Jacob Kelly's Funeralopolis Vol. 1 Issue 8

In this weeks Issue: Fuck the Fabelmans

We kick off with the big movie of the week courtesy of Mr Steven Spielberg. His quasi biopic detailing the divorce that forever changed cinema. Best Picture appears to be on the cards but this critic found it's sweetness insufferable. We stare down the barrel at Spielberg's career and unload some heavy fire at his current period of lazy nostalgia as he nears retirement.

Avant-Garde Slasher or Rought Cut?

There has been talk of Terrifier 2 creating a whole new genre known as the Megaslasher with its epic near 2 and a half hour length. However, is this as innovative as it seems or does it need trimming? Both sides are considered as we take on the film that’s caused ambulances to be called in to the cinema and mass walk outs.

Favourite First Time Watches of '22

Every single film given 5/5 by Funeralopolis during 2022 gets a few paragraphs. Looking for recommendations? These films considered masterpieces might just do you well. Find your next favourite too.

One Last Look at the Guilty Pleasures

Soon to be forgotten are the trashy flicks of 2022. As audiences we may not have rated them highly but we did enjoy them. Mr J M Kelly feels the bizarre need to document some of these too before they are disposed of and lost entirely. You're not going to find many of these on any Best of Lists of the year but good times are to be had nonetheless.

There can be Only One: Best of '22

As the saying goes in Highlander, "There can be only one". Forget the Academy Awards. Forget the Baftas. Forget the Golden Globes. We begin on December 23rd 2022. The New Year is approaching and Kelly only has a matter of time to get through his top 20 ranking for 2022. A mixture of film analysis and diary like entries, the Kelly way. Does your favourite film of the year make the cut?

Fuck the Fabelmans

Fuck The Fabelmans, I'm all about the Sy Ablemans. If you want to see the ridiculous nature and contradictions of growing up in a Jewish family, one would be wise to rewatch the Coen Brothers classic A Serious Man. In that film a complex puzzle is presented between order and chaos with religion being used as an absurdist tool to create a false sense of control. But does it work? Faith and fact compete in the mind of Larry Gopnik, a physics professor in crisis who must raise his family in the traditional way he believes to be right with the truth that makes itself known every day. Cleverly, the film is structured around his scheduled visits to see multiple rabbis. As he climbs up the ladder, humorously, each one appears to have a different take on how to deal with his problems. Ironically, all his answers lie in the background of his lectures to his students with the uncertainty principle. Making one wonder, even if we had the ability to explain life with an equation could we even begin to understand it?

Spielberg's latest contribution to wimp cinema is so wince inducing that it ought to be avoided at all costs. It asks not a single compelling question and cruises by on its own corny sentimental rubbish. Over the years, he's received great criticism for his traditional conservative filmmaking style, popularising a lazy family oriented model and boringly liberal politics. All of which have irritated me at some time or another. However, to a large extent, I have come to terms with these things. In spite of them all, he's made incredible movies, a fact that no-one can deny. His catalogue is so large that everyone must have at least one film of his they like surely? Nothing can prepare though for how pathetic his latest film turns out to be.

Everyone knows, you need to develop a bit of a sweet tooth to consume most of his films. Such is the way of Amblin films. When he's got it right on films like E.T. and Jurassic Park I'll praise it. To create such family entertainment operating on the calibre those do is undeniably profound and I'll defend that. Anyone who keeps the nippers entertained has my respect. There has to be a line though, has to be. A point at which a filmmaker needs to take a good look at themself and not given into such mawkish mentalities.

Keep conquering the limitations of special effects with your buddie George Lucas at Industrial Light and Magic and nostalgically revisiting old serials but no-one said you had to be so schmaltzy. If there is an art to what Spielberg does it is in his pushing the medium with his use of effects. Spielberg and Lucas's mantra has always been admirable. Take the high production values of 2001 and apply them to Flash Gordon type narratives with quicker pacing. Sure, it had an unfortunate knock on effect for Flash Gordon inspired independents and auteurs in the New Hollywood model wanting to challenge older audiences but it can't be denied they had many successful and likeable hits along the way.

Sharks? Cool. Dinosaurs? Cool. James Bond like archeologists? Cool. Cinephiles? Decidedly un-cool as it turns out after watching The Fabelmans

Honestly, if this film is what cinephilia is, know that I want no part of it. I never got in to this game to be like the protagonist in The Fabelmans. Why I did in the first place has become less clear over the years but if there was any cure to this addiction for me, it would lie in watching The Fabelmans repeatedly. Aiming as low as it does, it is an embarrassment to my sensibilities of what cinema has the potential to be. Whilst I wouldn't want to give an answer to the reason for my love of cinema, just know it has nothing to do with this film. Think it's time we put away these lover letters to cinema. At this point, I think it would be more of an exciting exercise to get hate mail to cinema. Like, time to champion other mediums. Pack our bags lads, we're done.

The Fabelmans is such a blatant attack at the heart that is so obvious that there's no way your body couldn't step up the defences and ward it off instantly. I remain surprised at its warm reception. Truthfully, I haven't liked one of this man's films in a very, very long time. You'd have to go right back to 2005s Munich. Ok, so maybe Crystal Skull had a few solid set pieces and doo wop (before the abysmal CGI overload at the end of course) and Bridge of Spies has a few fun spy elements no doubt courtesy of the Coen Brothers. Genuinely, though, let's face it, the dude hasn't made a great film since Munich.

Are you really going to sit here and tell me Ready Player One was a good movie? Represents the worst of modern cinema with its affinity for pointless easter eggs that do nothing to advance the plot and are merely for advertising purposes. Also, another dreadful attempt at incorporating the internet in to cinema. Did have a cool car though and I like the use of Tom Sawyer. Lincoln? Snoozer. War Horse? Behave. The BFG? He should have retired after that one. What confuses me is there's clearly a more intellectual filmmaker in him than that which meets the eye. Duel and Jaws mask these within tense thrillers too. Hence, why they rank amongst his best. The man's even got a Phillip K Dick adaptation in Minority Report.

If you ever wanted to see his battle between his selective intellectual stabs and dumbed down family entertainment, look no further than AI. That film is at war with itself between the existential Kubrick film it started life as and sweet tooth Spielberg movie. Close Encounters of the Third Kind exhibits this issue to some degree too. Due to the presence of French New Wave filmmaker Francois Truffaut, there's this potential for it to be this satirical observation of the spectacle in the package of a blockbuster spectacle. Justifying the effects as art whilst slipping in to what it could have been critiquing. Either way, I liked that one.

No-ones saying he should have to make just adult oriented films. Would prefer it though if he did more of a mix of both and could control himself on the kiddier projects. He's only gotten worse over the years. Maybe this guys actually Benjamin Button cause he ain't getting older, he's regressing. With his last two he's become more insufferable than ever. Entered a lazy nostalgia period without any intelligence whatsoever. Surely, one grows more questioning and subtle with age? His age seems to have regressed to the point he now has the mind of a child. There's simply no other way to explain it. This whole film feels completely alien to me and there's no way it could have come from a 76 year old man. What are these emotions? Does he need some major trauma to happen to him so he can grow tolerably cynical like any other old man? The Fabelmans takes it to a whole new level of goey Limits have been reached, he's gone one step too far this time and produced easily his worst film to date.

Let's start with the opening of The Fabelmans because we need to talk about a new type of cinematic crime being committed today. Adorably, this opens with the protagonist as a kid standing with his parents in a bright blue coat. Honestly, after Schindler's List, I couldn't think of a better way to begin a Spielberg self-reflexive quasi biopic. A lovely visual reference to his career and the only good one in the movie. Unfortunately, this is then ruined very quickly by this recent trend of what I'm going to call cinemasplaining. This term does not include metatextual conversations about other movies. To do so is completely fine and encouraged as part of a postmodernist approach. No, cinemasplaining is the act of patronisingly explaining the process of how cinema operates.

In this scene, the camera pans left and we see the kids Dad describing what happens when images are played at 24 frames per second. Then we pan to the right and if like myself, you thought this was excruciating the first time, they do it again as the mother contributes some further unwanted details. Back and forth they go, relentlessly revealing this information. There is something so unforgivably insulting about the scene, notably with the use of POV. It's as though Spielberg is saying the common man does not understand a technique that's been around for decades and such culture is above them. As a result of the construction of the sequence, we too are treated like the child in the scene. We are spoken down to and that is the tone of the entire movie. It seems like they've made an entire movie around cinemasplaining with this Empire of Light, may have to avoid that one.

To explain cinema so literally and childishly like this massively takes away from experience of tackling how one could become so arrested by cinema. Considering the intentions of The Fabelmans, this does not seem such a wise move by any stretch of the imagination. This is not a film with many things on the brain but they couldn't even address the one question at the heart of it and that is why is one allured by cinema? Outed as a fraud on scene one. Good work, Stephen!

Spielberg then goes on to commit an error even more glaring than David De Gea the other week against Everton. He forgets that home movies are called home movies for a reason. Cause they fucking stay at home! Keep that personal nonsense for your family and close friends cause no-one else gives a shit. Often, I do wonder what some of Scorsese's early lost Roman epics that he made when he was about 8 were like but then I remember it's probably for the best. Most filmmakers definitely lie about this word 'lost', which really means it's so bad they don't want you to see it. Old 8MM footage like this is about as artful as watching a Tik Tok. One should not be fooled by their own nostalgia. Set up a projector, show the family, no-one else needs to see it. What transpires for a good majority of the film with these cowboy and war films is so bad it makes Son of Rambow look like The Godfather.

This leads us to the most lauded sequence in the film. Spielberg discovering his mother was having an affair through his home videos, leading to divorce and a mummy's boy act that forever changed cinema. Weaving in these unconventional family structures in to all his films has always been a progressive move from the big man. A move I can get behind in its subtle and poignant nature but in The Fabelmans its totally surface level and cheap. He explored all of this much better in his other films when it was a background factor. E.T. is definitely him revisiting his father's separation and desire for a best friend so creating it in this alien creature. Embracing the divorce so head on has led to his weakest exploration of atypical units. That moment where he reveals the affair is so cinematic that it almost borders on transcendental. Removing it from the context, the montage is superbly crafted. When viewed though as it is and knowing the drama, I can't help but think oh come on. Has such an annoying coming of age vibe to it. The kind that has proven popular with younger audiences. For the life of me I can't understand the appeal in swaying to such easy emotions. Don't you snap out of that at some point?

Laughably, this then causes the protagonist to question his dedication to cinema. There's probably a great Freudian subtext here linking cinema and the mother but in this case it's not explored that way it's just fucking stupid. Aftersun almost touched on the menage a trois of camera, child and parent but substitutes mystery for underwriting. Blonde remains the best and most extreme to tackle the relationship in 2022.

Spielberg's take is expectedly entirely clueless. The mother character says lines like, "Movies are dreams" and Seth Rogen's character later states something to the effect of, "You can't stop making movies, it'll break your mother's heart". Imagine hinging your drama on such a thing as this. How out of touch from reality do you have to come to do that? Sadly, this is the era we're now in of Spielberg movies as he approaches death and retirement. The film is in competition with itself to outdo the last line on how cringeworthy it can be. In all fairness, it achieves all this consistently.

Perhaps, I could let the film off for Spielberg's initial fascination with cinema at a young age being trains crashing if it grew in to something more meaningful but the film never expands outside the technical notion of a set piece into anything more long lasting or psychologically relevant. I know special effects have always driven his movies to a large extent but does he really have such a limited concept of cinema? Maybe I held too much respect for him.

Another eye roller that nearly made me burst out laughing was the protagonist's uncle appearing and going on a rant about how "art can sometimes be dangerous". He's played as this wacky off the wall elder wiser character giving out advice. I mean when have Spielberg's movies ever been dangerous? Thematically speaking. He's made an entire career out of what could be referred to as safe cinema. That's not to knock it, as I said before he can be great. Why's he suddenly pretending he's Gaspar Noe master cinema provocateur? I would defend Spielberg's movies as art rather than shallow blockbusters but that would be in the effects pushing the boundaries of technology. It would not be in the pushing of the envelope. Stephen, you can't just sporadically make a film like Munich every 20 years where you say a revenge mission even when warranted still leads to a collective guilt of actions and then paint yourself as a controversial filmmaker. I'm not allowing it. You can't even talk about art when you make a movie as superficial as The Fabelmans. Those looking for a commentary on what art is will not find it here. No chance. 3

In the second half, The Fabelmans descends in to the most generic, trite coming of age drama you've ever seen. Utterly forgettable and bland with one killer line that is a contender for the worst in the movie. Since, he's now in his teens at high school, there is a bully on the scene. This bully loses his mind because of how the protagonist captures him in his school movie. A confrontation takes place at the lockers (where else would it take place?) and the bully queries why the protagonist portrayed him as a 'hero' on screen. To which the main characters response is, get ready for this, "I made you fly on screen!". How up your own arse do you have to get to be coming out with cringeworthy lines like that? Come back to reality, Stephen. No other explanation for it, living too well in Hollywood thinking you're untouchable must do that to a man. Get in some danger please Stephen, I beg you.

During prom, our protagonist then goes and asks his date (whom he's never taken out before) to marry him. This just about sums up how pathetic this movie is. Pure cuck cinema. Maybe that shit goes down well on the coming of age crowd but it don't do nothing for me. Finally, after that moment of stupidity, we jump to Stephen looking for film jobs fresh out of film school. I shit you not, he starts crying cause noone sends him any job offers. Here's the thing, you've got no reason to be getting emotional cause 5 minutes after film school you're not John fucking Ford. You've got no right. These California and New York guys get it on a plate. Come out of uni and instantly get a job. Got no sympathy for him. Most people got to wait years for that. How contrived. A few weeks after film school? That's rookie numbers, get a grip!

Eventually, he's offered a tour of a studio which culminates in a legendary visit of John Ford's office. Hilariously played by David Lynch who goes in to discussing how to shoot horizons. This might have been better had all the drama in the movie leading up to this felt even remotely real. To make matters worse, once he's done here the protagonist strolls out the office all confident, striding across the studio lot like this will soon be his castle. A completely arrogant walk with a face you'll want to punch. There's no way you can be this self-satisfied if you made a movie like The Fabelmans. Mostly, I feel bad for Spielberg's friends who have to pretend this is a good movie. As expected, Scorsese just focused on the John Ford scene when asked about it.

Mentioning Scorsese is interesting because both of these are around the same age and emerged together. Yet, when Scorsese faces death and grows nostalgic we get The Irishman. A return to the mob movie but with a sense of death like never before. The characters more immersed in guilt than previously and with an even wider political scope addressing the mafia's closed off relationship with the casinos in communist Cuba and political assassinations. When Spielberg faces death and grows nostalgic we get the fucking Fabelmans. I knew I picked wisely when I decided Martin Scorsese was the king of American cinema.

Bonus Points:

-The boy in the blue coat

-David Lynch cameo

Overall Score: 1/5 4

Slasher or Rough Cut?

As usual Mike Flanagan is wrong. That is my opening statement your honour. The frequent subpar Stephen King adapter has been running his mouth all over Twitter saying how Terrifier 2 is the start of a new subgenre he refers to as the 'MegaSlasher'. Bullshit. Can't be letting a guy like that fool you. The millennials Mick Garris is utterly clueless and if you want the proof watch the director's cut for Doctor Sleep. For this cut he envisions himself as making a horror western with a gargantuan 3 hour length. He splits sections off in to chapters to make you think he's in control when really he's firmly out of control.

All he does is copy the book more literally and as you well know this can cause many problems because fundamentally it's two separate mediums with alternate forms of storytelling. Going as literal as he does loses the ability to make visual connections linking particular themes and tonally it becomes sloppy. These miscalculated tonal shifts and lazy structural storytelling are the very reason Doctor Sleep is a mess. Probably even more so than the theatrical. Both are a bunch of scenes stupidly strung together with no clue as how to map it all. There's no flow because you have these beautiful moments of Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting mode battling with addiction and then you have these howlers with Rebecca Ferguson and her stupid hat that belong in some goofy kids TV show. Tonally there's no through line and it's very unsmooth. I'm not even going to go in to his other bland King adaptations cause that's a whole other story. If you do want to see what an epic horror western would look like I'd recommend Na Hong-Jin's The Wailing There's consistency through it that justifies the length. A 21st century Kwaidan. My point though is just don't listen to Mike Flanagan ever. He wouldn't know what an epic looks like and what's a rough cut in need of trimming.

