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This review may contain spoilers.

It’s a shame that this is one of those increasingly self important all without being too important. Calling it wrapped up in its own mythology would be generous, and nostalgia or member-berry obsessed if I were a cynic. Got too big for its own good and became a bit of a jumbled mess. It’s worst crime being when it covered for JJ Abrams crippling obsession with unsatisfying mystery box storytelling. 
But by no means the worst MI film, nor film of the year so far.

In saying that the submarine set piece is one of the best of the franchise. Most of the stars are for that alone.

This is not nearly as funny when you have the omni present roar of jet engines to accompany it, instead of last time where 2 rows back was the intermittent roar of Chris Parker’s laugh at every second serious pause for effect in the film. 
Still compelling as anything, in spite of film twitter melting my train with the conclave x Brat edits.

Watched on Sunday May 11, 2025.

So fkn lit.

Pleasantly surprised by how much I really enjoyed this? Sure the jokes are barely tasteful, even for their time. Yet there was something deeply compelling in here that was just what my sleep deprived brain needed.

Hahahahahhahahahah, this fucking sucks. 

Like I knew it would suck and was still below the floor of my rock bottom expectations. One of the worst offenders in recent years where exposition has been written specifically for people who are second screening this.

The most airplane ass movie of all the Paddingtons. Sure Oliva, Antonio et al are great additions to the returning cast but nothing can fill the Paul King and Sally Hawkins sized hole(s). But hey, it’s still a Paddington film. 

Edit: half of this was looking across the aisle at the kids watching Sonic 3. Honestly looked lit.

A little less jazzed on this the second around. 
Easily has 2 of the 5 best action set pieces of the franchise in that last hour, McQ and Cruise managed to up the ante on the formula perfected in Rogue Nation and Fallout. The Ensemble is almost as great as in Fallout, yet the villains and other antagonists a little more juiceless. Sadly it’s still only half a film. Maybe everything will fall into place with 8?

Objectively, the perfect Mission film.

Every plot development in this whole film exists due to Ethan Hunt repeatedly committing an acts of self sabotage because of how mysterious &/or hot Ilsa Faust is. 

And honestly, I get it…

Act 1 & 2 are textbook perfect action set pieces. Some of the best of the franchise to date. It’s just the 3rd that feels a bit bland and uninspired. Perhaps that’s just the fact that nothing can compare to climbing Burj Khalifa or blowing up the Kremlin. Never-the-less really great. 
So salty that the first time I watched this was on a plane, & not the big screen.

Really liked lots of this, but something just didn’t do it for me. I feel like every other Guadagnino film doesn’t really gel with me, and every second one makes me think he’s one of the best directors working right now. This is for sure several rungs below challengers.  Massive props to Luca for being so horny. 

Loved Chapter 1 a ton, wanted more of that. Just can’t say the same for chapter 2 onwards. Wasn’t with the film for the addiction not psychedelic exploration. Classic case of expectations vs reality. Having said that I really wanted the film to be weirder and sadder than it was. 

So many great performances. Obviously this is the best performance Craig has done in a while. Every single twitch and line delivery of chapter one is beautifully tragic. Love his arc post Bond.
The ing cast is  fab too, Starky of course. Funnily it took me ages to work out who played Schwartzman’s character. Although it was gutting to see Lowery in only one scene. Almost a blink and you miss him role. 

Loved the artistry of the film, given who’s involved stunning cinematography, isn’t unexpected, but the set design and costuming were gorgeous as well! 
Love to see more miniatures in more modern films, that aren’t just from Wes Anderson, they looked properly amazing.

Hate to give JJ credit, but this here has the Juice. Also I know the best to ever do it gets thrown around a lot, but man, Phillip fucking Seymour Hoffman.

The most psychotic mask pulls of the entire franchise. Some of them are properly mad.
Painfully clearly set in Australia, the final act car chase all takes place with second hand Japanese vehicles.

I could yarn for hours at how well crafted this is, and how culturally, historically, textually & intertextually rich and meaningful it all is.
But I won’t, nor is it my place to. I’m not the person to preach this films’ virtues. Half the thrust of this is about who gets to own and tell these stories. 

Genuinely. It’s truely miraculous that folks still get to take massive swings like this with studio money, on projects that clearly mean so much to them. My jaw neared the floor a fair few times. And all on film?! It’s also telling how hard something like this rips, when as soon as you leave the theatre your (not cinephile*) friend immediately wants to see it again. 

