Episodes

Sunday Jan 17, 2021
Nomadland (2020)
Sunday Jan 17, 2021
Sunday Jan 17, 2021
In all the years I've reviewed movies on the main show (posted here more recently) I've never given a perfect 10 out of 10 to a new release film before Nomadland. It's so much more than the grim, cinema verite, politicized look at America's post global financial crisis economic situation I expected. Instead I got the most insanely beautiful and artistic poem about heartland America, an optimistic world of people who'd escaped the "tyranny of the dollar" for an enrichingly soulful existence, that never needs to bang any drum, and gives wonderful characters effected by economic hard times but never formed by them. Front and center, Francis McDormand, who creates a character as likeable, alienated and unknowable as Harry Dean Stanton in Paris Texas - a film I found myself frequently referencing. Director Chloe Zhao shows complete mastery of the form and never makes a single misstep, even the cinematography and music are stunning. I'd feel comfortable calling it the best picture, director and actress Oscar winner, though it will certainly pic up nominations for the screenplay, supporting actor, score and cinematography, so that list maybe too short. A modern masterpiece.

Sunday Jan 17, 2021
Soul (2020)
Sunday Jan 17, 2021
Sunday Jan 17, 2021
Since Disney started meddling with them, it's been an up and down road for Pixar, with too many sequels and the once sacrosanct originals varying in quality. If there is one man to save them, it's probably director Pete Docter (Monsters Inc., Up, Inside out) who delivers another wildly imaginative and dazzlingly ambitious original concept just worthy of their other high water marks. A less stunning middle section is compensated for by some beautiful artistic choices and the least child-friendly, existentially-adult Pixar concept yet.

Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
A film that redefines what the term "hot mess" means to me and makes me think director Patty Jenkins fluked it with the superb first encounter, still the only brilliant DC Universe film. The main flaws here are terminal - awful, lazy, tonally inconsistent, repetitive and dull writing, a director with no coherent vision at all and the most glaring plot-holes and logical inconsistencies of any film at this level in the modern era. Gal Gadot is still unbearably lovely but perhaps the film's most egregious failure (in a litany of them) is there isn't anything feminine about this film, it no longer matters that Wonder Woman is a woman.

Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
Relic (2020)
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
Australia has punched well above it's weight with magnificent low-budget films this century, first with hard nosed crime dramas, then last decade with striking forays into sci-fi and horror. Even against that back-drop the major film debut from writer-director Natalie Erika James stands out as a masterpiece. Posited as a near Hereditary house-horror film, it works in seamless tandem as both a high-class stock horror and something far superior, a metaphorical look at the scariest monster of all - mortality. An emotionally overwhelming and highly original use of standard horror tropes to examine our relationship with ageing parents to a point that I think it's the only horror film I've seen to make me cry. Astonishingly human and utterly devastating.

Thursday Dec 24, 2020
First Cow (2020)
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
Most critics are like sheep. They read each other's reviews and are too scared to rate anything they don't understand accurately lest they get it "wrong". The latest by slow-movie auteur, Kelly Reichardt is case in point, winning numerous movie of the year awards. Though I gave warm reviews to both Meek's Cutoff and Night Moves, this is a weak and virtually empty film, devoid of any real substance, symbolism, depth, artistry or poetry. It's just a diverting half hour spread thinly over two laborious hours. Don't believe the hype.

Thursday Dec 24, 2020
The Deeper You Dig (2020)
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
John Adams is undoubtedly a triple threat worth investigation, as here he occasionally directs well, acts in a often dialogue free, nuanced performance very well, and creates a great soundtrack for this indie horror. But no way does this very limited and often ordinary film deserve the place in the pantheon of modern indie horror greats its 75% on Metacritic and 94% on Rotten Tomatoes suggests. Not worth bothering.

Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
Best And Worst Films Of 2020
Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
Exactly what it says in the title, in a very tepid year all round (lots of 8's, not many 9's!) my best and worst films of 2020, with the ten best and worst going head to head.

Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
Top 25 Albums of 2020
Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
Bit of cross pollination here with the radio show (show with music https://www.mixcloud.com/julian-brown/the-brown-note-top-25-albums-of-2020/)
My top 25 albums of 2020 in a very flat year all round. Best and worst films of the year next week.

Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
Mank (2020)
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
David Fincher's return to his father's old screenplay, about the writing of Citizen Kane by the immortal Herman J. Mankiewicz, is awash with Hollywood lore and golden-era standard bearers. If a fairly soulless but utterly whip-smart script of back and forths from ridiculously clever people, in love with how clever they are sounds like your perfect night in, you'll love it. If that sounds like pretentious twaddle and hell on earth, you'll hate it and find it intensely annoying. I loved it and the background of the way socialism was treated by right wing media, pushed it totally over the line for me. Also Gary Oldman's best role of the century as the lead. No doubt multiple Oscar nominations await as Hollywood loves to love itself.

Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
Aliens (1986)
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
A recent unexpected TV viewing left me wondering if this is the Citizen Kane of Science Fiction Horror movies. Near perfect film making on every level from James Cameron, on a roll that would include Terminators 1&2 and the most perfect film of the lot. Even the sound effects or the machine guns are sublime. Full marks for production design, screenplay, effects that haven't dated, developed side characters that pack a memorable punch, unbearable building tension, iconic lines and an almost unheard of lead acting Oscar nomination for it's equally unusual female action lead, Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. Hugely influential from video games to any film where a state of the art military force is hopelessly out of its depth and packed with fascinating subtext like having warring mothers as both antagonist and protagonist. A perfect 10/10.