This is exactly how Terrifier 2 has been advertised though with its huge 138 minute length. A far greater run time than your typical 80-90 minute slasher. Ever since it was announced how long the movie was going to be, all I could think was, what would an epic slasher look like? I mean it's a cool idea right. Noones saying it isn't.

So many questions here though as to how such a concept as the MegaSlasher would function. The entire basis of the slasher is limited character development with the focus on the kills. The idea being to keep dialogue to a minimal and to get back to the set pieces as quickly as possible. Story often secondary to the grotesque nature of the murders depicted. To the point you're working backwards filling in time with story and using it as merely an excuse to keep the blood flowing. This method has attracted huge criticism with many condemning the lack of character development and distasteful violence.

Defenders have respected them as DIY punk, anti-narrative, anti-bourgeois transgressive works of art. Feminists have always remained divided with some believing the camera is obsessed with their limbs both sexually and violently. Whereas, others have acknowledged it is normally women left standing after the massacre showcasing their strengths. Carol J. Clover's 'Final Girl' Theory is now completely engrained in the public consciousness and has gone way past acceptance in academic circles.

Personally, the slasher has become something of a religious experience to me akin to going to church. I admire the simplicity of the formula. All I want to know every week is what characters are we dealing with? Do they like to party? And how are they going to be killed off? Watching them decade to decade you get the sense of changing cultures in teenagers from fashion to music. That's the beauty of slashers and genre cinema in general. The form stays pretty much the same but the characters change. Eventually. And in good hands you can see the mocking of emerging trends through the use of black comedy.

What would be gained from an epic slasher? What would be lost? With genuine characters could we have a greater response to the murders and consequently the stakes be raised? Could you weave in more meaning and purpose to give them an added relevance so that they're not so formulaic and forgotten about so quickly? Or would we lose something with their punk status? Would the genre essentially retire itself, losing its appeal because it adheres to too much of a conventional and accepted style and bourgeois notions of good taste?

Well, I think that's enough laying pipe for now. Terrifier 2, how does it do? At first, I was actually quite convinced it had found a way to extend and enlarge the scope of a slasher and experiment with the familiar narrative. A fine example being the Nightmare on Elm Street direction it takes with the surreal dream sequences. Easily one of the best scenes is when our new favourite psychotic killer Art the Clown hands out candy to kids on an indoor playground and then blasts them all away with a Tommy Gun. Hard to complain at such a creative experience which offers slasher fans an even earlier than expected taste of the violence they demand.

You'll be thinking this is the way to go as you can delve in to the psychological and increase the set pieces with little consequence to the narrative. Increasing the death count whilst producing a visual form of character development. In effect, actually satisfying multiple audience members. Clumsily, Terrifier 2 abandons using the dreams and converts back in to just being an overly long slasher. So cast any desires for a Lynchian slasher out of your mind. We're simply not there yet. Maybe one day.

Back in 2016, we got the first Terrifier and for many their initial experience with Art the Clown. There was certainly a character there in having this mime artist who doesn't speak. Thus, allowing these well designed slapstick sequences that felt wholly original. Unexpectedly, this film was rejected by both critics and horror fans. Whilst I can understand the former disapproving, I cannot for the life of me understand why this didn't go down a treat with the horror crowd. I said to myself this was not a film messing about. It only concerned itself with pure thrills and delivering the nastiest of them. I also don't say this regularly but this is one of the only films I believe is so sick and twisted you could fool me in to believing this was a lost film from the grindhouse era. Although the aesthetic was pretty close to the classics, it's mainly in attitude I refer to, it wiped many other slashers out the water in sheer brutality. It was clear as day to see this director didn't care about his characters, they merely served as victims for Art to dispatch. Wearing such a distain on its sleeve like that really got my attention.

Brings me no joy to say this but with Terrifier 2 this director, Damien Leone, whom I admired so much the first time round has proven himself to be a man of compromise. What I don't understand is that everyone is praising this sequel for being this epic but not enough attention is being given to the motives for this change. Leone even admitted that the reason this was longer is because he wanted to address his critics who believed the first was so uncaring about the characters. Therefore, he went and wrote in bigger back stories.

Anyone else just think that's frightfully uncool? Bowing down to his critics? What a nerd. You wouldn't catch fellow shocker Nicolas Winding Refn doing that. Brian De Palma was routinely attacked for his treatment of female characters. Julie Salamon once accused him of being "a perverse misogynist". Now his response to this was just incredible, saying, "I'm always attacked for having an erotic, sexist approachchopping up women, putting women in peril. I'm making suspense movies! What else is going to happen to them!". There you have it. Chad Brian De Palma. Virgin Damien Leone.

To some extent, I could almost forgive it if this Leone was actually able to write. Becomes obvious that the reason this went over the typical ninety minute mark was because of all the back stories thrown in. All of which is inexcusably cliched and dull. There's this family drama with the trauma of a dead Dad. Nothing you haven't seen in the Halloween movies and still inside the tight 90 minute run time. What's hilarious is how much is stuffed in to the first act that serves no purposes later in the final act. Once, Leone can get back to crushing heads and stabbing people again, he feels in familiar territory, gets carried away and abandons anything that was set up previously. So what's the point of it other than to appease a few nerds with limited notions of what cinema is? If everyone listened to them fuckers cinema would never develop. Leone's head is clearly on the nasty sadism, that's what he wants to do and that's what I want him to do, so stop fucking around making a movie you don't want to. Fuck all that emotional baggage and get straight to the point. He hasn't got the tools for anything else so why bother? What, the critics don't like it? Fuck 'em

The great irony here is that Leone spends so much time trying to weave in a feminist narrative, which is so stuffy and actually becomes most effective when you see the female protagonist in her Greek God inspired Halloween costume. Now, I'm fully aware that this whole thing of putting women in outfits and having them look powerful is a really light and silly attempt at feminism. However, what I'm saying here is that the writing is so bad that it came across even less successfully than the extremely simple option of using a silly costume.

Not only can Leone not write but his actors can't act. Usually, these things wouldn't matter in a slasher because it distracts you with other approvable elements. Yet, with this added drama he's rather exposing himself further than necessary. At times, going against everything I've said, this can work in the films favour. Witnessing this overly bloated slasher has an intoxicating effect in the lack of rhythm and it emphasising its own shittier qualities. Draws them out further to become a rare clunky shlocky epic. When this does have its positives is in the hangout scenes such as having a party scene structurally in a place you wouldn't normally have it. Approved of them dancing to Boy Harsher, who appear to be rightly on their way to becoming a sound for modern horror films. In these moments, you feel a love for the craft and any lack of talent is perfectly acceptable because of that. You can tell though that they're not quite trying as hard on the drama scenes so it's hard to get as excited about these as an audience. So it's not like John Waters's Dreamland gang got together and made an epic I'm afraid. Those guys (who are just as terrible at acting) would have found a way to make all the suburban material just as enjoyable as the killings.

Extended dialogue scenes only result in pushing the chase scenes further back and so when they finally arrive your patience is starting to wear a little thin. Where I will forgive everything is in that it does provide a few more Art the Clown slapstick sequences. Got all the time in the world for these. There's one in a joke shop where he is asked to pay for an item and looks in his bin bag for some money. As he searches his bin bag he just keeps pulling out all these gnarly tools and placing them on the counter much to the cashier's confusion. Pure comedy gold.

Oh and there's one set piece in this that is so brilliant, I have to give this a decent score. The protagonists friend's death is extreme to say the least. You can just tell half the budget went on this one scene. If I recall correctly, he came up with this early on and needed some extra funds for it so turned to the public with Kickstarter. As soon as people got wind of what Leone had planned, let's just say the financial target was more than met. Surpassed it in about 3 hours. You get to see the friends skin ripped off her body. Then, Art leaves the room making you think this torture was over but he soon walks back in with a bunch of acid and pours it over her wounds. God, it's overkill. Even for what I can handle. This is the part that has caused the most controversy with walkouts and ambulance calls.

Usually, when I hear of walkouts I assume these days it's overreacting but this is certainly one of the cruellest most sadistic things I've seen in a recent movie going back to the torture porn era. Yet, somehow it comes across even more excessive. Got to admire the audacity. As mad as I am that this isn't the future of the slasher and that the added characterisation is only a means to appease critics, the fact this scene has provoked as much as it has deserves total appreciation. People have been rattled. Always funny to see. WolfCop's cock transformation scene, which caused its fair share of walkouts was a classic but this definitely tops it. I can't even tell you if it's funny. You don't know what to feel watching it. Anyone interested in the art of the visual appearance of splatter will be in awe.

It's hard to accuse Leone of being a wimp when he puts in a scene like that. I'd like to see anyone in the gross out movement top that. Blood filling the walls and just when you think it's gone too far, it goes further. You laugh. You stop laughing. You laugh again. You don't know whether to laugh and all you can say is "Fucking hell". That's outrageous. That's cinema.

He came. He saw. He conquered. I'd happily welcome another chapter in the life of Art the Clown. I love him. Always got time for his antics. My criticism isn't for him. He's my boy. He could never let me down. My criticism is for the package. The length is being praised when too often it robs us of what we actually want. What this movie got wrong is too many scenes with characters we didn't care about or ask for. I can forgive a random assortment of Art slapstick with no consideration for structure but the drama needs to go. Thankfully, Damien has decided not to go with another 2 and a half hour cut. It was the wrong choice and really should have done with a trim before being released to audiences. Oi Damo, in the words of Mufasa, "Remember who you are". You're not Sergio Leone. You're Damien Leone. And be proud of it brother!

Bonus Points:

-The Nightmare on Elm Street dream sequence where our man comes out shooting with the Tommy Gun

-The kids getting razor blades in their breakfast

-Boy Harsher playing at the party

-Art pulling a few jokes of his own on a joke shop owner

-The friends death which is an absolute masterpiece in the fields of gross out and splatterpunk

-Causing mass walk outs and ambulances to be called in

Overall Score: 3.5/5

Favourite First Time Watches of '22

14. A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956)

Ever since 2019, I have been wanting to seek out this title when Peter Bradshaw compared The Irishman's treatment of the assassination of Jimmy Hoffa as Bressonian in construction. Having now witnessed Bresson's work in the flesh, I can understand the comparison in the slow and factual delivery but believe Scorsese was perhaps just as influenced if not more so by another film on this list, Mafioso. Bresson's influence can be more seen in Scorsese's friend Paul Schrader's works. Take nothing away from A Man Escaped though, this is a masterpiece that could be argued creates a new form of cinema. Each part of the escape is detailed so technically and specifically taking precedence over character development. Look at the title, it's all there to begin with. Up there with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford for most revealing titles. There is something to be said though about the psychedelic effect of the way Bresson reveals information to his audience. You'll hear it in voice over narration, you'll then be told it in visual narration both through reported details in diaries and action. Put together, these have a strange impact as you're told the information in multiple forms and then with a carefully placed edit can come to question the reliability of this and there's an added suspense or uncertainty. According to Schrader, this is the exact moment Bresson's film achieve a state of transcendence. Notably, this is through the style rather than in substance. My admiration of this movie lies in it being a study of perspective. We never see outside the protagonists field of vision. We know nothing he doesn't. So don't expect any wide shots of the prison. Anything new to him as he escapes is new to us. No score either, it uses sound design as soundtrack to build suspense. A move, which definitely inspired Escape from Alcatraz . At first, you could accuse it of being too technical as a consequence of being meticulous but somehow in its intensity and its lack of cuts to different character perspectives becomes terrifyingly personal and indistinguishably human. In spite of the title, will French Ian Curtis really escape the prison? Why don't you go fucking find out for yourself.

13. Mafioso (Alberto Lattuada, 1962)

This film belongs to an area of cinema I have a lot of time for, the existential crime film. Surely, David Chase has seen this one? The Sopranos creator must have in order to carve those dreamy set pieces his characters lose themselves in. Unfortunately, this still remains widely unseen. A huge influence on Italian American directors and writers who acknowledge it but for some reason largely ignored by wider critics. About time we all went back to the source. Although, this came out back in the '60s, it remains shockingly fresh and hard to beat. Upon release, it received mixed reviews with many crediting the tonal shifts being a source of confusion. Ultimately, it is these tonal shifts that are the films greatest weapon. For 105 minutes, Lattuada is straight up fucking with you. What begins in your mind as, "Hahaha Italians" soon transforms in to "Jesus Christ Italians". During the initial scenes, you'll be shaking your head laughing half thinking Lattuada is having me on. A factory worker living in Milan returns to his native Sicily to see the family and the interactions are so exaggerated they adhere to just about every Italian stereotype you've ever held. They are presented as unfathomably overemotional and excitable with the hugging and kissing. Is this overacting for the camera? No, they're simply Italian. All this is part of Lattuada's joke, which becomes sicker by the minute. After all the nostalgic revisiting of his past, our protagonist soon has a run in with the local mafia. After another case of hugging and kissing, these mafia men then remind him he owes them a deed. Naturally, he is obligated to carry out a hit for them in America. Now, this is where the influence on Scorsese and Chase can be visible. Our central character is thrown about with no individual control by outside forces country to country to complete this mission he doesn't want to. One minute he's shoved in a box, then when the darkness subsides, he is in another place in another time against his will causing this to become existential. The murder is an act he must carry out with no understanding of its meaning and in the name of a powerful force he has no control over. These scenes are so surreal, they could well be one of Tony Soprano's troubling dreams. Scorsese does something similar in The Irishman by manipulating the time and space. Mafioso's third act is a rare cinematic thrill you cannot pass on.

12. Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2010)

If like myself, you are hooked on good old American action, a project like Carlos is one to be welcomed with open arms. Too often action afficionados, whilst admiring set pieces, have to accept xenophobic and imperialist attitudes as a norm. Only way round them is to laugh it off as part of the silly package and view them as exposing the true nature of the American government. Ironic worship is key to handling them. Well, Assayas is here to say we don't need to have such right wing heroes. Finally, we can forget the John Wayne's and have a true left wing hero in Carlos the Jackal. Maybe you liked Che and Mesrine? Well, in frontman Edgar Ramirez the revolution has real sex appeal. Honestly, it has never looked so sexy. Witness as he hangs dong in one scene and then blows up a building in the next. All while New Order's Dreams Never End is pumping out in the background connecting the two scenes. Assayas fits comfortably in this modern serialised storytelling which nods to Feuillade's Les Vampires and Fantomas. Maybe even some of Fritz Lang's Spies in there. These all go right back to the 1920s but Assayas uses them to subvert the now popular Miniseries format and adds in some real style through all the post-punk songs. Expect Wire, The Feelies and The Lightning Seeds to score our Venezuelan revolutionary as he bounces round in the struggle for liberation. Never has a 300 minute plus film gone by so quickly. Believe there's 3 different versions of Carlos, a 165 minute film, a three part 319 minuter and an even longer 338 extended version. Not too sure which I did (watched it on Criterion Channel) but it definitely was not the 165 minutes. Over the stretched running time, you get to see this communists best work such as The OPEC siege in '75 and his later attempts to build an international terrorist organisation. Much respect. Much love. He's a version of James Bond we've never before. Assayas delivers b movie thrills but also manages to combine the espionage with global capitalism. Does it get any better than that? Also can we show some more love to The Wasp Network? Given the changing formats that have transpired in the streaming age, Assayas's knowledge of serials and how to modernise them makes the future of cinema very much in his hands.