Oh and there are fucking, singing, dancing, gangster and Irish and Klan and sexy vampires!!! What more could you ask for from this?!

*read: normie 

Edit: It’s certain now: Ludwig is coming for the film scoring crown. (Bold claim to make of a x2 Oscar winner).

Transposing Heart of Darkness into a Vietnamese setting is first and foremost, such a stroke of genius.
Yet something felt missing for me. I know the hopelessness, and futility of Vietnam is part of the point here. But something felt missing? It’s a stunning film for sure. Yet I know about man’s capacity for evil, and our ability to create hell on earth for the others of our species. I don’t need this,  maybe I’m just fundamentally never meant to fully gell with war movies. Might be sacrilegious to say idk. 

Obsessed with the photographer in the final act with his 29 Nikon F series cameras. Also that Capolla put himself in it in that way. Also as a implicit acknowledgement of film as a form of propaganda.

Also idk if I’m 45 years late with my hot take but Robert Duvall in this has 10 times the role, presence and everything really than Marlon Brando.

One of these days I’ll write a review about how phenomenally much this film means to me. But that’s going to be some other day.

Ralph hit the gym so hard and got so phenomenally ripped all to carry this entire thing on his back. Good luck to Matt Damon to put in a performance next year half as good as this one.

Stunning and pretty faithful adaptation of Stokers’ work.  A genuine feat to achieve given the framing of the text, and its supposed unadaptability. Yet it’s clear that for Coppola what in the novel which resonated for him was everything but the repressed homoerotic desire of act 1. I don’t want to say folks making this didn’t get the source or a film from the early ‘90s NEEDED to be more gay, but I think given the context of the conception of the initial story it’s a very important factor to have overlooked or not emphasise. 

Intrigued by the humanisation of the Dracula in this, who feels far more present and less distant than other adaptions. The ending in particular where you’re mean to feel sympathy for the devil is an interesting and refreshing choice indeed (yes I know this is 30+ years old, sorry). Yet that in turn make him less of a force of abject terror, even in his many forms.

Phenomenal film too. The performances and imagery are stunning. My jaw was regularly on the floor of the Hollywood cinema in many sequences, to name but a few would be the battles, any sort of travel shot with miniatures and that final mountain sequence. The colour and lighting here is some of the best I’ve seen put to film, funny how that happenst with Stoker derived films I’ve seen in the last 6 months. 

Also very funny.

Overall a stunningly compelling adaption if economical in the places of the text I like the most.

A properly trippy, dreamy film. So much where my mouth was agape at how phenomenally gorgeous it looked. Fantastic shots of the MTR, and traffic. There is a compelling case to make for that final shot being one of the best put to film. 

Fundamentally though, this was held back by me not being in the mood for a film like this tonight . Oops.

Bit late to this, but god bless Moff for knowing there’s nothing better than feeling a little bit sad on Christmas (even though it’s April).

This review may contain spoilers.

Immortalising Huntly Power station on film is truly doing the lords work. 

Almost cried at the Matt Berry cameo in this. This would have been 10 times the film had it been him and not Jack Black as Steve.

Was NOT a good idea to rip into this the same day as finishing Sunrise on the Reaping. The weapons grade sadness of that book likely made this hit harder than it should have? Or at least made this seem far more devastating than I it being when I first saw it in high school. Perhaps that’s just what a fully developed prefrontal cortex does for you? But regardless contrasting the two really shows how dirty they did Haymitch using him blatantly and only for the comic relief here.

Interesting to revisit this after so many years, and thankfully a great deal of distance from the Dystopia YA era. Lots of the oppression and world building doesn’t really feel inhabited, in many cases it sort of feels like window dressing for other parts of the plot. Also no commentary on the film but it’s rather regrettable and cringe, now iconography of this seeped into the real world in the decade plus since.

But still a good film.

Couldn’t finish without the obligatory holy heck, Jack Quaid?!

This films is the biggest pat on the head possible.

There are some things a machine just can’t do

Still absolutely off the charts.

the gorge is named after the gaping chasm where that thing that usually makes me care about the characters/story/film usually goes

By no means offensively bad, just sorta… juiceless

Hot AF Turtleneck sweaters, Cate Blanchett, DILF Pierce Brosnan and a teeny bit of Ambika Mod. This movie absolutely gets what I want.

By no means the most ground breaking or fresh espionage thriller I’ve ever seen. But it is stunningly, gorgeously made. Almost perfect with respect to what it sets out to do. Easily the most grown up espionage film I’ll the last 10 years, and certainly one of the best.

