in my 2018 monograph on Norman Jewison's dystopian SF classic Rollerball, particularly the films leading up to and influenced by it that I refer to as 'murder game' films. These are movies in which killer game shows, reality TV programs and ultra-violent sporting events are broadcast as spectacles by despotic elites to entertain and cower their populations and maintain political control. The monograph is available at the following link:https://academic.oup.com/liverpool-scholarship-online/book/40346

• Rollerball
• Rollerball
• Snuff
• Emanuelle in America
• The Fun House
• Hardcore
• Cannibal Holocaust
• Bloodline
• Videodrome
• The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

...plus 90 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.