11. The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman, 1960)

Nothing reveals a cinephiles sensibilities quite like when The Virgin Spring is brought in to conversation. The tiring debate over whether Wes Craven's quasi remake

The Last House on the Left is art wages on. However, the reason we may never see a ceasefire here is because it ties in to an even wider and near unanswerable question of what art is. These two films are often used a short hand means of solving the argument. Put simply, The Virgin Spring is art and The Last House on the Left is not. To this day, people are still spinning this shit, it's incredible. Have you considered they are both art? Different types perhaps with one being more high art oriented and the other low art inclined. But both in their own ways, art. The story is nearabout the same with a bunch of bandits raping and killing a lone woman out running errands. The bandits then make the mistake of stopping off at the daughters house. Upon realisation of housing murderers, the parents contemplate revenge. Virgin Spring views such acts in response to religion. Bergman Challenges 60s taboos by weighing up the potential eternal damnation as a consequence of abandonment from God's code with the personal need for vengeance. Craven perfectly updates the formula to tie in to the violent nature of Vietnam depicted on television and a commentary on the nasty exploitation films that followed on from Blood Feast. His film operates so close to the line of acceptability that it causes people to wonder whether it critiques, exposes or flat out endorses violence. Craven's supporters will often point out the themes in both films are exactly the same and they will address the stupidity of people's beliefs in that just because Ingmar Bergman does something it's automatically art. Understand, none of this is new discourse and the annoying part is that this endless sparring stops us from realising that both films are art and although very similar do have differences due to the times they were released. In particular, I had no idea that Virgin Spring is Rashomon inspired with the way the rape is presented and the manner in which the father has to trust the information given to him. Maybe it's time we packed in this silly dispute over which is art and focused on what each reveals about their time periods and stylistic choices.

10. Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)

Everyone knows the story, in 1959, the French took 3 films to Cannes that forever changed the course of cinema. Such a reflexive post-modern style becomes known as the French New Wave. Directors like Godard, Truffaut and Varda dominate the '60s. After spending half the decade losing the battle to European arthouse cinema, the now old fashioned Hollywood, facing its own extinction, decides to fight back and employ some of these new tricks. This kickstarts the greatest of all cinematic movements: New Hollywood. Boorman's Point Blank is credited as the brave film to first incorporate the new techniques pioneered by the French. The result is another existential crime flick, which would catch Scorsese's attention and pay homage to in Mean Streets. The French would parody American noirs and with this in mind, Lee Marvin came up with the idea of adapting Richard Stark's Hard Boiled fiction Parker series. Except, this goes well beyond adaption of pulpy detective and into artful subversion. It keeps the books non-linear structure but expands on it to create a stream of consciousness narrative. Boorman would prove to be a master of trippy on Excalibur and The Exorcist 2 (thoroughly underrated) but Point Blank is a league of its own employing a Gaspar Noe like death dream structure. Re-examines the very nature of a crime film and achieves a direction which comes off as a combination of Hitchcock's Vertigo and Mann's Thief. In a sense, that also makes it very Taxi Driver too as it borders in to fantasy. Weirdly, Tarantino opposes the film and believes that after the glorious opening 10 minutes descends in to a generic TV Cop show. He could not be more wrong. He mistakes this with the Mel Gibson adaptation Payback, which Boorman described as so bad it could be the script he threw out a window making this one. Instead, Tarantino champions the 70s crime film The Outfit as being better as it comes closer to what Stark was intending. As much as I enjoy both Payback and The Outfit, they don't transcend the source material like Point Blank does. You'd think of all people, a post-modern director like Tarantino would understand what Point Blank was doing, right?

9. Coming Home (Hal Ashby, 1978)

Never in a million years did I ever think I would encounter again in my life a set piece as good as the ones in Goodfellas and Boogie Nights. They're the top tier. The measure. Over the years, just about everyone has had a go at intense montages to rock and pop soundtracks. As has been revealed, merely sticking a banging track over these montages doesn't elevate it into excellence. No, it takes something more in the assembly of the sequence and that's what separates the men from the boys. We can add Hal Ashby to the list of masters of intercutting action. Towards the middle, he teases us with a skilled sequence soundtracked with The Rolling Stones Sympathy for The Devil. However, this is nothing in comparison with the climactic set piece in which there is a race against time. War veteran Bruce Dern returns from battle an angry alcoholic and after hearing the news of his wife's infidelities, goes after his rifle ready to go catch him a couple of bodies. His hit list? Jon Voight and Jane Fonda (the best actress of all time bar none, fuck your Meryl Streeps). Right remember in Casino when DeNiro hears his wife's tied his kid to the bed? Yeah, so he goes home, unties the kid, goes to Def Con 1 and calls Mr Potato Head to bring over the shotgun ready for war. Throughout all of this, Devo's Satisfaction is booming. Scorsese uses Mark Motherbsbaugh's excruciating "b-b-b-b-baby" bit to put the tension through the roof. Ashby possibly inspired this move with his use of The Chambers Brothers's Time Has Come Today. About 3 minutes in to the song breaks itself down to its most minimal elements then slowly builds back up again at which point the singer screams, "Oooooooooooooooooh!". All this is timed perfectly with the action to create something so exhilarating and to a standard I thought I'd never see again. Of course, I couldn't help go back and watch all Ashby's other incredible movies. He's no stranger to critical acclaim but his catalogue could do with some more attention. So if you like this or Harold and Maude or The Last Detail or Shampoo, tell a friend. Spread the word.

8. Crazy Thunder Road (Gakuryu Ishii, 1980)

I have said all I wish to say about this punk masterpiece in the meantime back in Issue #6. Not enough time has passed to add anything more to the table.

7. Shin Godzilla (Hideaki Anno, 2016)

Oh, this is without a doubt, the most Jacob Kelly movie I've seen all year. So much so, I watched it twice and will continue to do so again and again. There's just no stopping me. When this released, back in 2016, a respectable acquaintance known as The Goshima invited me round to get on the edibles and watch this. Since, I hadn't followed the series too closely, I felt the need to decline such an invitation. Turns out this is a reboot as well, it's fifth one to be precise. So I could have easily seen it without even the slightest confusion. Never have I regretted anything more. If you only ever seen the original/Roland Emmerich's/Gareth Edwards's versions or even if you've never seen a Godzilla movie, Shin Godzilla is the best place to start. This fucking kaiju's won Guinness world records for his service and length of time in the field. This is his 31st outing making him the longest running franchise. I've seen probably about half of his adventures and I have to say this is the first to really rival the original. The Master of disaster Emmerich's American remake failed to capture the spirit of the series and was never really seen as a threat with critics calling it GINO (Godzilla In Name Only). On the other hand, Edwards's version took the creature in to the Kubrickian realm earning great appreciation. Toho, the studio who started it all, had to return and take their creature back from the dirty yanks(who caused him to exist in the first place with their dirty tricks in Hiroshima) and so hired Neon Genesis Evangelion's creator Hideaki Anno. This led to the quite frankly flawless Shin Godzilla. Ok, so what makes this the ultimate Godzilla ideal for any newbies? A mix of both practical and digital effects. There's this great joke in that the first appearance of Godzilla he looks completely pathetic and outdated. Over the course of the movie, he keeps evolving into stronger forms allowing them to reference the history of the series, nostalgically recreating designs appropriate to each era until finally we can see the latest technology in his full form (which is agreed to be the scariest Godzilla has ever looked). Musically, it uses both old and new too. We have Akira Ifukube's original theme, the banger sampled by Pharoah Monch on Simon Says and then this new updated rock and electronic score from Shiro Sagisu. Usually with Godzilla, far too much time is spent on the scenes involving the monsters attacks and not enough on the humans planning to stop him (which can be equally funny). Shin Godzilla is the best written since the original. If Edwards's take borrowed from 2001, Anno's looks to Dr Strangelove turning this in to a political satire as much as it is a Kaiju. More recent disasters such Fukushima and Tohoku are drawn upon for inspiration and the useless manner in which these are dealt with by politicians is critiqued. It could well be the best attack on bureaucratic red tape ever undertaken in cinema. Anno is the only director who is as interested in the military meetings as he is the fighting. Can't say I've seen anything quite like his scenes where the politicians and generals meet up to discuss tactics. He has these left, right pans and constant moving camera. There's a flair and immediacy that should have been here all along. He doesn't switch off at all. You're never left chanting, as I often do a few beers in to these movies and dissatisfied by all the human scenes, "We want Godzilla! We want Godzilla". Those wanting the simple dumb shit, should stay tuned for when Godzilla's Lazer beam comes out. A monumental moment in cinema. Apparently, when this came out, the Japanese were raving about it and gave it 7 Japanese Academy Prize awards including best picture and director. Whereas, the western critics were less enthused. Honestly, if I'd have been at the western premiere and not heard critics on their feet cheering, it wouldn't have gone down like that, I'd have started screaming, "Boooooo, you fucking bores!" and beat the living shit out of every other critic in the room. Nothing but respect for the king of the monsters.

6. Until the End of the World (Wim Wenders, 1991)

He's the undisputed king of the road movie and this might just be his 2001. In 287 minutes Wenders takes you right around the world. Make sure you catch this version as the 158 minute cut is merely a theatrical contractual obligation. You will not get the same experience from it and Wenders describes it as a "reader's digest" at best. This is a hard film to write about because it's emotional scope is too great. Well, too great for this man at least. Resorting to pathetic personal emotional descriptions has never done anything for me and so I refuse to sink in to it. You want the experience, you're going to have to get it for yourself. The fact he puts in a shift like this and then dedicates it to his family is an absolute flex. Every adventure does need its soundtrack though and for this Wenders calls on all his post-punk pals who made their own music for the project. Talking Heads, Julee Cruise, Lou Reed, R.E.M, Elvis Costello, Patt Smith, U2, Peter Gabriel and Elvis Presley. There's a whole section in Australia so expect an appearance from David Gulpilil and a Nick Cave song. Even has the fucking Chubby Checker and as you bloody well know, I'm a Chubby Checker man. ROUND AND ROUND, UP AND DOWN WE GOOOOOOOO. Depeche Mode come out the strongest with Death's Door, which is my favourite scene. When it comes on after this 2 hour journey, you'll be cheering on the protagonist (William Hurt) and his partner (some extremely attractive French Kirsten Dunst) as they go to meet up with their parents. I said I'd stay away from the emotional side of this but this is a powerful moment. Yes, the cinematography is pretty and the music delicious but this isn't just a light trip around the world. Towards the end it begins to resemble a horror movie, observing the dangers of digital technology, which was starting to take off. In the film a device which can records dreams causes the characters to descend in to pure narcissism. They get lost in fantasy contrasting with the Malickian love of nature shown throughout the movie. Of course, I'd love for someone to take this concept and turn it in to an erotic thriller. I'm envisioning something like that sex scene in Demolition Man with characters getting lost in fucking in fantasy over reality. Oh did I mention, Sam Neil's in this and has a great scene where he kills it on the piano. From Sci-fi noir to travelogue to philosophical horror, this movie has it all.

5. The Vanishing (George Sluzier, 1988)

You know, this could well be the scariest movie ever. Stanley Kubrick certainly thought so because after he first saw it he called up Mr Sluzier to inform him that he'd shat his pants. Sluzier's response was something like "but sir, you are the director of The Shining and my film is only rated 12". To which Kubrick said, "The Shining is kids stuff compared to this". He would then go on to discuss editing. As I didn't want to give anything away on this my initial review was simply, "Nicolas RoEGG". A play on the British director who developed his own particular style of flash forward editing, most notably in Don't Look Now. So, when you watch this keep an eye out for eggs. Not easter eggs. Literal eggs. Let's just say, there's a lot. Rife in symbolism! I watched this movie three times in 2022 cause I couldn't get it out of my head. First time I saw it, I couldn't sleep so had to go on a walk round the block for a good hour. So how could a movie deemed appropriate for 12 year olds be so terrifying? Although not particularly graphic in violence, it gets you into the headspace of a serial killer. Even better so than Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. In some ways, you'll almost be jealous that this killer is definitely unlocking more pathways mentally than you could ever dream of. As though he's on some Limitless type drug. What we have is a couple on holiday and the woman completely disappearing at a service station. The man doesn't forget the incident and becomes obsessed with the truth. Years later, the abductor makes contact and promises to tell him what really happened if he will get in his car. On the little boys road trip they have going, the psychopath reveals little incidents in his life where he came to realise his behaviour wasn't normal. The set pieces are so carefully chosen that you'll think surely only a mad person could have written them. Each time our psychopath steps outside of what is expected and in a sense arguably achieves true free will. That's what scares me about this film. It renders your own freedom as something of an illusion and your human behaviour predictable. Individuality something only a psychopath could succeed in. Whereas we would ask why would we do something, this guy asks why wouldn't we, going further than any of us. Takes you to the edge of faith and sanity. Villenueve stole so much from this for Prisoners, lifting direct shots and ideas. Sluzier even has a Hollywood remake of his own, which people say is an entirely different movie. You might think it's ridiculous calling this scary but by the time the credits roll. You'll know.

Something rare in cinema happens. Your beliefs will be challenged. Is there anything scarier than that?

4. The Train (John Frankenheimer, 1964)

It would be foolish to suggest that this isn't a critically acclaimed movie but somehow it deserves greater appreciation than it has. Frankenheimer's masterpiece deserves to be spoken about in the same breath as Seven Samurai, The Wild Bunch and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Frankenheimer has a great deal in common with Kurosawa to the point they feel cut from the same cloth with a similar ethos to filmmaking. Both fashion these epics which are a marriage of action and ideas. They keep their films moving but never run on empty. Look no further than Ronin, which weaved in samurai myths in to the American crime film. Comparing mercenary thieves to Ronin. Skilled veterans with questionable levels of honour roaming the country in search of temporary jobs to stay alive. Continents and time may separate them but fundamentally they are one and the same. That's your proof that Frankenheimer is a student of Kurosawa. These filmmakers are the kings of the genre: men on a mission. The Train is pure technical mastery too that echoes Fordian qualities with all the beautiful wide shots. Also, have the added benefit that it isn't cruel to the Native Americans. If you ask me, this wipes the floor with any of John Ford's contributions to cinema. On action alone, it trumps any of Stagecoach and Ford wishes he could have come anywhere near to having a message as powerful as The Train.

Frankenheimer's film may well go down as the greatest commentary ever on the significance of art. No time better to illustrate that than during war time. What we have is a bunch of Nazi's trying to move some stolen art across the country and American soldiers who have been sent to retrieve the cherished works. Those sent in to reclaim the goods begin to question the value of the mission when many of their lives are taken. Now that is action and ideas. The best kind of filmmaking there is and ever has been. Had Frankenheimer been given better projects like this, I truly believe he really could have emerged as America's greatest director.

3. Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)

Sadly, I left it far too long to finally get to watching Ugetsu. After a bad experience with Sansho the Bailiff , I'd been put off Mizoguchi, believing him to be overhyped rubbish and was not looking forward to going deeper in to his catalogue. Even with The 47 Ronin, he somehow managed to make that familiar story incredibly dull. Turns out avoiding his other offerings was a grave mistake. This marks a decade of real Japanese dominance and opened up the West to what the country had to offer cinematically. A highly reflexive film that critiques the countries uncomfortable relationship with militarism, which led to their involvement in World War II. Mizoguchi reaches inward to address his own participation through making the pro-war propaganda movie The 47 Ronin. Stylistically, it's a bizarre creation as it fuses elements of the Jidaigeki (their word for a period drama) with a ghost story (their common kind of horror film). You also have this strange mix of tragicomedy with a dude going through desperate lengths to be a samurai to the point of abandoning his own family alongside something as haunting as Kwaidan and Onibaba Yet to see Kuroneko but these all belong in the same ball park. Adding to the abandonment angle, Mizoguchi manages to craft a feminist narrative. Women in this story are left to fend for themselves and provide for the children. In the second half, we see the 'comfort women', a name given to those who turned to prostitution in the desperate times. In Mizoguchi's world, men are losers desperately seeking to be samurais and it’s the women who are the strongest.

