Film Review - Marty Supreme (15)

 It's every man for himself where I come from. That's just how I grew up.

Marty Supreme fell between years for me - a 2025 release that I only got the chance to see after New Year 2026, so it didn't make my Films of the Year list. Since then, the Timothée Chalamet hype machine has worked a charm, so that Marty is now A24's most successful film worldwide. Plus, it netted nine Academy Award nominations, albeit failing to convert any into your actual Oscar statuettes. Which is a shame. It absolutely deserved part of the share. 

Chalamet is the eponymous Marty, Supreme referring to the character's uniquely orange balls - the ping-pong variety - and undoubtedly his oversized ego. Marty is a table-tennis prodigy and inveterate hustler in 1950s New York, the mean and gritty Lower East Side, to be specific. Working in his uncle's shoe store would be the safe way forward, but our boy has dreams of international sporting glory and will stop at nothing - legal or otherwise - to realise them. That's regardless of whatever wreckage he leaves strewn in his wake.

Director Josh Safdie has form when it comes to morally challenged protagonists, having given us - along with brother Benny - Good Time and Uncut Gems, stress-inducing tales of bad choices and the escalating chaos they create. This time Josh goes it alone but brings a similarly riotous energy with a new comedic twist. The film has a genuinely boisterous and unhinged quality, due to the utter unpredictability of both plot and lead character along with the camera's controlled freneticism and the tightness of the edit. You might enjoy, but don't expect to relax.

Chalamet plays Marty with shady charisma and outrageous levels of chutzpah - a small-time guy with big dreams, constantly on the make and able to talk himself in and out of trouble with equal speed. His narcissism and disregard for consequences will be a turn-off for some viewers, but there's fascination in just how far he can push his luck before it rebounds on him. And Oscar-hungry Timothée commits impressively to the role as much in his cocky demeanour as his table-tennis skills (apparently he spent even longer practising than he did learning guitar for his recent outing as Bob Dylan). It's another outstanding turn, even if some of Marty's obnoxiousness did seem to rub off on the actor as he promoted the film. We'll forgive him since he's this good.

There's memorable support from Gwyneth Paltrow as a faded Hollywood star seeking a comeback and Odessa A'zion as Marty's friend from childhood, the one potential constant in his chaotic existence. Also, Kevin O'Leary from the US Dragon's Den is great as a repellently smug businessman (funny, that). And if the cast as a whole must orbit around the self-promoting Marty, that's totally the point.  

The movie's star may have pushed it as a tale of single-mindedly pursuing your life's goal, but there's a lot more than that to this raucous fable. Combining a '50s aesthetic with a late 20th century soundtrack (Tears for Fears feature more than once) and contemporary cinematography, this is a tale for the ages. Marty's world is a scramble for survival in a society that rewards ruthlessness and crushes weakness - a bit too recognisable for comfort. Whether you end up condemning Marty's actions or cheering him on (likely a bit of both), the gritty realism of his situation is striking. Good job the ride he and Josh Safdie take us on is so damn entertaining.

Memorable moment: Alternative usage for a ping-pong paddle.

Ed's Verdict: 9.5/10. Exhilarating, exasperating, and sometimes hilarious, Marty Supreme is an American tale that will leave you breathless, however you respond to its dubious hero. And that ping-pong ball does look really cool.

Film Review - The Drama (15)

 Why are you acting like you've never done anything bad?

Take two photogenic young film stars. Cast them as affluent and charming professionals in love and about to get married. Make the best man and maid of honour their respective bffs - smart and witty for purposes of whipsmart repartee - and throw in a generous handful of scene-stealing support characters, plus a bunch of cool needle drops. Warm it all with an elusive and sexy marketing campaign, and serve up what feels like a classic romcom... for around the first fifteen minutes. Then lob in a metaphorical hand grenade that could scarcely cause more damage were it literal, plunging your genial genre pic into a very twenty-first century kind of turmoil. I give you The Drama.

Zendaya and Robert Pattinson play loved-up Emma and Charlie, their journey to the altar truly idyllic prior to an ill-advised game of 'What's the worst thing you've ever done?' For three of the group, the response is of the 'No you didn't...' variety, cue uproarious laughter. Emma's drunken confession, however, leaves her friends stunned and her fiancé reeling. It's a reveal that's teased in the trailer but wisely not spoiled. Suffice to say the bride-to-be's disclosure sends her intended into a psychological spiral, while threatening to derail the wedding. It certainly sends the film's romcom sensibilities careering off the tracks into territory that will test its audience's appetite for dark, potentially triggering comedy.

The fact that The Drama is distributed by independent film company A24 should be the first indication that it's going to subvert - make that incinerate - genre rules. Its set-up has the regulation tropes, albeit with hints of something more off-kilter at work - the film's muted colours, its protagonists' slightly sketchy meet-cute, an uncomfortable discovery regarding the wedding DJ... But none of that prepares for Emma's bombshell. The result is an excruciating wallow in second-hand embarrassment and a grimly funny (depending on personal sense of humour) exploration of how much one person can truly know another. 