Watched on Saturday March 22, 2025.

If a gun was put to my head, and I  was told I could only watch one film for the rest of my life, there is a non-zero chance I’d say this…

Everything is of course subject to  a matter of taste. But one persons soulful & heartwrenching/warming is another persons trite and contrived. Bits of it straddled both for me. All i know for sure was that I certainly kept recoiling from the bits of the school I recognised in my own experiences.

Bold of the plot to assume Christchurch Town Hall only took 3 years to renovate and rebuild (and not 8).

However, one thing is clear though, I need to watch High School Musical (and maybe some Glee) again.

Going in, I was all ready to write screeds about why Warner is anti-art, but having seen the film, I can sort of see why they didn’t want to release this. Especially last year. Director Bong just took his blank check and ran with it. Honestly think had it had anyone else involved this would have been destined for the Zazlav tax write off pile. So the fact it made it into the world is something to be thankful for. 

Obviously it’s no Parasite, nor Memories of a Murder, but it is truly a ball though. Definitely falls into the camp of films which are very much and so very specifically of their time, for better or for worse, much like Glass Onion is. But most of it is forgiven because like Onion, everyone is having so much fun! It doesn’t matter the social commentary is way too on the nose, weirdly prophetic and all that.
Why does it not matter you ask? This film is so genuinely hilarious, so well crafted and packed with great performances. Not least of which being: R Patz, who is utterly off the charts in this. He is so much fun to watch, wish I’d had more silly voices from Mickey’s 1-16 though. Ruffalo plays it over the top but great all the same too, have really appreciated his recent run of repulsive men he’s played. Even if this one is too close to home for this moment, although I’m sure it felt safe when writing this film. Yuen is a solid bit part as a ing role too. 

In fairness this is just a Bong film turned up to 11 and with $120 million dollars. Which although Zazlav may disagree, is a great use of Warner cash. 
All I wish is that this was the all round hit Bong deserved.

I know writers who use subtext, and they’re all cowards

Amazing how many of these people have such well defined eyebrows…

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.

Testament to the power of the human spirit in the face of adversity, the enduring nature of the Bard and all his works (no matter the setting), and finally, mans' propensity for casual violence when unconstrained by earthly bonds (a.k.a.: being in GTA online).

Incredibly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Compelling as anything really. Well worth checking out in spite of how much you may be unfamiliar with the world of Grand Theft Auto and / or Hamlet.

Procrastinated for the best part of several months to review this: firstly because of how properly devastating this is and also because at the time of writing it’s my film of the year.

This is such a slow gut punch of a film. The immense sadness enclosed inside, slowly eeeking out through each stunning performance really hit me good. Both of Torres and each amazing child actor/actress. If we’re real, if academy voters had seen all nominated films, Fernanda Torres would have won. Not very deep of me to say nor reflective of my experience with this. Sorry.
I know everyone can’t say, but its singularly crushing sadness got to me. And frankly, left me utterly ruined. Perfectly.

I know it’s bad to speak ill of the dead, but of all the plethora of things hilariously wrong with this film, the cake absolutely has to be how every other shot from Lynch’s here is bafflingly ugly to look at. 

Sad to end the Hollywood Avondales’ Lynch retrospective, he sure had some bangers, this was not one of them. Sadly.

even lynch had to start somewhere (a bad place)

Watched on Monday February 24, 2025.

Watched on Sunday February 23, 2025.

Unsure if I expected it to be anything otherwise, but this is properly devastating.

Maybe when I’ve been unhappily married for several decades this will resonate more with me?

Watched on Thursday February 20, 2025.

Watched on Monday February 17, 2025.

Bizarre watching this through the lense of our true crime obsessed modern day, and trying to ascribe more meaning than was clearly there 25-30 years ago. Even more bizarre to realise after the fact that this borderline incoherent tonal scrapbook of a docudrama was based off of real murders. At one point this film gets close to profound points that lots of modern day true crime should heed. But everything up to that point makes you question if this is a blatant if avant-garde critique of the way murder is covered and sensationalised, or another miscreant guilty of the same crimes. Maybe that’s just my despising of the genre speaking. Hard to gauge how exploitative this is, but it does not feel great in that respect.

Gotta add that I respect Luca for making this film needlessly inexplicably lude, hot and sexy, furthermore with he, the director, also being hot and sexy in the text of it. Even if that’s the nicest thing I can say about this.