2. The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (Masaki Kobayashi,

1961)

Kobayashi's Kwaidan has already been mentioned. Between 1961 and 1962, he was at the peak of his powers releasing this and Harakiri. The Human Condition trilogy is heralded as among the best cinema has to offer. Admittedly, I did find them occasionally bloated with their 3 hour plus lengths. More so than The Godfather or Lord of the Rings films. They don't bother me at all. I'd forgive the first two parts of the Human Condition trilogy because in the moments they do land, it is colossal in impact. In the first, our protagonist, Kaji, is a pacifist condemned to the role of maintaining order in a POW camp. It takes its time getting there but when he's putting his life on the line for the Chinese and recognising the cruelty being committed by his country, it is shocking stuff. Having infuriated his government, he is then forced to train with the troops and fight in the war in part II. If this part seems familiar, it is because Kubrick definitely stole aspects for Full Metal Jacket. Yep, there's even a Private Pyle. Part III was by far the superior because I was hooked for the full run time. Hooked on this concept of these guys risking their lives to get back to a home that by the second becomes less and less possible of even imagining. All of which the character accepts as some form of punishment for how his comfortable marriage in part I was based on the suffering of the Chinese. With all the women selling their bodies for food on the road, he does try to remain faithful, unlike the guy in Ugetsu. However, he continues to question the purpose and whether his wife could be one of these women. Everything is telling this man that there's no point continuing his journey and yet he does it anyway out of blind faith or refusal to give in to the greater fear that there is nothing left to go back to. Out of desire to return home, he commits acts he doesn't approve of, for what? This is the one where it hits the hardest of how much this guy has had a real transformation over the series from pacifist towards becoming this kind of Michael Corleone monster shaped by the horrors of war. Seeing him plod on in the rain knowing full well he's not going anywhere pleasant and still putting one foot in front of the other, not even believing in his mission any more but proceeding anyway cause what else is there? All comes full circle and this descends in to an unforgettable existential nightmare. Eventually, our protagonist like his mission, drifts in to the night, leaving only a shell behind to take his place amongst the trees and be the sole witness of his fate.

1. Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)

Here we have it, my favourite first watch of 2022. Potentially Tarkovsky's best and it could well crack my top 10 of all time. Technically this is a biopic or at least supposed to be. However, Tarkovsky often leaves the titular 15th century painter behind to present a more general view of the artist as a historic icon akin to Socrates or Aristotle. At times not only does he depart from the character but he also appears to deviate from the time period too providing a sort of meta commentary on himself as an artist working within a communist regime. Naturally, this led to heavy censorship from the Soviet Union. Christianity is also explored in tangent with national identity. So expect these long winded depressing passages, such as, "Through our sins, evil has assumed human form. Encroaching evil means encroaching humanity. God will forgive you. Don't forgive yourself. Live between divine forgiveness and your own torment". Yeah, that one knocked me for six. As well as Tarkovsky, the person who helped pen the script is the director of Tango and Cash. Batter out? Andrei Konchalovsky wrote two of the best arthouse movies (Rublev and Ivan's Childhood) and two of the best 80s action movies (Tango and Cash and Runaway Train). That automatically makes him my hero. In Rublev, we get this entire section where everything stops as the characters build a bell. Perhaps, I'm alone in this but I wholeheartedly support movies where everything comes to a standstill for a good half hour or hour of the run time so the characters can engage in a really masculine activity like building something. I'm a stickler for tight economy but there's no limits for sections dedicated to building activities. There are no limits for how long these can go on for in my book. This may well be the real reason I adore There Will Be Blood and Fitzcarraldo so much. Nothing like pausing the plot and watching some mad contraption come together. The bigger the better. That would be my message to filmmakers today. Build something fucking abnormally humongous midway through the movie. Why? Why not.

One Last Look at the Guilty Pleasures

16. Morbius (Daniel Espinosa)

Look, I know none of the films on this list are going to make any best of lists this year but they still made this boring life fun and that deserves some credit, right? An obvious one to start with but deep down we all loved it. Cannot recall a movie doing so badly that it crashes out of cinema early, only to get a re-release a few months later because of it gaining ironic following. On some level, I really respect that. The people know when it's morbin' time, it's morbin' time! No messing about on that shit. One glance at the directors track record and it's no wonder this turned out as bad as it did. He did the Alien rip off Life and one of my Dad's favourite movies, Safe House. The Denzel Washington banger with Ryan Reynold's before he got annoying and played the same character over and over. Morbius allows Jared Leto to do what he does best, being shite. He is dedicated to his craft though of being incredibly shite. His frenemy is played by Matt Smith, possibly my least favourite actor. We kick off with some really shaky flashbacks watching them grow up. Then in the middle there's the worst take on Dracula you ever seen. For the third act, these two friends now enemies clatter in to each other for a bit as they fly across the skies. It's as clueless as Man of Steel's finale battle, except they know now if they show too much out of character violence the nerds will kick off so they just give up. Morbius has one of the funniest endings of all time, they simply don't have one and give up. It was like the producers said "that's it, you're done, just throw in the towel, bring up the credits". Avant-garde cinema. 1/5.

15. Black Adam (Jaume Collet-Serra)

Weirdly, as may be clear from these last two, I do have a soft spot for God awful superhero movies. Majority of them bore me to death. The funny bad ones are at least tolerable. Been saying for years these all these Marvel/DC movies do is take the shell of characters, eject all the personality and slip them into the same narrative each time. Plus, the format, tone and style of storytelling has always been wrong. As a form, the first scene of X-Men 2 and the entirety of Sin City mastered what these could and should look like. They are art in using the medium of film to capture the panels from the comics. Could even top it with the fluidity of the motion achieving something the comic cannot. Now, I would not expect Hollywood to craft movies that actually push mediums but they could at least emulate the campy tone? We're talking '66 Batman and the Joel Schumacher ones. Black Adam is not intentionally camp but it feels so outdated and behind that it almost falls in to such categorisation. You know when you're putting in the world's safest actor in to the world's safest genre it's probably over. James Bond in there too just to keep the sinking ship afloat. Shots and plot stolen directly from early MCU film Iron Man. Typically uninspired soundtrack with the Ennio Morricone moment being the icing on the cake. That's why I have some time for Black Adam. There's the sense that this rubbish can't be far from over so we may as well celebrate its demise. The Rock wasn't wrong when he repeatedly said this would usher in a new era of the DCEU. Only because it's fucking shit and they're gonna have to consider a completely new direction. Hence, the arrival of trash legend James Gunn who will either destroy it from the seams or improve it. Eithers fine. As for Jaume Collet-Sera, what are you doing, son? From reliable journeyman Jaume making Liam Neeson vehicles to studio stolen Jaume. Is he like James Gunn, another of our boys undercover in the system ripping this shit to shreds? Only time will tell. These MCU/DCEU movies been shite since day one, they somehow just keep getting shitter. Get the beers in, sit back and just enjoy the superhero movies unfathomable decline. Victory will soon be ours. 2.5/5

14. Moonfall (Roland Emmerich)

Houston, we have MANY problems. Emmerich has always proudly gone by the title of 'the master of disaster', referring to his fascination with end of the world narratives. He's actually a huge environmentalist, which explains the reason for his films depicting catastrophic world disasters. It does not explain why his filmmaking abilities are also catastrophic and disastrous. Somehow, he always manages to make the themes of collapse slip in the style too. We're talking on such a level that we can consider him an auteur. An obnoxious and cinematically grotesque one like Michael Bay but an auteur nonetheless. He makes the kind of lousy films you'd have seen on TV back in the day when visiting a relative and having limited options viewing wise. After flicking through the channels, giving up and watching Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World, Armageddon or The Day After Tomorrow. Kids nowawdays used to On Demand may not understand this. It's a dying game. Mr Emmerich, like it or not, is ITV2Core. So much so that when I came back for my second viewing on TV, in my head I said to myself "and next on ITV2 we're on the brink of extinction and the moon is not behaving like it should in Roland Emmerich's Moonfall". Yeah my man's keeping the flame alive with a movie so stupid and quintessentially him that it falls into self-parody making it interesting. Join the gang of Patrick Wilson, Halle Berry and John Bradley as they go on a space adventure only David Icke could dream up. Not too sure who this John Bradley geezer is, think he was in Game of Thrones but to me he looks the spitting image of a maniac I know by the name of Garlic Mac. Just a warning, you will see things you've never seen in this movie. Best scene is the trio in a rocket taking off urgently as a 'gravity wave' heads for them. Imagine like the trash version of Interstellar's erotic docking sequence. Visuals like Inception but carved by a lunatic. Trust me, you'll get a headache trying to keep your bearings on the science of this one. Nothing can prepare you for the stupidity that awaits you in Moonfall. Probably wouldn't recommend it to scientists, they may lose their minds. The Emmerich charm marches on! 2.5/5

13. Firestarter (Keith Thomas)

Loathed by just about everyone but Mr J M Kelly. Sadly, neither the original wasn't all that popular either with some believing perhaps Stephen King's source material has some inherent flaws. Always approved of Firestarter's concept. Anyone that can just conjure fire like that has my attention. Pure Scanners/Spontaneous Combustion style thrills. Plus you had the highly underrated David Keith (check out White of the Eye, an Americana Giallo!) and the ever adorable young Drew Barrymore. Many cited the original as being poorly paced. Yeah but it had Tangerine Dream on the score so I was straight vibing! Did here too with John Carpenter's score. My problem with a lot of movies today is multiple lines for poor jokes and overly long narratives because there has to be some quest or pseudo complex multiverse. Firestarter then is somewhat refreshing in just being a tight 90 minute genre picture that behaves like it should. Sorry, that's just where we're at now. Need to praise the basics because so many don't get those parts right. On a purely emotional level this works. They sacrifice the originals mystery and brutality for exposition but the family drama still comes across. You get to finally witness Zac Efron's transformation into a papi too. The dudes become a dilf. Moreover, how can we hate a movie where the bad guy is introduced to Nitzer Ebb's Control I'm Here. That's an entrance. I've seen many talk about 'the closing credits of the year' with White Noise and Pearl. Both whack. Firestarter had the best closing credits of the year. Sorry nerds, that Johnny Carpenter score and 80s horror font gets me excited. 3/5

12. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (David Blue Garcia)

Hearing that chainsaw ROAR has lost none of its thrill. Sends me into a fucking frenzy. Garcia's film did not exactly get the warm reception of David Gordon Green's first Halloween movie but it's far from a bad movie. Fitting in with the current requel trend, it brings back final girl Sally from the OG and she's mad as hell. This girl on some Jamie Lee Curtis PTSD shit. Might not be the most original thing in the world but facing her off with Leatherface is pure box office. This is about the dumbest aged final girl though. She's out here wanting apologies from the big man or some form of acceptance of his crimes. Mr Leatherface just isn't going to go down like that. Kept screaming at my TV "Bird he doesn't fucking care! He doesn't give a shit! Shoot him! Shoot him you stupid fuck!". No match for the infamous mothers boy as it turns out. Respect to this for finally making the kids unlikeable shits again. They're on a mission of gentrification. Evicting old people from their homes wherever they go. I have never been more pro-Leatherface. Get 'em son! The bus scene already feels legendary. A slaughter as manic as the one from The Burning. Leatherface sticks it to cancel culture and the millennials. One guy genuinely gets his phone out and says, "try anything, you're cancelled bro". Leatherface 1-0 cancel culture. Of course, it's stupid and not done in a smart way but there's an appeal in the silliness of it. Considering how most new horror movies tend to want you to support so called woke characters, this Texas Chainsaw reboot was mocking them and I can get behind that. Stay for the credits when Leatherface comes home as though he's returning from a hard day's work. All I could think was Depeche Mode's Death's Door. Mother are you waiting? Father are you pacing? I'm coming home! Leatherface is coming home! 3/5

11. Orphan: First Kill (William Brent Bell)

The ultimate 'it' girl is back. No-one knows of her chequered past. She rocks up when she feels like it. Stopping just short of being the Malignant of the year. A surprise mainstream horror you come out thinking, wait that wasn't all that bad. The girl with daddy issues is still making us uncomfortable. Reminding us why she's a maniac on the floor. Could well be that she's dancing like never before. Hard to hate this when the plot is pretending Julia Stiles is your mummy for 99 minutes. Loved watching the 10 Things I Hate About You stars progression in to an absolute milf. As a sequel, where you know the twist from the first, this actually plays out well. Uses the now familiar situation to become a satire on the rich and wealthy. Infiltrating all their bourgeois activities such as fencing and upper class parties. Essentially becomes like a modern update of those 70s home invasion movies. The kind Umberto Lenzi used to make like Paranoia and Oasis of Fear. Instead of the usual watering down process of the classics which happens with too many Blumhouse and studio packaged horror these days, this expanded on them in a modern manner. The Psycho reference in the final shot is great. 3/5

10. Day Shift (J. J Perry)

Appearances may be deceiving but this is not quite the rushed and generic Netflix rubbish you're expecting. Watching it build its own world before your very eyes is something of a thrill. To the point the background stories are a lot more interesting than the main one and you'd happily watch a few sequels. We're playing in territory somewhere between Carpenter's Vampires and Sonnenfeld's Men in Black Mr Perry channels some Stephen Sommers if you're in to that sort of trash. Jamie Foxx and Snoop Dogg as a buddy cop duo gives a blaxploitiation throwback to the proceedings. The Dogg is definitely the stand out here. He's genuinely called Big John Elliot. Worth watching just to see the respect he has in this world of vampire killers. Everyone knows his name. Every receptionist at the office wants to fuck him. Soundtrack wise this is very 90s, so grab hold of your seat and be prepared to hear some Body Count. On top of everything mentioned, Scott Adkins has a role and Chad Stahelski works with him on the fight scenes putting this firmly in John Wick land. Conventionally speaking not a great movie but it knows how to have a good time. 3/5

9. The Lair (Neil Marshall)

"The entire Russian invasion of Afghanistan was a smokescreen??", utters a character in Neil Marshall's latest piece of wacky silliness. The Lair aspires to be Alien and The Thing. Unfortunately, turns out more like The Hills Have Eyes 2 . No, not even Dog Soldiers. The Hills Have Eyes 2 from 2007. Marshall and his wife are clearly trying to be this Mila Jovovich and Paul W S Anderson power couple but this is honestly so terrible it makes Resident Evil look like The Matrix. No doubt you could give me a million reasons why this is appalling but I can't see sense. I enjoyed it and that's that. Reminded me of the low quality Italian rip off exploitation affairs back in the '70s and '80s. Somehow it doesn't even manage to meet their standards but it's made with undeniable love. Adored everything this wanted to be and found it funny everything it wasn't. Goddammit, why I got to be such a Neil Marshall Apologist? Really gets me in to trouble. Stupidly, went and liked his Hellboy remake too back in 2019 for which I should probably still seek help for. I didn't choose the NMA life, the NMA life chose me. 3/5

8. Clerks 3 (Kevin Smith)

Kevin Smith's earned a lot of good will credit with me over the years so I'll watch anything he chooses to put out. Therefore, I'm probably not the best person to ask here but generally I thought Clerks 3 was pretty sweet! My fellow Askewniverse fans need not worry it's no Yoga Hosers. If Cop Out and Yoga are the bottom tier, this is probably on the same level as Jay and Silent Bob Reboot and Jersey Girl. But I think Tusk is a great midnight movie so maybe you shouldn't listen to me. Our trilogy closer doesn't quite match that raw guerrilla like blast of the original. A Miramax gem (the company owned by that bastard who is still holding Dogma hostage!) with its dialogue oriented style gets compared to Tarantino but I've always thought is very Linklater in many ways. You know like Slacker if you remember that. The original remains a contender for best low budget indie of the '90s. Smith would master the comic book world further with Mallrats. Although not the best film in his catalogue, could well be the best Kevin Smith movie. He was putting in Stan Lee cameos before the MCU. Clerks 2 holds a special place in my heart, mainly for the rooftop musical dance sequence to Jackson 5's ABC. Oh and when Randal and Dante are going full midlife crisis rant in the cells and decide to buy the shop gets to me. Clerks 3 doesn't reach the heights of the second film but it has its moments. Instead of discussing Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, the conversation has shifted to The Departed. Not too sure why Scorsese's on the menu but I'll take it. Some will take issue with Smith writing in his heart attack and going unbearably meta but it's all worth it for the funeral scene. Almost brought tears out of this man when the iconic line came out. Stay alive and keep making movies Mr Smith! 3/5