The film's provocative subject-matter is grounded by its comely leads, whose chemistry is effortlessly established pre-crisis. Pattinson's deeply human response is the fulcrum on which the 'drama' pivots and is also bloody hilarious (although I'm not sure everyone in my screening shared that opinion), his emotional nose-dive made funnier by Charlie's Brit-out-of-water status. Zendaya provides Emma with necessary empathy, although the story remains sufficiently detached from her to make us doubt along with Charlie what's going on beneath her surface. Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza) is good value as Rachel, Emma's deliciously spiteful maid of honour, and there are great supporting turns, not least from Zoe Winters as an obliviously cheery wedding photographer.

The movie's spikiness is intensified in the edit - sharp as a sushi knife and switching to sometimes disorienting effect between past and present, the real and the imagined. And there's a subtly unsettling quality to the score, one particular recurring motif really putting the audience on edge. It all creates something uniquely uncomfortable, as tension mounts towards a fraught climax.

Writer/director Kristoffer Borgli brings acute observation to The Drama's relationship portrait while posing thorny questions that go way beyond Emma and Charlie's personal calamity. His film is edgy, satirical, and thematically daring, and will disturb many - understandably so - even while entertaining others. If you like movies that stirs up heated discussion by going where mainstream entertainment fears to tread, however, this one is not to be missed.

Memorable Moment: Emma and Charlie's warm-up photoshoot.

Ed's Verdict: 8/10. It made me laugh, it made me cringe, it made me think. Troubling and compelling, even while it made me choke with laughter, this is one that's going to stick with me all year.

Top 20 Films of 2025

When it all comes together and you make a good movie, it's good forever; Patty Leigh

She's not wrong, movie producer Patty Leigh, as played by Katherine O'Hara in Apple TV's scabrously funny Hollywood satire The Studio. Even in this era of death-flogged franchises, film-creation by committee, and generic streaming service slop, good movies still get made. A lot of them - in Tinseltown itself, and far beyond it. For anyone who claims, "They don't make them like that anymore," when The Great Escape has its annual Christmas airing on terrestrial TV, my answer is, "No, but they make them like this, and this, and - look - this!" There are more quality filmmakers out there making more quality films than ever before - pushing boundaries, taking risks, developing the medium with amazing work. You just have to be alert to it. 

True, all the cinema sins catalogued in The Studio were exhibited in a theatre near you during the past twelve months, but so was the good stuff, or some of it. The rest you might have to track down on one of innumerable streaming platforms. Still - while cinemas themselves may continue staggering through one battle after another, films are being crafted with love world over, wherever we get to view them. Their creators are drawing on 125 years of accumulated artistry to tell stories that relate to today and that can speak to or just plain entertain us, if only we give them the time.

So here are my favourite films of the year, crammed messily into a top twenty ranking that even I can't take too seriously - except to say the one in the top spot really is my number one. All list entries were released in the UK during 2025, which explains why certain 2024 productions have made the list while films such as Hamnet and Nouvelle Vague aren't even up for consideration. (Not least because I haven't seen them.)

Enough preamble. Let's get listing.

20. The Lost Bus

How this film almost sneaked under my radar I'm not sure. Recounting the true story of a bus driver's attempts to rescue a class of elementary school kids from the wildfire that ravaged Paradise, California in November 2018, The Lost Bus is reminiscent of the peril and everyday heroism of 2010's runaway train drama Unstoppable. While character elements are fictionalised, the depiction of the relentless blaze is authentic - terrifyingly so. Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera are both good as the driver and teacher thrown together by dire circumstance, but key to the movie's success is director Paul Greengrass, who brings nerve-shredding verisimilitude to every shot of the fire on its rampage. Not a horror film, but a very real kind of scary.

19. Nosferatu

Nosferatu IS a horror film, and who better to remake F. W. Murnau's silent era Dracula classic than Robert Eggers, whose films explore the most grotesque aspects of history and folklore. Eggers' grand period settings are steeped in shadow and saturated with dread, and he draws satisfyingly ripe performances from a cast including Willem Dafoe, Nicholas Hoult, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. It's Bill Skarsgard and Lily-Rose Depp who you'll remember though, the former imbuing Count Orlok (Dracula in all but name) with charismatic menace, while the latter delivers a shattering physical performance as the object of his obsession. Top marks to the make-up department also, for its properly freakish vampire design.

18. The Girl with the Needle

There's a definite Robert Eggers feel to this Gothic drama from Denmark, not least in its grimly gorgeous black and white visuals. The Girl with the Needle explores a deeply disturbing incident from Danish history, the most hair-raising details of which a quick Google search will confirm. Set in post-WW1 Copenhagen, the story centres on Karoline, a factory worker with a ruthlessly pragmatic approach to survival, who ultimately accepts an offer of help from shopkeeper Dagmar. Her new friend's altruism, however, belies a shockingly dark secret. More than simply share a macabre anecdote from history with its audience, this film portrays an environment of grinding poverty and despair that pushes desperate people to measures that match. It's fascinating, immersive, and as bleak in every shot as it's beautiful.