You can definitely see the strands for The Substance in this. Just not as vile and messed up. 
Likely the point of this film but none of these people are ugly people…

There exists a nexus of pure utter insanity where Lynch and Cage cross paths.

There’s an elephant in the room, I’d like you to start talking turkey

Do you play for keeps?

Is there any other way?

How is a dumb short film about a police interview with a monkee…. art?

Watched on Tuesday February 11, 2025.

Genuinely an incredibly solid movie. Henry
Czerny is an absolute goat, as is de Palmas entire style. Yet Cruise using the 1996 internet is genuinely some of the funniest shit ever committed to film. Sorry.

Just confirming…

Mr lynch truly had his finger on the pulse of the dual horrors of modernity and fatherhood, that would resonate so thoroughly. Profoundly and deeply mad. How a filmmaker can come out of the gate like this so fully formed is beyond me. 
But fucked if I know what the story actually means. I can see why he refused to elaborate. So much respect. 

Looked phenomenal* projected on 35mm film at the Hollywood. Cannot wait for the rest of their retrospective. 

*Bar the focusing initially.

Last years list.
Next years list.

Release date TBD list
2039 list

1. Avatar: Fire and Ash
2. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
3. Sentimental Value
4. The Life of Chuck
5. The Phoenician Scheme
6. Eddington
7. Sound of Falling
8. Nickel Boys
9. Materialists
10. Wicked: For Good

...plus 77 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Mission: Impossible – Fallout
• Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
• Mission: Impossible
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
• Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
• Mission: Impossible III
• Mission: Impossible II

Ranking the feature films released (in NZ) in 2025, either wide theatrically, at a festival or streaming for the first time. As seen by me, in the year of release.

Everything above paddington is recommended.

Note 1: that films getting a wide NZ release in 2024, which screened at NZ based festivals in 2023, e.g.: NZIFF, DocEdge & Terror Fi, are not included This includes: we live in Time...

Note 2.: films that received a limited release between Xmas and New Year in 2024 are not included. 

Note 3: films that were previewed in December are not included, e.g.: Conclave, 

Last years list

2025 Catch Up

Fave first watches by month

• I'm Still Here
• Sinners
• The Brutalist
• A Complete Unknown
• Black Bag
• Small Things Like These
• Mickey 17
• Nosferatu
• Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
• Queer

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

The two best films I've watched, for the first time, each month in 2025. Some months I watch a wealth of amazing things that connect with me, some pretentious arthouse trash.

Last years list

• The Brutalist
• A Complete Unknown
• Y Tu Mamá También
• The Dreamers
• I'm Still Here
• Grand Theft Hamlet
• Sinners
• Apocalypse Now
• Kneecap
• Small Things Like These

Ranking the films I saw for the first time in 2025, that did not come out in 2025. I.e.: what I'm catching up on.
Everything above Juror No. 2 is recommended. 

Films getting a wide NZ release in 2025, which screened at festivals in '24, i.e.: NZIFF, Terror-fi & preview screenings are not included here.

Some lists:
Last years list
2025 New Releases

• Mulholland Drive
• Y Tu Mamá También
• Apocalypse Now
• The Dreamers
• Kneecap
• La Haine
• Bram Stoker's Dracula
• Wild at Heart
• Grand Theft Hamlet
• Matt and Mara

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Last years list.

Release date TBD list
2039 list

• Dune: Part Three
• The Odyssey
• Shrek 5
• Untitled Jordan Peele Film
• Project Hail Mary
• Untitled The Exorcist Film
• The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
• The Dish
• The Magicians Nephew
• 28 Years Later Part 2: The Bone Temple

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Fave of each year, for every year I've been alive.
Runners up in the notes.

• I'm Still Here

  It’s a 2025 film for NZ

• Dune: Part Two

  Runners up: Zone of Interest, Challengers.

• Oppenheimer

  Runner up: Past Lives.

• Top Gun: Maverick

  Runner up: Decision to Leave.

• Dune

  Runner up: the French Dispatch. 

• Soul

  Runner Up: Idk Palm springs maybe? Bad year for film.

• Knives Out

  Special mention: Apollo 11 doco, Runner Up: Midsommar.

• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

  Runner up: Mission Impossible: Fallout.

• Blade Runner 2049

  Runners up: Coco & Paddington 2.

• La La Land

  Nothing comes close. 

...plus 19 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ranked by weirdest to least weird.

List is not to be confused with how good I think they are.