7. The Munsters (Rob Zombie)

Rob Zombie's triumph in filmmaking was discussed in great length back in issue #7. So if you haven't read it, head on back for a catch up on why this trashy kids film went down a treat with myself. 3.5/5

6. Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (John Rice, Albert Calleros)

Mike Judge's devious duo are back for more mischief. Sorry, if you don't like Beavis and Butt-Head get the fuck out of town. There's no hope for you. Literally all those boys do is sit on sofas, headbang and cause trouble. Legends of the game. In fact, it was their antics that got me in to metal. Those two young boys showed me the funny side. They're a bloody pair those two. A creation so dumb and dangerous, they could have only come from the '90s and MTV culture. A parents greatest fear, a generation of brain rotted kids spawning from too much time spent watching Jackass. The setup was always simple and this film is no different offering nothing more than a one joke movie. But a funny joke at that! The dastardly delinquents get launched in to space but before that they're scheduled for some rocket training, which means endless cock jokes. Think juvenile trash version of Apollo 10 ½. The boys haven't lost their charm, especially when they're getting in car chases to Black Sabbath's Children of the Grave. 3.5/5

5. Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (Nathaniel Vilanueva, Saul Ruiz, Charles Murray)

Splits off in to two separate stories. One focusing on Count Dooku and the other Ahsoka. Always believed we needed more Dooku. In Attack of the Clones, before the hilariously silly bike came in, they were doing some interesting things with the character. Finally, suggesting the jedi weren't all that and making you understand why someone would want to form a separatist group. Ends up underwritten in that movie with his motives becoming unclear. Tales of the Jedi doesn't do too much to rectify the mistakes but there are a few scenes of him diving deep in to jedi history that are along the right lines. Seeing him training Qui Gon Jin was a pleasure. Maybe they need to bring back Rian Johnson. He seemed like the only guy wanting to expose the Jedis flaws further. I'm not one of these weirdos who thinks the empire are the good guys or anything like that (they're literally modelled after nazis!) but I do think I'd be forming a side group. At the end of the day, the Republic is corrupt and the jedi are like their police picking and choosing their battles. They'd piss me off too much. In this world, I'd probably be one of your Andor or Han Solo types. Lose me faith and go on a few solo missions now and then but ultimately tied to the Rebel alliance. Right, who's this Yoda imposter? Got well happy when Dooku vollied that little Yaddle fuck about the gaff. Turns out she's voiced by the Queen of Star Wars, Bryce Dallas Howard. Keep Star Wars in the Howard family. Funny thing about Yaddle is she speaks normally, exposing Yoda for the fucking freak that he is. Wasn't too in to the second part of this with Ahsoka. She remains a fan favourite. There is an argument that I need to catch up on the animated Clone Wars series but I've never really approved of this Ahsoka. Not only does she get in the way of my Obi Wan/Anakin buddy cop dynamic but I just can't comprehend it. Which dumb fuck would give Anakin a padawan? I hear it's Yoda of course. That small green bastard thought it would calm him down. Oh yeah that worked perfectly. 3.5/5

4. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Deborah Chow)

Whoever edited the prequel trilogy recap deserves an academy award. They turned dog shit in to The Godfather trilogy. Take a bow son. There's always been greatness in that weaker trilogy and you found all the best bits! This opens eerily with a very different Obi Wan than we've seen before. Gone is that charm and we're left with this disgraced Ronin type hiding out. His Lightsaber is buried and his voice has gone. The empire has won this round. Darth Vader is hunting down the remaining jedis and comes up with a plan to draw out his main enemy. He kidnaps a princess (obviously doesn't know it's his daughter at this point) and Obi wan is tasked with finding her resulting in a very noir inspired second episode. Thought bringing in Leia was potentially lazy but what else would bring back the real Obi Wan from his slumber? All that can be said is they've played this hand now and shouldn't put her in any more storylines involving Obi Wan between now and Hope. Episode 2 features the most badass ending ever. Anakin in a tank, staring at the camera. I shit you not. Shivers down the spine. A taste of things to come. This series peaked on episode 3. The gay Anakin and Obi Wan relationship gets so unbearably horny that Anakin decides to get some fire based revenge and reclaim the higher ground. What is it with these two? This whole fire kink they've got going. Might have to get really in to fire play business. Pyrophilia. Anyone want to just fucking burn me to a crisp? Fair play to this for making Vader scary again. Gave me feelings I've not had in years. Main criticism here seems to be that the climax is ruined by the fact you know neither Obi Wan or Vader is dying. Is that all you watch battles for? Clearly you haven't seen Ridley Scott's The Duellists. I'm a tactician, I like learning about those involved through the way engage in physical confrontation. What I got from this was Vaders hard as fuck but he still can't match Obi Wan. So narratively speaking, there is a lot to fill between now and A New Hope. Stay for the Liam Qui Gon Jeans Neeson cameo. Still no Elan Sleazebaggano though. Don't think I didn't notice this. Disney's erasure of this character will not go unpunished. 3.5/5

3. Jurassic World: Dominion (Colin Trevorrow)

Send Jeff Goldblum the doctors, he's been carrying this series on his back. Truth be told, this is the best of the recent trilogy. Only got the worst reviews because people have given up by this point. First one was flavourless ending in a CGI overload and other than Chris Pratt's velociraptor control had little to offer. Always gets me going when he brings those hand gestures out. Proper Doctor Strange shit. Who is training these Hollywood actors to do these things? Do they come up with it themselves or do they have to bring a professional hand gesture guy in? Either way keep it going. Love it. Second film decided to turn it in to a haunted house thing. A bunch of big boy dinosaurs and you put them in a mansion? Talk about claustrophobic in a bad way. Maybe it could have worked but simple fact is it didn't. Now this absolute masterpiece ranks alongside Joe Johnston's contribution. Throughout, I was thinking have they really turned this in to a spy thriller? This was confirmed when they shot for shot remade the Jason Bourne free running window smashing jump in Malta with a dinosaur. That alone deserves full appreciation. They should have had Goldblum constantly saying, "Malcolm, Dr Ian Malcolm" multiple times just to re-enforce the James Bond angle this is clearly playing for. How can you hate a spy film with dinosaurs? Such an act is beyond me. I can understand the point that there isn't much in the way of threat to the characters but how many films are we in now for Jurassic Park? Wasn't really expecting the originals T. Rex set piece. Came here for the interaction between the cast both old (Wine maker Neill, Dr Sex Appeal Goldblum and Deadly Dern) with the newbies (Baby Howard and Raptor tamer Pratt) as is custom with these requels. A family comedy with silly nostalgia. The spectacle. John Williams theme song. Imagine getting upset over dinos? Can make these good or bad just show me dinos and my heart is content. They even brought back Dodgson! Him and Dennis are my boys. Wherever they go, mischief follows. Long live the mischief. No need to read in to those sloppy co-existence messages. It's about the mischief.

dinos march on. 3.5/5

2. Avatar 2 (James Cameron)

Responded in a very mixed manner to the Way of the Water. Overly long but does feature one of Cameron's greatest ever set pieces towards the end. Whenever the vibe was playing with toys, I was on board. This sort of Small Soldiers imperialist Commandos against the natives thing and I was having a good time. Basically, a dumb futuristic western. However, there was so much I did hate in this. Who was it who said, sometimes a bad review of a movie you actually quite like can tell you more than a good one? Christopher Machell wrote that, "as Cameron has become more fascinated with the technology of storytelling, it seems he’s become less so by the actual storytelling". Interestingly, it recalls David Foster Wallace's essay criticising Terminator 2 for being "FX Porn". That was 30 years ago. Made me think why is it that I think Terminator 2 is a classic action movie and Avatar 2 is a mess? All I can suggest is as Wallace says, Terminator 2 is FX Porn and as for Avatar 2, well that's everything in between. Terminator 2 is well orchestrated cum shots. Avatar 2 is the boring dialogue in between where you fall asleep or fast forward. Also, I'll defend Terminators 2s unexpectedly wholesome observations on fatherhood. We've come full circle on this technology business. Used to be good story and characters were guaranteed, the hard part was pushing the technology to capture the vision. Now we can do pretty much everything with technology, we need to go back to the basics of storytelling. You can hide this to a degree in jaw dropping action sequences but when you become as still as Avatar 2, you're in hot water. Simplified: scenes with the colonel, good. Scenes staring at the fish for 20 minutes, bad. 3.5/5

DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH (John Williams). The

1. Deep Water (Adrian Lyne)

We've been waiting 20 years for this, baby! Adrian Lyne stans been dying of patience whilst our leader lies dormant. How dare he go MIA. We need one every year from this man. Finally, he returns for his masterpiece. Or not. Lyne is an auteur though and there's no-one quite like him. Truly, he is a master of his craft. His craft? Making deliciously depraved trash involving married couples. He deals in boobs and betrayal. Imagine the Michael Bay of Rom Coms. Think that best seller you can't put down because you're low key so absorbed by it even though you're fully aware it's a shitshow. If the word hack could be a director it would Adrian Lyne. As the years go by, I've done nothing but be able to respect him. He so is what he is that it makes for thoroughly engaging nonsense. His work delves in to what I call Dinner Table Trash and there is no-one who does it quite like Mr Lyne. Oh without a doubt, this is his most preposterous in a long time. Rom Coms have a tendency to become formulaic and boring. Not in this man's hands. Lyne's films operate on a different level of dirty. The relationships way more interesting than your usual output. Here we have Ben Affleck in full cuck mode and Ana De Armas as the hot and horrible woman. Mrs Dangerous and Desirable. Both so well cast. Ben Affleck is sleazy alcoholic dodgy Dad, like if that could be a person, it's him. All he has to do is stand by a window coldly watching his wife and I get the joke. Mr Affleck perfectly embodies the look of despair, waking up each morning hungover, strung up over some unobtainable woman. He's proved this with those classic pictures of him stood smoking over the years. With each new one I hear the words of Fine Young Cannibals's Good Thing bouncing round in my head. "The Good thing in my life has gone away, I don't know why. Shes gone away, I don't know where. somewhere I can't follow her". Nothing made me happier than those photos of him cheekily driving out JLO's gaff one morning. Alexa play, "Return of the Mack" by the Mack Morrison. Get your sunnies on, shadow box the air and start Crip Walking. You could smell it on him. My man. Wish him all the best. He's earned it! Ana is constantly surprising us. More than just a hottie, the girl can act. The greatest actress of her generation? Too soon to say but the catalogue of proof is building. These two are firing back and forth with the mind games like it's Gone Girl part 2. Shocked me having the battlefield for the games being at all these social gatherings. War in the open. The more he kills, she's aroused. I like this logic. Ups the kill count and the horniness. Two for the price of one! Deep Water has successfully divided people in to three camps. The uninitiated Amazon Prime subscriber who saw two big stars, hit play and wondered "what the fuck is this shit?". The older figure who experienced the wave of '90s erotic thrillers, supported a few but understands why the genre died through oversaturation and wonders what the hell they were thinking bringing out another in 2022. Further proof that the genre is finished. Then, there's the horny fools like me who worship Adrian Lyne, know it's not his best work but are just so happy to see him doing another erotic thriller in 2022. Originally, this was actually a Disney product but they freaked out, didn't know what to do about the family unfriendly product and dumped it on Amazon's door step. Odd because Disney have had two uncharacteristically violent movies in Prey and Barbarian on their streaming platform this year. Evidently, America remains as ever more uncomfortable with sex than violence. Consequently, this never even got a cinema release but then again it does reek of straight to DVD. So get your beverage of choice poured, sit back on the sofa with your partner, get the Amazon Prime loaded up and hit play. I am a man who loves Adrian Lyne cinema seeking women who love Adrian Lyne cinema. 3.5/5

There can be Only One: Best of '22

Riding down the escalator in Waterstones, that's when I saw it. I was making my way out having done a bit of Christmas shopping for the family. There it was, a gorgeous red background with an unmistakable black face on the cover. A huge coffee table book on infamous Kaiju legend Godzilla. Instantly, I made way back up the escalator on the other side and rose into the heavens. Picking it up off the shelf, I noticed entire sections dedicated to each of the giant lizard fuckers outings. His rampages of Tokyo. Meetings with Mothra. Meetings with Ghidorah. Meetings with King Kong. They were all here. Each battle carefully documented. The beasts 68 years of destruction gathered as one text. Technical advancements film to film. More than enough pictures to keep any casual fan entertained but to a creature feature addict like myself, I held the holy grail in my hands. Safe to say, even on first sight, I wanted her.

Considering these films were usually viewed under heavy intoxication and major details forgotten about the next day, there was no denying, this would be a useful tool. But could I justify spending a walloping £30 on Japan's greatest villain? One must take in to account too that Christmas was round the corner and I was, after all, meant to be shopping for the family. I just had to have her. Slamming it shut, I made my way back over to the till for the second time that day. This Kaiju book was leaving with me.

Outside the rain was flooding down without mercy. The type of rain that endlessly poured down in Seven and Blade Runner. Time to bring this trip to town to an end. Save me, save me Merseyrail

Before my signal was to drop on the train, plans had been made for a Christmas reunion with the boys who'd made the journey back home to be with their respective families over the festive period. The White Lion would serve as the starting point. Neutral territory for some young drifters to gather and mark the occasion. Whatever pubs would follow on after that would come in good time. All that mattered was the meeting was set.

Now that I'm aboard the Merseyrail would be the perfect time to start with the Kelly top films of 2022 list. Just to be clear. This list is far from complete and I'm not totally satisfied with it as of yet. It will be subject to change and more solidified by the time the Oscars arrive in February. Such is the continual problem of living in the UK when we have to wait weeks longer the US big hitters. This is just a polite way of saying we have not yet had Paul Schrader's latest Master Gardener

For now though, as time is of the essence, we'll have to go with what we have. Starting with number 20, we have Brett Morgen's Moonage Daydream. The David Bowie documentary. A follow up to the directors previous hit Montage of Heck. For which the focus was Nirvana's deceased front man Kurt Cobain. This new one couldn't be any further away from the previous style used. The beauty of Heck was how close it got you to the artist in question. Showed you his early troubled life that made its way into the lyrics alongside later rare controversial footage of him on heroin looking after his kids. On the other hand, this Bowie one chooses to distance you further from its star to examine the entire cosmos. Undoubtedly, at first a frustrating experience but once you accept having a different subject should mean a different form of storytelling, it's somewhat justified.

You never really get close to the true David Bowie, which is kind of the point. Instead it assaults you with every persona as though listening to his entire discography for the first time again. I mean do we really want to see David Bowie? Was the world ever meant to see David Bowie? So in a sense, the film is really about the continuation of an artist over time rather than a specific human being. He's bigger than human, a star drifting across the galaxy. A black monolith sent to advance us as a species by unknown forces. When it has been described as psychedelic, it isn't in a traditional sense with kaleidoscopic colours and trippy editing. It's in the audience trying to find a man that never was, that they never fully understood. If Morgen maintains this path, he's well on his way to become the next Asif Kapadia.

Approximately 32 minutes later the train reaches its final stop in West Kirby. The doors pull back and my feet unwillingly step down on to platform. Rain yet to seize. If only I'd be so lucky. This would be the first of many trips up the hill from the station over the Christmas holidays getting completely soaked. Became something of a ritual. My anger at getting drenched each time only subsided by knowing I'd no doubt be doing the same thing, same time, the next evening. The elements could not win. After a brief rest at the family house, Balthazar Marie wants to meet at the old spot on the corner of Grammar School Lane at 7pm. Leaving it to 6.56 to set off, I don’t give myself enough time. I've got to make time. Putting my headphones in, I let Brad Fidel's Escape from the Hospital off The Terminator 2 soundtrack pollute my ears. I make it to the corner of Grammar School Lane by 6.54. There's just no stopping a T1000 in motion. They come and they come. Stop is not in their vocabulary. Relentless motherfuckers. Only now I'm early and have to play the waiting game. Where is that fucking Jerry Bruckheimer loving prick?

