“What the hell is this shit?!” I muttered to myself as a cornball Frankie Laine song blasted over the opening credits to ‘3:10 to Yuma’ (1957). Fortunately I knew the tale was by Elmore Leonard, who wrote the original story Budd Boetticher’s excellent ‘The Tall T’ (1957) was based on…

I’ve been fascinated by Richard Kelly’s ‘Southland Tales’ (2006) ever since it was brutally destroyed at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Did it really deserve its reputation as being one of the most pretentious, insufferable, infuriating and convoluted movies ever made? Considering that’s how I feel about Kelly’s supposed “masterpiece”…

It’s got a spectacularly lurid title but does ‘Kiss the Blood off My Hands’ (1948) live up to its name in the sensationalism department? Kinda, but what’s most surprising about the film is that behind all the violence, blackmail and trauma is a strong undercurrent of compassion and forgiveness. Not…

George Sherman’s ‘Larceny’ (1948) is an interesting little thriller whose most remarkable feature might just be how unremarkable it is with none of the listed ingredients being particularly original. Neither does it break new ground, push boundaries or shake up any conventions. What it does do, however, and does very…

How on earth can something so lightweight, so harmless, so happy to entertain, so inoffensive, so breezy, so slight end up being so insufferably annoying?! ‘See How They Run’ (2022) is a loving pastiche of Agatha Christie whodunits filled with unthreatening humour, colourful characters and a mysterious murder. The massive…

I only had vague memories of ‘The China Syndrome’ (1979) before re-visiting it earlier this week and it turns out I even had those faint recollections somewhat back-to-front. Wasn’t this the film about desperately trying to avert an impending nuclear meltdown? Well, it sort of is and isn’t because the…

Ever sat through a David O. Russell movie and thought to yourself “Hmm, how can I possibly make something as insufferably annoying and irritatingly self-congratulatory as that?” Well, worry no more because thanks to my handy, easy to learn, six-step guide to making films the O. Russell way you’ll soon…

I’m not a fan of superhero movies in the slightest however, unlike Martin Scorsese, I don’t view them as not being legitimate cinema. Obviously they’re legitimate cinema but it just so happens 99% of them are legitimately shit. ‘Black Adam’ (2022) is the latest entry into this infantile, fascistic, regressive…

‘The Innocent’ (1976) is visually and morally decadent, obsessed with mortality, existentially isolated, riddled with thematically profound chintz and uncompromisingly bleak which can mean only one thing — it’s a Luchino Visconti movie, folks! Tullio (Giancarlo Giannini) is an aristocratic Italian suffering from depression, possibly because he’s realised he’s stuck…