1. Mulholland Drive
2. Inland Empire
3. Eraserhead
4. Lost Highway
5. WHAT DID JACK DO?
6. Wild at Heart
7. Blue Velvet

Ranking by how good they are, If it’s possible.

List is not to be confused with how weird I think his films are.

• Lost Highway
• Blue Velvet
• Mulholland Drive
• Wild at Heart
• Eraserhead
• WHAT DID JACK DO?
• Inland Empire

• La La Land
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Casablanca
• Babylon
• Rushmore
• Rye Lane
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Jurassic Park
• Top Gun

Ranking my 5 star films released in the 2020s.

• The Zone of Interest
• Oppenheimer
• Dune: Part Two
• Dune
• The Seed of the Sacred Fig
• Challengers
• I'm Still Here
• The French Dispatch
• Anatomy of a Fall
• Top Gun: Maverick

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Cloud Atlas
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• Lost Highway
• Mickey 17
• The Prestige
• Coherence
• Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
• The Double
• Suspiria
• Glass Onion

New or old, my two faves of each month, that I’m watching for the first time.

Last years list.

• Perfect Days
• Godzilla Minus One
• Dune: Part Two

  Probably best of the year.

• Dead Poets Society

  While not objectively a *better* film than ZoI, at least it made me feel happy before the earth shattering sadness.
  

• Pride & Prejudice
• Incendies
• Suspiria
• The Worst Person in the World
• Challengers
• Civil War

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ranking the feature films released (in NZ) in 2024, either wide theatrically, at a festival or streaming for the first time. As seen by me, in the year of release.

Everything above Ferrari is reccomended.

Note 1: that films getting a wide NZ release in 2024, which screened at NZ based festivals in 2023, e.g.: NZIFF, DocEdge & Terror Fi, are not included This includes: Poor Things...

Note 2.: films that received a limited release between Xmas and New Year in 2023 are not included.

Note 3: films that were previewed in December are not included, e.g.: All of Us Strangers & Poor Things

Last years list

Next Years List

2024 Catch Up

Fave first watches by month

1. Dune: Part Two
2. The Zone of Interest
3. Challengers
4. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
5. The Holdovers
6. The Haka Party Incident
7. All We Imagine as Light
8. A Real Pain
9. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
10. Anora

...plus 34 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ranking the films I saw for the first time in 2024, that did not come out in 2024. I.e.: what I'm catching up on.

Everything above Anyone But You is recommended. 

Films getting a wide NZ release in 2024, even those which screened at festivals in '23, i.e.: NZIFF, Terror-fi & preview screenings are included here.

Some lists:
Last years list
Next years list
2024 New Releases

1. The Young Girls of Rochefort
2. Perfect Days
3. Ikiru
4. La Chimera
5. Little Women
6. Before Sunrise
7. The King of Comedy
8. Dead Poets Society
9. The Graduate
10. Pride & Prejudice

...plus 48 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Glass Onion
• Knives Out
• The Last of Sheila
• Evil Under the Sun
• Death on the Nile
• Citizen Kane
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Last years list.
Next years list.
Release date TBD List
2039 list.

• The Brutalist

  2025?

• The Life of Chuck

  25????

• Queer

  2025? If it gets a theatrical release at all here?

• Friendship
• MaXXXine
• Nosferatu

  2025 realistically.

• Twisters
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• The Balconettes
• The Bikeriders

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

Release date undetermined.

• Avatar 4
• Avatar 5
• Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse
• Rendezvous with Rama
• Eddington
• Materialists
• Thomas & Friends: The Movie
• Cleopatra
• Young Sinner
• They Follow

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Personal faves. I've seen surprisingly few Xmas films?
But realistically Mr Robot S4 is the best peice of Xmas media.

• Carol
• The Holdovers
• It's a Wonderful Life
• Eyes Wide Shut
• The Nice Guys
• Klaus
• Die Hard
• Iron Man 3
• Spencer
• Gremlins

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

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
• Oppenheimer
• Blade Runner 2049
• Dune: Part Two
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Suspiria
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Babylon

Films with stunning production design for *the baddies*.

• Aliens
• Avatar
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• Star Wars
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Return of the Jedi
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
• Top Gun: Maverick
• Captain America: The First Avenger
• The Creator

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

* denotes need to rewatch as an adult to make up my mind.

• Alien
• Blade Runner
• The Last Duel
• The Martian
• Gladiator

  *

• Alien: Covenant
• Prometheus

  *

• Gladiator II
• Napoleon
• Robin Hood

  *