Looking in to the distance down Grammar School Lane using my T1000 vision, I spot the cunt. After a brief endeavour in to the formalities, we head down the hill in to West Kirby. When one has a meeting with The White Lion, they don't miss it. Never seen the gaff so packed. Only small that place, resembling a cosy log cabin and tonight it was cosier than ever. Thought I was going to pass out just ordering a Goddamn Guinness. A mixture of both juvenile delinquents and the older folk out collectively enjoying the thing known as the pint. Used to be an old man's pub but since it's change of hands, the younglings have been coming straight off the boat and on their way to forming a lifelong attraction to the pint.

At the bar we pick up colonel Quaritch. Turns out he's added a few fresh scars to the collection. Sitting down in the heated beer garden in the back, he walks us through his latest war wounds. What I thought was the tattoo of a tear on his right cheek was not the result of joining a prison gang but drunkenly slipping in to a sheet of glass. Every surface had met with his body. Knives, spears, chains. Nothing could kill him. That was the colonel, alright. Pandora hadn't done that to him, the bevvies had.

How it had transpired, I didn't know. But the three of us now lived in three separate cities, so that's three separate conversation and much for these old friends to catch up on. Whilst this is taking place would be time to return to the Kelly top 20 list and to discuss number 19: Crimes of the Future. I'm sure a great deal of which would be committed this evening. This is typical Cronenberg. Colder than ever and could well be the most distanced he's been from his audience. It seems the motto has changed along the way. No longer is one to say "Long live the new flesh" Such a phrase has been replaced with "Surgery is the new sex". So go stand in the mirror and say it to yourself a few times. Rehearse your lines boyo cause if I catch you slipping you could be on the end of a perfectly placed Jean Claude Van Damme roundhouse kick to the temple.

For those yet to lay eyes on Cronenberg's recent repugnance, be warned it is impossible to consider it anywhere near entertaining and makes his other works look commercial in comparison. A very slow and unattractive film but one which's statements on the future of art are hard to ignore. Carries from where In My Skin left off with the body as the final site of artistic expression in the face of capitalism. Cronenberg goes on to suggest the body as the final spot for performance art. Regaining control of the self. Reshaping it to be our true selves but is it an act of desperation? Violent and inhuman or is it? Naturally, in this man's hands, destroying oneself to recreate becomes a sexual act. Once you play the game, you have to keep playing. Similar to tattooing in a way. This marking of the self is nothing new and has been practiced for centuries. Humans have always done this and will continue to do this. Why? Call me an absurdist but I believe that's for the inker to decide what meaning they bestow.

Rather timely, Cronenberg takes this in to environmental concerns and what started off as a spiritual sequel to Crash soon becomes his First Reformed . A mutation is taken advantage of by scientists as a means to tackle climate change and pollution. Remodifications lead to a post-everything world. Expectedly, this causes the auteur to leap straight in to the philosophical. A world in which pain and pleasure are the same. Both are equal in their arousal.

As a provocative film, which it is advertised as, in some places it may seem tame at least visually. About as shocking as he gets here is a kid scranning a bin, an image I'm totally ok with, despite being silly, simply because it's funny. Over time though, I've always held the opinion his visual flair has dropped off a bit. His intelligence has grown whilst his images have declined. It’s the ideas that pack more of a punch than the images. Assume that's just a product of the aging process and can't be helped. Arguably, he's a better philosopher than he is a filmmaker these days. Regardless, even without the sick thrills and visual flair that made him a respected name, for those with a taste for body horror, Crimes of the Future is not one you can afford to miss.

Having sunk a couple of pints in The Lion, it's time to make our way to The Tap. Now, this could well be the most luxurious boozer in town but you do see the effect of it on your wallet. She'll run you dry. Wallets? What am I chatting about wallets for? No-one in this town carries a wallet. Nobody who was ever raised on the Wirral or in Liverpool carries one. A fact that has been tested and proven a thousand times. The land of the walletless After a single one in this boozer, courtesy of the unfortunate fuck who's round it was (Colonel Quaritch), we made our move. As you can probably guess, the decision to move was not made by the round buyer but those refusing to accept an assault on their precious cash. My apologies to the colonel.

Outside the boozer, who do we run in to but Mary Poppins. Adequately titled as such because the last time they were seen in action was after a night out once they stayed over at our gaff and the next morning floated down the stairs with an open umbrella, parked themselves in the living room, chatted the most I don't know what fuelled chat ever engaged in at 10am and then drifted off out the door never to be seen again. That was 4 years ago. Another MIA (missing in action) fallen soldier of the game. Not only did Poppins leave every person in that room baffled upon exit, they left us all with 7 years bad luck. In 3 more years, maybe just maybe, we can be happy again. Such risks can't be taken in future. It is the price you pay when Mary Poppins rocks up at the gaff.

After a brief reminiscing of said event, we proceeded to ask what Mary Poppins was up to this rainy evening. Words were not the chosen tool to communicate in these circumstances. Alternatively, Poppins opts for a swift shake of the hips, a couple of crossovers of the feet and a few points of the fingers. Dancing, Poppins was dancing. A fair way to spend any evening, I guess. How could we interrupt such an occasion? No-one should get in the way of another person's dancing, so we made the quick decision to leave them to it and move on to the next place of worship.

But where to next? A sign over the road was calling us like Gaspar Noe's The Void or Club Rectum. It read: The Crossville. May you never go there. Unless, you have absolutely no value for your own life. To enter this establishment and look in to the eyes of its fiendish frequenters is to look death in the face. To know that one day you could be as hollow and utterly useless as they are is a horror you don't want to ever encounter. The Crossville is not a pub but a headquarters for the seedy underbelly of West Kirby. All its dark secrets lurk here. This is its Muholland Drive. Its Sunset Boulevard . A temporary dwelling for the hopeless. They no longer need to speak to each other, once you walk in there is a collective feeling of misdemeanour. The Crossville is the pit of the fall from grace. Where the wrong side of the tracks conclude. Everybody caught in a web of unbridled malevolence. All sin is equal in this place and no-one can be judged.

Scanning the scene, I noticed there is no jukey in sight but projected on the wall is a YouTube playlist. Fresh is playing by Kool and the Gang. On close inspection, it appears to be a soul night at The Crossville. You wouldn't know from the outside. All you see is the sign and the dark uninviting alleyway leading to the door. Whoever's round it is has won the lottery (mine). Hand over a fiver note and you're getting change... for 3 pints! God bless the Crossy, keeping the flag flying high. Perhaps a respectable establishment after all in spite of her awful reputation. We're so shocked by the prices, the barman almost kicks us out. Our cover is blown. Regulars, we are not. Luckily, we are able to quote three things that have changed since we last frequented the place in our youth. This grants us passage and we make our way to an empty table.

It's deader than Phoenix Nights in here. On the gong of Jungle Boogie, a couple of disreputable freaks formerly goths make their way in the gaff and pull up two chairs at our table. Acquaintances of ours no less. Balthazar Marie is so overcome with emotion, he buys everyone a baby Guinness. He opens the question to the table of who wants one but before they can respond, fingerguns everyone, says "Yes" a few times and buys everyone one. That's a true Balthazar Marie technique. Seen it many a time throughout the years. Whether they like it or not, everyone is now holding a baby Guinness. The night takes a deadly turn from there on out.

Film number 18 of the year. Dan Trachtenberg's Prey. He tried his usual tricks, disguising this Predator sequel like he did with 10 Cloverfield Lane. A clever and admirable marketing strategy but one the fans saw right through from the outset. It didn't matter though, we were just all so happy to see a good Predator movie again. Trachtenberg rescued it from the clutches of Marvelisation and thrust it in to the John wick era of action cinema. None of the blathering. None of the witty banter that takes up half the picture. The set pieces are taking precedence as they should. A return to storytelling on the move. Ideas are plenty and it doesn't have to slow down to share them. Subtext over exposition. Minor issues prevail such as weak CGI in places and a few technical choices on set pieces but this is acceptable. The body remains so firmly intact, I can work with this. Any fears that Disney may water this beast down are soon forgotten with grisly demands met. Not in the same league as Predator 2s grisliness mind but way more than anticipated. My man going through an army of fur trappers was a blast. Always wanted a story like this where they go in to Danny Glover receiving that gun. There is hope for the future in that we may soon see the Predator take on every form of cultural warrior. Who will be left standing? The thrill of the hunt is back.

"You listened to that record yet?", asks one of the newly joined acquaintances by the name of Captain Bennett. This leads in to a discussion on the current local music scene. "Shit. Shit. Shit. More shit. Oh wait they show some promise actually". He throws a couple of bands my way to check out and I store them in mind for later.

The YouTube playlist has now moved on to KC and The Sunshine Band's I'm Your Boogieman. It isn't long before one of our newly joined guests proposes the question of substances. Since no-one lives here anymore, neither of us has a reliable number off the bat. We go through the old mental phonebook and offer a few suggestions.

"What about Johnny Penderspice?", I throw in confidently, convinced it's the winning horse. "Noooooo", cries Balthazar Marie like I just took a dump on his front porch. "What?", I asked defensively and confused at the reaction. "Johnny Penderspice has been on the same acid trip since 2015", says Balthazar like this clears everything up. "This is news to me", I declared looking round my companions for further information on the matter. Captain Bennett stops the silence with, "You're behind on the times here, Kelly. He's not been seen for years. Accidentally got his dosages wrong, went to space and never came back. His head popped. They say he's living in some mental asylum now where they've removed all the mirrors and windows because he's convinced if he sees his own reflection he will spontaneously combust". All I could add was, "well that's him off the table then".

Balthazar Marie says he might have a number. In the mean time we head back to The White Lion. Precisely the time when a whole host of unsavoury characters show up. There at a table is none other than The Cramp Twins, infamous for their public duels. They're at each other's throats more than Feraud and D'Hubert. Lucien Cramp I've not seen in time. The guys been spending his days in another country and only drops in once every blue moon. Wayne Cramp, I last saw moments before he went off to see an Indian heavy metal band by the name of Bloodywood He informed me their last tour was called "Nine Inch Naan", which amused me greatly. Oh no, out of nowhere, Long Tall Sally rocks up from behind with a pint of wine. Last person I was expecting to see. Here comes trouble. They let anyone in here.

I get chatting to Lucien Cramp's right hand man by the name of Darren Shan. The topic of conversation turns to the volleyball scene in Top Gun: Maverick Where else does conversation go after pint number 9? Neither of us can get past the fact the absolute banger on the beach is by OneRepublic. Famous for their one hit 'Apologise'. Both of us agree they have nothing left to apologise for any more. "Sound of the summer", we drunkenly blurt back at each other. This brings me back to film number 17 You Won't Be Alone. This is the best Robert Eggers movie of the year. If Terrence Malick did horror this is what it would look like. Worth seeing just for that. A cauldron filled to the brim with elements of The Witch, Dogtooth, Under the Skin and The New World. Gender identity and the inner workings of societies appear to be on the director's mind. Next time, I would greatly appreciate it if the fellow took some influence from New French Extremity and took us closer to the body.

We make our final trip back to The Tap. This is where things get really hazy. There's maybe a few ramblings on the awful Sight and Sound top 100 list that was recently released. A list I'd always approved of for the fact that the vote was held every 10 years allowing your films like Mulholland Drive and In the Mood for Love to climb up the list. It's the public consciousness in motion. those older films no longer deemed classics can slip off the list and make way for new ones. By new, that is not last year new, I mean we're at a point where we can address those films in the first decade of the 21st century that haven't left our minds. Zodiac Fellowship of the Ring. No Country for Old Men There will be Blood Lost in Translation. Oldboy. Memories of Murder.

Before Sunset. Irreversible. Love

Exposure A Serious Man The Passion of the Christ Still Life

George Washington Planet Earth Band of Brothers The Fog of War This is England. The Royal Tenenbaums. The Piano Teacher. Man on Fire (a few sniggers at the mention of this one). To name just a few. This would be the time to start talking some of these and see which make the cut.

Instead, the list makers had other ideas. An ulterior motive which was to smash white male bias. On the one hand, it's like the affirmative action debate but it's also not the same at all because it's just a list and not employment opportunities.

You shouldn't have to force it on a list. If there isn't enough films we can add on from minorities, then we should target providing these people with the funds to make such films that can compete. Moreover, we shouldn't expect to see them instantaneously appear on a list covering the greatest films of all time. As that miserable bastard Morrissey once said, 'These Things Take Time'. We shouldn't just throw weaker ones on a list willy-nilly. This woke re-appraisal has only added to the belief that film criticism is in dire straits these days. Plus, it doesn't work to the advantage of films such as Jeanne Dielmann, Moonlight, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Get Out and Parasite. People will lose their love for them as a result because their appreciation didn't grow organically. The con of it will ruin their chances on future lists. No-one wants to be tricked and have authenticity questioned.

This is where I love Mulholland Drive and In the Mood for Love. We've been able to watch them be accepted. This now can't happen for the others. A list should reflect where society is at, not where it wants to be. Had it been clear that it was lacking diversity, we could have highlighted this and improved opportunities in the filmmaking not the list making. We've created an illusion that doesn't help at all. Whoever decided to smash white male bias, well done you achieved a small untrue victory, pushed back these progressive films for years to come and sabotaged what was once a decent and respectable list.

After this discussion, there is a heated debate between myself and Wayne Cramp. The trigger: a chat about the trajectory of the recent Star Wars films. To explain his position, he is under the impression Star Wars has been terrible in the Disney era. Undeniably, whilst it hasn't been as good as the original trilogy, I like that there's more for the kids now and do think they've shown some real potential developing the politics of the galaxy in a way they never did with the original trilogy. Especially, with Andor. Wayne launches into an unwarranted scathing attack on Andor and in the process reveals has not seen a single episode of it. Clown.

His reasoning for not liking it, without having watched it, is that "All Disney era is rubbish". "What about Mando?", I rightfully query. He does like this but goes on to add, "for every Mando there's a Bobba Fett". He's not completely incorrect but this doesn't exactly line up with his original statement of all Disney contributions being poor. No surprises that this man hates The Last Jedi. I ask his brother Lucien his thoughts on Andor. He simply responds, "Good show that lad. Enjoyed it" and leave it at that like a normal human being.

Wayne continues to push my buttons til he reaches the point of no return. He insults a certain Star Wars film directed by the great Ron Howard. Nobody, I mean nobody, talks shit about carsploitation legend Ron Howard. A wave of anger rushes over me. My fists clench. My nostrils flare. I want to kill this man. I want to take him out back, line him up against the wall and shoot him for his insubordination. I recognise this might not be a very nice thing to do, so I do the next best thing. I politely offer him a fight. Except, I don't offer HIM a fight. Out of respect for his brother, I first ask Lucien if I could "please take Wayne outside and beat him to a pulp with my bare hands!". An action similar to asking the father for the daughters hand in marriage. Wayne may have overstepped the mark but that didn't mean we all had to abandon simple decencies. Noticing that I am greener than The Incredible Hulk and looking to see the streets spill red, Lucien has to decline my request. Possibly because this would leave him without his greatest duelling partner. I get it. What can you do? I cast aside my need to punish this criminal. Wayne lives another day. Sorry Ron.

The evening ends where nearly all evenings in this town end, The West Kirby Grill. I'm surprised the owner still lets me in after that time he banned me from entering the premises years ago. Yes, I was barred from a takeaway. He was well within his rights too. This was after I accidentally broke the benches and may have knocked a few framed pictures of the wall. A lot can happen in those manic moments when you are waiting for a filthy kebab. It could certainly be argued that my drunkenness tested his patience that night. Maybe he hadn't noticed me come in. I kept my head down and resisted the urge to ask him how his beloved football club Besiktas were doing. Or was it Galatasaray?

Before I can remember, the remnants of the Wirral, knowing full well The West Kirby Grill is death's door of any night round here, pour in and the ghosts of the pasts haunt us decent folk. It is time to leave. No filthy kebab for me. I hop in a taxi with a few others and make it back to my parent's place. A curry awaits me. There at the table staring me in the face. Irresistible. This will make up for Kelly's meeting with a filthy kebab being cancelled. Mid way through tucking in to this dirty curry, my mother walks past and reminds me I have work tomorrow at 8am. Oh lord, I'd forgotten all about that shift. Jesus fucking Christ.

The alarm sounds. I crawl towards the computer and log on for this dreaded shift. About the only thing keeping me sane is knowing that I'd booked the afternoon off as holiday so I'd be done by 1pm. That left me with 5 hours to power through. Better than a full shift but I didn't know even know if I was going to make this. Had a word with myself. Remembered that usually when working after a night out, I could last til 4pm until the grogginess crept in. That's science. With this knowledge, I poured through.

At about 10 o'clock it started to go wrong. I'd spent the shift mainly with my head in hands. I'd decided to put an Ozu movie on in the background. In my mind, If I put on one of his movies, which normally I despise, could it be that in this state I'd be neutral due to the onslaught of the hangover? Anything to take my mind off the current situation. This strategy goes all wrong and I only hate myself and that fraud Ozu more.

Now is around the time it all went super wrong. Not long after the clock struck 10, I could feel it coming up through my throat. The bad part was I hadn't finished a call I was on to a customer. The nuclear bomb was going to go off and all this fucker on the phone cared about was his damn car insurance. I looked for any reason to put this guy on hold whilst I took care of myself. Had to opt for the speaking as fast as Scorsese so they can't ask any questions or respond quick enough to stop me. I hit that hold button like it's Wayne Cramp's face and make a dive to the bathroom.

A splurge of shite spews from my mouth. Round after round of thick grunge hits the sink. Suddenly dawns on me, maybe the curry wasn't such a good idea. Or the baby Guinness for that matter. Once the bomb dropping subsided, I took a look at my masterpiece and realised there was enough contaminant in the sink to form the mighty Godzilla. Having relieved myself, I instantly felt better and went in to full clean up montage mode straight out of a crime movie, wiping down the bowel and taps. I was never there, it never happened.

When I returned to my seat, I checked how long I'd left this guy on hold. You don't even want to know. Apologies were made for the intrusion and we returned to discussing car insurance. As the call is being wrapped up, my father messages me to say he's got a bacon butty lined up outside my door. Like a prisoner in solitary confinement, I scuttled along and drag the plate inside. Said bacon butty looks inviting but in my current state best not to test it. My body had forgotten how to ingest and knew only how to expel. I put the plate on the side for later. Positive signs though, a revival was definitely on the cards. I just needed to work out a better strategy that didn't involve Ozu. Hangout classic High Fidelity was selected and more than did the job. I was back, baby!

Tucked in to the bacon butty and continued to handle every phone call that came my way. Film number 16 on the list: Black Bird. A surprise miniseries hit that will catch you off guard. At first what appears to be a silly trashy crime thing written by Dennis Lehane to make Birko legend Egerton in to a worldwide star, transforms into a study of misogyny. Having been sent down a few years for an arms and class A possession charge, he's given the opportunity of a suspended sentence if he can gain a confession from a serial killer currently inside awaiting an appeal. Now what would a loser and a jock bond over?

Women. one of them had a promiscuous and unloving mother, which cause him to go full Freud and get his frustration out on a personal revenge mission by fucking just about every woman in sight with a loveless loathing. The other found women so unobtainable, he went one step further and started killing them.

The chemistry between Birko legend Egerton and Spike Lee favourite Hauser is electric and its best scenes lie in them just talking to each other firing off back and forth about their pasts. Always been a Lehane apologist as he's trashy fun with a bit of grit under the surface. Roskam has proven to be a good adapter of his work prior to this with The Drop. Stylistically, fans of Fincher and True Detective will warm to the southern gothic thriller atmosphere on this. Mogwai even rip off a Nine Inch Nails score. Penultimate episode genuinely has Something I Can Never Have just to cement this further. Chef's Kiss. Felt bad for the psychopath's brother in this but I've said this since day one, you can't trust a geezer who does battle re-enactments. Used to see them in my Uni days fighting for my life on Sunday mornings, dragging myself to the train station to get back home after seeing people in Keele. Takes a certain kind of person to be doing that on the day of the Lord. Sundays are for rest and regret. Walking past them all I could think was, "oh fuck off you freaks".

Having completed the shift and been fully revived, Christmas Eve can now officially begin, which is also my mother's birthday. I make my way down the stairs and the music is already playing. Don't Leave Me This Way by The Communards. The party has started. I'm handed a drink on arrival and watch as she attacks a few presents. She's a real history nut. Her favourite movies are Schindler's List, Gandhi and Fatal Attraction. A few weeks back, we'd watched House of Gucci , which she loved and come to think of it was a near perfect culmination of her three favourites mentioned. We'd been on a Soviet war run as of late. This involved some Shepitko and Klimov. So to kind of complete the trilogy, I'd gotten Ivan's Childhood for her. Having unwrapped every present and kept every bow for reuse as she normally did, we head on out to a tapas restaurant in the hell hole that this Heswall. A gathering ground for detestable characters. We're talking the worst of the worst. The sangria was very good though.

Christmas goes by with the family. My son, The Impossible Kid, comes up a couple of days later. I'd got him a toy set of Godzilla and King Kong. What else? We stage many battles. From crack of dawn to way after dusk. Time does little to halt the fight, which is mainly just me getting slapped the shit out of and taking some heavy hits. My boy Weng Weng pulls no punches. He's still struggling to say King Kong and it sounds more like the Kendrick Lamar song King Kunta. But I think we're getting there. Every morning is jigsaws. He works on these with extreme focus. Help is not to be given. It's hard to have the patience so occasionally you have to put a piece near where it should go. Strict emphasis on 'near'. You can't make this too obvious though because he will tear apart 5 pieces minimum from the jigsaw, throw them back in to the pile of unused pieces and start again if he catches you helping. Above all else, I admire his perseverance.

Sadly, we hear of the passing of horror legend Ruggero Deodatao. We are so sickened by the news, we spend the evening sat in the dark listening to the Cannibal Holocaust soundtrack and playing car racing games on PS2. May as well mention what's 15th on the big list. Frozen Planet 2, I'm an Attenborough fanatic and an absolute sucker for all of these projects year on year. Drones, thermal imaging and time blurring are the latest developments in technology visible in this year's Attenborough doc. Although, it's completely fair to say the reason I always stick around for these is the fact they keep pushing the boundaries of the equipment and technology available, it's something more than that. They're so profound and primal with each story resonating massively in a way that narrative cinema doesn't always manage. Mothers defending their cubs in real fights to the death. In some ways you could say they're like really tight anthologies with the animals becoming these characters and doing a better job than any actor or CGI. Sorry Serkis, you're good mate but there's just no beating the real thing.

For the evening of December 30th, I meet back up with Balthazar Marie, visits are made to The Lion, The Leaf and The Wetherspoons and pints are consumed at each pit stop. As the clock strikes 12 and December 31st is ushered in, we both turn 26. Uncomfortably close to the big three-0 for my liking. Distraction needed. Film number 14 on the list: Flux Gourmet. It would appear that Mr Strickland is still flying the flag for Eurosleaze and on this occasion could well have lost the plot. In a good way though. On previous outings, he's been accused of copying the past without adding anything new. I can somewhat agree but remain happy that someone's continuing what I like. The Duke of Burgundy has widely been held as his best because for that the emotion felt genuine so it overcame any flaws that come with familiarity. Flux Gourmet almost goes the opposite way and is Strickland at his silliest, yet this achieves originality in the process making it one of his best. He deals with a bunch of noise artists shacked up in a gaff and manipulates this set up to explore a farting fetish. Leading some folk to believe we need to bring back kink shaming. Good work, Strickland.

At the bar, an energetic man who looks like he hasn't seen daylight in weeks, informs us he has been let loose from the wife and weens. A fellow father high on his freedom. He's massed him 5 children. The other day, one of the little troublemakers let him know he'd done "5 poos". He was losing the plot I could see. The wife must have thrown him here for his health. Couldn't get past the poo parade though, it rang a bell. I'd heard that declaration before from Weng Weng. What is it with nippers and proclaiming poo quantities? More importantly, as a father, what is one meant to say back when their kid says that to them with a huge smile on their face? Well, all you can say is, "well done, Son" and if so obliged, "keep 'em coming!". Rude to put them down when they're on such a high. The fellow father asks me the questions. How many and how old. "Good age", he says as he picks up his pint and pats me on the back, adding, "a few more years and he'll start telling you you're a twat" He walks away and I'm more stumped than when my own son had let me in on his shit quota. Balthazar Marie mumbles "fucking fathers" and has to edge me towards a table.

Number 13 then. We have Light and Magic. If I made movies, I'd definitely make them about shit like this. Weird little communities forming. Blame Boogie Nights. Anyway in this documentary, we have George Lucas's special effects company Industrial Light and Magic. But as I said they're more like a family. Dudes hanging out, doing what they love. This shit keeps them going like Phil Tippett who openly admits he would have killed himself if it weren't for these guys and the work they were doing. Fuckers even had an inflatable pool outside the office. Talk about doing things right. One person says, "Give them enough pizza and beer and they'll do anything". Now this is currency I understand. Going back to Boogie Nights it has that rise and fall structure. This time it's not video that killed the radio star but digital. Some of them make the transition, some are killed off. Professionally speaking that is. But for a time, they were living the life. Dudes being dudes and all that. Oh, oh it's magic you know! Never believe it's not so!

The evening ends at The West Kirby Grill. Again. But oh no, what's that? The lights are off the sign is up. The West Kirby Grill is closed for no apparent reason. Leaving a whole town hungry. An absolute tragedy. We are inconsolable. To make things worse, we now have to trek back up the hill in the pouring rain empty handed. This rain is relentless. Will it ever stop? Lord, please give two Pirates of the Caribbean apologists a break. On their birthday of all days! We curse the skies but our screams are lost in the howling wind. Upon laying eyes on my bed, I plonk down defeated. Film number 12: Barbarian. Fincher upstairs, Raimi downstairs. Has to be just about the greatest selling point ever. Justin Long and his tape measure for best romance of the year. Come and collect your award, brother! Richard Brakes really mundane moments in the '80s were a personal favourite. Not too sure what this really has to say about the MeToo movement but we'll let that slide because it's stylistically brilliant and narratively structured to keep you hooked. Maybe next time, just don't bottle the torture porn side yeah?

Next day we take Weng Weng to the panto. They had Cinderella on down at the Pavillion in New Brighton. According to the poster outside, Sean Jones is back by popular demand. No idea who he is but as I said, he is back by popular demand. Our shows non-stop music keeps me lively and wards off the hangover. In the intermission, the floor needs to be cleared cause Weng Weng and I are dancing in the isles to Wilson Pickett's Land of 1000 Dances. Sorry anyone trying to get past to sneak in an ice cream during the break. Wilson Pickett is on and some boys gotta dance. The kid seemed like he had a good time.

After the show, we hit up a restaurant and order a couple of pizzas. Weng Weng spends the whole time drawing on the back of the menu. The Italian Chef takes one look at the boy's artwork, clasps his hands together and goes "Ah, Picasso!". It's hard to disagree. Kids got talent. Budding artist a work. A future exhibition at The Louvre is calling. Film number 11 is one most people hated, Halloween Ends. Issue is, it's my problem child I absolutely adore and can't do anything about. I've made no secret that I am a defender of Halloween Ends. Look, you could go through just about every problem with it and I get it, I do, but, that doesn't mean I love it any less. Interests me. Just a laughably silly cartoonish surreal sitcom Terrence Malick slasher so ridiculous it borders on Twin Peaks

Especially, with all the troubled teens riding round on bikes and romantic rooftop rendezvous. Almost beautiful in a way. With all the generational trauma, hangout vibes and banging soundtrack, no-one made Haddonfield a character quite like Green. For better or worse. Probably more the latter considering the recent calls to nuke it. If people start nuking Haddonfield, I'm going down with it sorry.

Following Picasso and Pizza, everyone pile in the car to drop Weng Weng back off in his home town. A pleasure to have as always. Right, getting serious now. In at 10th: The Banshees of Inisherin . McDonagh being a bastard as usual. Hence why I avoided this as long as I did. A master of mixing what could be considered both hilarious and harrowing. He wants to talk male friendship? How about me and him. Honestly, if I ever met this cunt McDonagh, I'd let him know I fucking hate him. Hate the way his films make me feel and what they have done to me mentally. He's a criminal and one day he will receive sentencing. But in the meantime, I'll keep giving him good scores. Such is the nature of our friendship.

A quick turn of the key and I am back in my parent's house. It was a case of packing as much shit away as possible as I was being driven back to Sheffield the next day and there was just no way I'd be in a state to pack everything New Year's Day. Still plenty of time before the big evening. I'd been saving a few slices of pizza from lunch as early morning scran but I can't resist and dive straight in with a few beers to help. Since the house is empty, I opt for a rewatching of Let the Corpses Tan on full fucking volume. Once this is finished, I drop Balthazar Marie a message about later on. He's taking his bird Bear Grylls out for a meal. Or rather she's taking him out for a meal, an extension of a birthday present. I will meet them later on. Rubbing my hands together, I realise we have time for a double bill. So on goes Halloween Ends. My father returns and asks if this is to get me in the mood for New Year's Eve. Yes it is.

Moving along, number 9 on the list, Apollo 10 ½. One which passed just about everyone by. It nearly passed me by too. Sadly, has been the case for the last string of Richard Linklater offerings. Confession time, haven't watched any of them since the '80s hangout romp, Everybody Wants Some!!! Has anyone? Well, this one's definitely encouraged me to go back and watch the ones in between. I was expecting some really dull and dry recollection of a space project for children. Linklater goes another direction and sneakily takes the opportunity to make this a 1969 dudes rock hangout picture like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Endless 60s bangers which peak with garage rock anthem Psychotic Reaction. For this sequence, the family sprints into a theme and invades that motherfucker rushing to get on every ride. Love that. Nearly every great TV show from the period gets a mention and a few trashy 50s Sci Fis find their way in to the mix. If you ever liked Linklater's earlier movies, do yourself a favour and give this a watch!

Checking my phone, I see I have a message from Ricardo Carvalho. Since, when was that on the cards? He's wanting to meet to tackle some pints but he's a fair bit out of town. Fully up for it though and tell him to pencil me in for later. Will meet him around pint 9.

Ok, so film number 8, we have: Decision to Leave. Park Chan Wook. This boy is so good that he's given us one of his weaker efforts and this is still excellent. Parks in pure Hitchcock mode, putting women back in the thriller and not in that annoying way that slows down the plot. Nope, they are the mystery. So, my man wants to talk Hitchcock? Decision to Leave would be the equivalent in quality to Frenzy or Dial M for Murder. Not a masterpiece. Not a classic. But, unquestionably great. Also, he's doing things here the 'cock could never do in his time with the digital zooms, non-chronological jump cuts and William Graham like reimaginings of crime scenes.

Talking of crime scenes, time to make my way in to town for some New Year's Eve debauchery. It seems we're teeing off at The Tapas Kitchen. When I arrive, Balthazar and Bear are polishing off some dessert. They offer me a bite. A rather rich chocolate brownie. I don't turn down food. "Where we going then?", asks Bear. Balthazar informs her it has to be The Social over the road. We plod on over and make our way up the stairs. The main appeal of The Social is the pool table, which is strangely always free. Instinctually, I rack those balls up and go head to head with Balthazar. We're a disgrace to the sport. We both agree no-one won this game.

Here's how it went down. Climactic moment. Balthazar is on the black. Easy shot to make. Only a baby would miss this shot. He decides to give it the cocky talk and says, "You ready to witness history?". Somehow, he misses and the black pounds off the side of the cushion, setting me up neatly for the victory. I turn his own words against him, repeating, "You ready to witness history?". Easy shot to make. Only a baby would miss this shot. I pull back on the cue and hammer it forwards. The black finds its way in to a hole. So far so good. The white ball keeps on moving.... the white ball keeps on moving... the white ball keeps on moving. I think you know where this is going. The white ball finds its new home in the hole at the far end of the table. Technically, the victory is Balthazar's but we both agree, really the sport of pool lost that day. Neither of us is Tom Cruise in The Colour of Money, potting those balls home and waving the cue around like a Samurai sword to Werewolves of London.

It's winner stays on and I'm relegated to the sofa to watch Match of the Day on the TV screen. Bear steps up to the table to face the by default 'winner'. Where were we? Film number 7: The Beatles Get Back Rooftop Concert. Inarguably, this is an iconic piece of history that will survive longer than any film on this list. Deserves appreciation aside from the original version back in 1970 for it restoring the dumb police officers involved giving Paul's reaction to their presence new meaning. Yet, I don't think it would be fair for me to score this any higher on this list as technically it seems like cheating from Mr Jackson considering he released the full Get Back documentary last year, which I rated very highly. He's lucky I've let him even be on this list! Can't just release pretty much the same thing two years in a row and expect two years of glory. Have to say though it was a pleasure sitting in the cinema with a pint watching this legendary gig.

Snappy phone check reveals a message from Ricardo Carvalho. Asking to meet up later perhaps? Opening the chat exposes a set of videos. I hesitantly play them. His girlfriend is in the corner of a boozer dancing like she's just been zapped with 20,000 volts of electricity to Electric Six's Gay Bar. Right, that's them finished. No chance they're making the countdown at this rate. Back to the list, film number 6: The Batman. Matt reeves really starting to prove himself on these blockbusters. A reliable hand. He forever has my respect for turning Batman in to this Fincheresque thriller with a techno club. What a world he has created. Even if the third act doesn't quite hold up, I want to live in Penguin's Iceberg Lounge. My kind of joint that. Batman getting in to fight to techno bangers from Baauer, Kevin Saunderson and Peggy Gou is just about the coolest thing ever. Gotham remains as sleazy as ever. Musically, the most interesting Batman since Batman Beyond. My industrial heads know what I'm talking about. Pattinson shines massively and could be the best Batman we've ever had. Think about it right. The role is mainly a chin workout and he has one of the sexiest chins in Hollywood. The Dark Knight may be the better film but The Batman could be the better Batman. It out-Batman's Batman Begins which takes some doing. The return to a raw Batmobile which looks like something out of Death Race 2000 got me all excited and when that engine roared...cinema. Ave fucking Marie.

Looking up, I notice Balthazar Marie cheering with no shame as he pots black and takes the victory from his girlfriend. Bear stands in the corner, hand on hip, shaking her head. "Right, where we going next?", she interrupts, trying to move things along. I look over at Balthazar and we smile both thinking the same thing. "What's funny", Bear demands to know. "The Crossy", I return and break in to a light giggle. Balthazar shakes his head. Bear jumps in with, "Balthazar, your mother said you were never to take me to The Crossville. She said that no place for a lady". As Balthazar's mother is correct on some level, we decide to honour this and head over to The White Lion. As we leave the Match of the Day theme song carries us out and I realise the picture of the Queen still sits on the wall at the top of the stairs. A little crooked and damaged from that time The High Plains Drifter punched it on his way out one night after a few too many drinks and it hit every step on the way down. One of his finest moments.

Rain is yet to hit the streets. We count ourselves lucky as we drag ourselves over in to the clutches of the Lion. Film number 5. Serious numbers now. Here we have: X "Grab my cock, see how hard I am", confesses the b movie Matthew Mcconaughey stand in. Easily could have said the same thing myself after watching this one. How could I not like this when it combines two of my favourite movies Boogie Nights and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? A southern gothic chiller with nods to Psycho and Eaten Alive Ti West continuing his exploration of religious violence like he did in The Sacrament and The House of the Devil. Shame about Pearl though.

Entering The White Lion, it instantly becomes clear that this is even more packed than the other night. This is not a pub, this a collective chokehold. Moving towards the bar means knocking in to about 3 people at a time. We are past apologies. Intruding on each other's space is a given. Nothing can be done. The radio is pumping out hit after hit to an impatient crowd eagerly awaiting the new year. It wouldn't be long now. The Chemical Brother's Galaxy Bounce bounces off the walls, everybody moves like one, like the hand of ticking clock counting down the seconds. I gulp down a Guinness like my life depends on it.

Film number 4. Top Gun: Maverick. Words will never match how happy this turning to be good made me. We did something right for once! We honoured the late Tony Scott, who tragically died killing himself at approximately 12.30 on August 19th 2012 by jumping off The Vincent Thomas bridge due to a nasty battle with cancer. The great Tony Scott, who made all my favourite movies from my childhood. Top Gun, True Romance, Man on Fire, Déjà Vu, Enemy of the State, The Last Boy Scout, Crimson Tide, Beverly Hills Cop 2, Spy Game. I watched these over and over growing up.

It's not talked about enough but his influence on cinema was huge, bringing over a unique editing style. He would have these time lapses leaving trippy trails across the screen. He would experiment with stock and colour reversal. Multiple cameras including hand crank ones. As Denzel Washington once said, "Nine camera Tony, he's a real artist". Made set pieces psychedelic with a heightened reality and kept a very tight pacing. Especially, with Harry Gregson-Williams on the score. If you watch closely, you'll see this editing style re-appear in the horror movies of the 2000s. Note as well, he was one of the first to work with Trent Reznor as a sound consultant. How popular is that sound now? Academy awards have gone to that type of sound. Don't you dare tell me Tony Scott was not influential. Can vividly recall the day he died. I was on the morning paper round I had back then, still half asleep, I was about to pop the first paper through the letter box when I saw the headline. Shocked, I couldn't resist reading the full article wanting to know why. It wasn't until about 2 years after his battle with cancer was revealed. Honestly, hope this picks up just about every academy award possible. It meant a lot. Top Gun 2s victory was for Tony.

Time was ticking away. 2023 was coming whether we liked it or not. Quickly, I made a trip to the toilet as not to miss the countdown. I prime myself for the pissing position and almost as soon as I'm ready to unload in to the urinal, an old school acquaintance comes through the door. I hear the sounds of Groove

Armada's I See You Baby coming through the pub speakers for a few seconds before the door closes again. He stands just inches from me, unzips and nods. Not for the first time, I curse whoever came up with the concept of urinals. Girls don't know how good they've got it with rows and rows of cubicles. As it should be.

Ok. Film number 3: Irma Vep. 2022s biggest event of the small screen. A loose remake of Assayas's own film from the '90s. Is it a show? Is it a film? Why bring it back at all? As Scream is (or rather was) a tool for critiquing horror, Irma Vep is a tool with a much wider scope for critiquing the film industry as a whole at any one point in time. Truth is just like the '90s we're in very strange times, just very different strange times.

Subsequent to the rather brief conversation with the old acquaintance, if it can be called that, I make my way towards the door. Two straight men having any conversation whilst holding their cocks and with elbows touching is always going to be a stilted one at best. You add in years of not laying eyes on each other and about 12 pints deep, then what transpires is merely an exchange of single syllables, grunts and nods. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly showdown over, I make my way out the toilet. I See You Baby is still going strong on the speakers. "Come on. Come on. It's countdown time, barnacle head!", one guy shouts as he grabs his drunken friend by the collar and hurls him towards the rest of their group. That's my cue to find mine.

I look left, I look right. They're straight in front of me, sitting with a bunch of yodelling yanks in a booth. I push past people to get there. Respectabilities are out the window. Must re-join the group. Film number 2: Fire of Love. Have you ever felt this emotionally attached to a documentary? Follows the Kelly code as well, which is never reveal your emotional core until the movie starts. If it's in the promotional material, the games up. On the surface, this appears to be a documentary about volcanoes. Beneath that though is a lava of love. Genuinely, one of the greatest love stories ever told in cinema. All tied together with the inclusion of Brian Eno's The Big Ship, one of the greatest songs of all time. I wasn't familiar with the couple depicted and had not seen the Herzog documentary about them either. So when I got this story featuring two people attracted to volcanoes and each other, I was blown away. Forever close to danger, you can smell the death approaching every job. Still, there's this unusual bond between land and love with a poetic sense of time running out.

Really touched the Koyaanisqaatsi/Planet Earth fan in me. But who put this love story in here? I was so caught off guard. When that Brian Eno song came I literally melted. This strays so far from your typical documentaries factual coldness in to pure pop art. Less concerned with the details than presenting this cinematic and warm story of two lovers against a psychedelic fiery backdrop. This mystical ever burning fire of love. I guess they're one and the same. They can suddenly go dormant or they can spill out and affect everyone around in their unrestrained passion. Romance and volcanoes baby! I'm all about it.

On the subject of eruptions, this place was about to blow. Plunging myself towards the booth like a missile with no concern for my footing, I make a dive for my drink and raise in to the air. The countdown has begun. 10...9...8...Fucking hell, I haven't even finished my own bloody countdown yet. Number One is Blonde. Has to be. Just has to be. Oh it would have to be the movie leading the race for the most Razzies but those guys have always been stupid thugs. They've realised they can't bully Bruce Willis any more so they're coming after the next lazy target they can locate. Finding new ways to annoy me. Never supported that worst of the year list business, there's literally no good that can come of it and worst of all it leads to really bad criticism. There is a way to lovingly mock, which results in some of the best forms of criticism as it acknowledges both what is objectively considered bad and subjectively liked on a personal level. A contradiction I always find so overwhelmingly human. Often, through this you bring forth why you approve of something and in doing so, we expand new ways of judging art. However, these brutes aren't interested in that, they only cheaply ambush for personal gain.

7...6...5...Anyway fuck 'em. I spoke about my love for this movie in great detail in issue #3. Dominik's Cleo from 5 to 7 really moved me. In his story, the girl doesn't know what time it is. She's constantly in search of a past she doesn't have and so she's constantly recreating her future with nothing to hold on to. A jigsaw puzzle that every time she tries to assemble she is thrown like a doll in to an unknown future.

The lesson here is that it's not the film that's sexist but the industry it exposes. This is Dominik's Mulholland Drive/Sunset Boulevard. Two of his favourite movies and he finally made his own here. The controversy? As she points out in the film, "any scene can be played". It's only the culture that's changed, which has evolved in to this lazy no scene can be done at all now. Whatever the camera shows it supports bullshit. These people have missed the beauty in the film. An intense cinematic study of feminism and the best since Rosemary's Baby. They miss the Freudian mystery of the picture. It's a woman without a father therefore without a past and without a sense of self. She cannot envision her own existence. A black hole. One I got lost in and my heads still spinning. Look, when Vertigo came out it was hated. More appropriately so was Fire Walk with Me. So, when the conversation comes back up in I don't know 10 or 20 years, know that some of us absolutely championed it from the start!

4...3...2...1...HAPPY NEW YEAR. Daft Punk's One More Time is synced up perfectly. Outside, streams of colours as fireworks light up the windows. The explosions can be heard for miles. Inside, everybody is a huggin' and a kissin'. Not a miserable face in the house. What will 2023 bring? Gave Ricardo a call. No answer. We would later find out he'd passed out before the countdown. Imagine my shock. Electric Six. The finisher of all human kind. Tried calling Bonehead Bill, God knows where he is right now. I catch Balthazar's glance and say, "Coming in to the new year to Daft Punk's One More Time? Even better than that time we came in to Doobie Brother's Long Train Runnin', right?". That night becomes back to him. I see it in his eyes. "That was the best night ever", he throws out in joy. This is about the last comprehensible and sensible sentence he contributes for the rest of the evening.

At about half 2, Balthazar would disappear. Mentally not physically. On the walk back from the boozer, he would be replaced by a new personality that would take hold of him. At half 2 dead on, he decided he was some southern Texas man named Travis.

"I'm not Balthazar. Balthazar gone. I'm Travis", he kept repeating every time he was addressed. Travis is a cattle rancher. Ex-cattle rancher. Now trying to take a stab at real estate. Once he'd got the back story of his rodeo exploits out the way ("finest lasso thrower across 3 states"), he went in to describe the ideal house for a man of his stature. It was like being in the presence of a Texan Kevin Mccloud if you can imagine such a horrid creation. This severely tested the patience of his girlfriend.

No less than 10 attempts were made to get his attention and make him snap out of it. Over and over, Bear kept shouting at him, "No, no, Balthazar, no, can you stop it now, Come on". His newly formed character wouldn't leave us. On the 10th and final attempt, he still refuses to stop being Travis and return to Balthazar. Instead, he rambles on with, "the other day I saw some dust particles floating in the wind and I followed these particles until they stopped. I looked up and I saw a star. Right then and there I knew it. I said to myself this is where I'm gonna lay the fort. I'm gonna build a ranch. We gonna have a house and we gonna have some kiddies" Personally, I respect and cannot argue with any man who knows exactly what they want like that. Bear did not see it that way. She lost the plot and goes, "that's it. I don't care what you guys do for the rest of the evening but I don't want any part of it. I'm not going to put up with that man any longer. I'm going to bed". True to her word, the second we entered the Marie household, she went straight up the stairs and I was left with Travis for the rest of the evening. He was definitely going to be in the doghouse tomorrow.

Travis and I made our way through the house, past the garden and to the bar converted shed known as The Marie Arms. Anything past this point is a mess. A total blur. YouTube shuffles through all sorts of electro-industrial one after another. The good stuff. The bad stuff. We wanted it all. Respectable tastes, like our heads, had gone. Almost as quickly as one song changes in to the next, I'm back behind the bar pouring pint after pint. The regular bar tender must have clocked off early. Leaving none but the lunatics running the asylum. Topics of conversation vary, the use of words do not. It is the hour of gibberish.

And here we go. The walls are closing in. The room is spinning. Everything is viewed through a black and white static lens. Solid objects no longer exist. Moving objects leave lingering trails. The origin of sounds cannot be traced. For the first time ever, I begin to appreciate the music video for Die Krupp's Nazi's Auf Speed. Have I ever seen this music video before? Listened to the song about a million times but this video had never impacted me before. Not like this! Travis and I called it for what it was, real cinema.

It opens with this message highlight that, "Die Krupps condemn fascism and drug abuse". Definitely a label request. Had to be. Alright, so may they condemn fascism. I can just about believe that but there's no way they weren't on something or other making this monstrosity. Otherwise it simply couldn't be made. Rendering this anti-drug message about as impactful as Diego Maradona wearing a "No Drug" t shirt. Next, we get the dictionary definition of Pervitin. Hey, if Tarantino gets points for that business, so does Die Krupps. Then, there it is! The speed is poured out on the surface. Pervitin in all her glory. It is then chopped up into lines not even The Incredible Hulk could handle. Our general takes a taste and he must be pleased with the shit cause he calls in his three best fighter pilots. Each of the trusted aerial assailants is given packages of Pervitin and tasked with their individual missions. Finally, we get to see them in action and they do with all due credit to them perform to the best of their abilities. I wonder what Howard Hughes would have made of all this.

A light pops on in the kitchen of the Marie residence. The sudden flash startles me, leaving me in a state of dazzlement. A shape moves across the kitchen floor. Although, I can't quite make them out, I know for sure the shape doesn't resemble any of the Maries. Grabbing hold of Travis, I blurt out, "Lad, there's someone in your house". "What?", he mutters and screws up his face baffled. I say it again, "Lad, there's someone in your house". He glances over and I know he's also seen the shape cause he shouts, "Oh shit" and turns off the TV and every light in the shed that would give away our presence.

The shape looks over in our direction. "Fucking hell!", we both yell in synch. We dive roll over to the bar and cower underneath thinking of the next move. A vibrating phone breaks the silence making us both jump. Travis fumbling, takes his phone from his pocket. "What's it say?", I ask nervously. He reads out the message, "You're out of bread" "Bread?", I throw back baffled. He breathes a sigh of relief of and clears up with, "Oh, it's just Bear in the kitchen". My hand clutches my chest, I lean back, mouth the word fuck and look to the heavens.

The walls stop closing in. The room stops spinning. Everything is no longer viewed through a black and white static lens. Solid object do exist. Moving objects do not leave lingering trails. The origin of sounds can be traced. We are still perched on our knees under the bar in total darkness. I take a few deep breaths before speaking and finding the right tongue movements to form an intelligible sentence. "So… what the fuck are we doing?", I wonder aloud. Travis shakes his head and replies, "I don't know, I don’t know". Is this how the Nazis on speed felt when they sobered up after their mission?