17. Superman

From black and white despair to primary coloured hope. Superman is the first film in the new DCU and carries considerable DNA from Richard Donner's 1978 classic version of the story. While not as bumbling as Christopher Reeve in the Clark Kent part of the role, David Corenswet has much of the same boy-scout charm, and the movie as a whole replaces the forbidding air of the Henry Cavill/Man of Steel era with comic-book exuberance and heart. With Superman and other such 'metahumans' already established on Earth, director and DCU overseer James Gunn plunges us unapologetically into this world of gods and monsters, letting a scrappy, ill-behaved dog named Krypto steal half the scenes. Happily the other half are shared out between a talented cast, not least of which is Nicholas Hoult as an almost relatable Lex Luthor. DC studios are embracing a Gunn kind of fun, and the results - so far - are irresistible. 

16. A House of Dynamite

Ever seen Sidney Lumet's Fail Safe? Released in 1964, the same year as Dr Strangelove and dealing with the same apocalyptic possibilities, it struck the fear of God and nuclear weaponry into anyone who saw it. While 2023's Oppenheimer reminded us of the militaristic plight into which the human race has got itself, it's been a while since the terror of an imminent nuclear strike has been portrayed on screen. A House of Dynamite summons up the same sweaty, hand-wringing tension as Fail Safe, as it depicts the same twenty minutes between the launch of an unattributed missile and its feared impact on a US city from multiple viewpoints. The story of this seismic event is told through a host of characters, political or military, trying to sublimate all personal emotion and operate professionally under insane pressure. It's an intense, deeply unsettling watch, directed with characteristic control by Katheryn Bigelow. And its ending, while divisive, might just be perfect. 

15. F1

From the writers and director who brought you Top Gun: Maverick, here are high-speed thrills at ground-level. F1 revamps old-school storytelling with state-of-the-art filming techniques to bring the most exhilarating blockbuster of last summer. Brad Pitt supplies star power this time as the veteran rule-breaker lured back into the racing game, becoming rival-cum-mentor to Damson Idris's cocky young pretender. Heads will butt, egos will bruise, setbacks will abound - but determination and team spirit will win through. It's corniness on wheels but so sleek and stylish and adrenalised with its practical stunt-driving and pov camerawork that you'll sit back and enjoy the 230mph ride. Meanwhile, Javier Bardem wears the sharpest suits ever tailored, while Kerry Condon reins in the boys' egos and gets it on with Brad. Nice going for a girl from Tipperary!

14. Bring Her Back

In 2022, one-time YouTube pranksters Danny and Michael Philippou revamped the possession horror with their memorably gnarly film Talk to Me. Three years on, and they've continued the subversion of occult tropes with the even darker Bring Her Back. Kicking off with the arrival of orphaned siblings at the home of new foster mother Laura (Sally Hawkins), it veers steadily into ever more troubling territory as Laura's true intentions and the identity of her other foster - the mutely creepy Oliver - become clear. The film's young newcomers are all excellent, and Hawkins is a multi-faceted revelation. (She wasn't this scary when she took in Paddington!) As for the Aussie director-brothers, they learned a thing or two when they worked on The Babadook over a decade ago, and it shows. Prepare to be disturbed.

13. Bugonia

Likewise disturbing, albeit quite a bit funnier, is Bugonia, the latest mind-melter from Yorgos 'Poor Things' Lanthimos. Collaborating with Emma Stone for the fourth time, he adapts the existing story of a steely CEO (Stone) kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists (or one conspiracy theorist and his hapless disciple) who believe her to be an alien intent on wiping out the human race. What ensues is an intense psychological battle and clash of world-views - hilarious at points and butt-clenchingly uncomfortable at others. The setting is real-world as opposed to Poor Things' theatricality, but the camerawork and soundtrack never let you forget that something really bloody weird is going on. As for the ending, it's another divisive one - but if you love it, you'll really love it.  

12. Frankenstein

If your preference is for a more classic form of science fiction, or horror for that matter, then look no further than Guillermo del Toro's passion project (another of them - this director always commits 100%) Frankenstein. The Mexican auteur embraces the spirit of Mary Shelley's iconic tale if allowing himself some licence with the plot, zeroing in on Victor Frankenstein's hubris and the tragedy of his creation's abandonment. Del Toro also lavishes the entire project with his signature design, achieving the most spectacularly Gothic version of the story since Boris Karloff strapped his platform boots on to play the Monster. Every shot - including the horrific ones - is a work of art, and the Creature design is weirdly beautiful. Or maybe it's just impossible to make Jacob Elordi look hideous. While maybe not my favourite GdT title, this is still a stunning and endlessly rewatchable piece of cinema.

11. I Swear

Some films are a different kind of special. Aside from the craft involved - or indeed because of it - they feel like they might just change lives. Such a film is I Swear - written and directed by Kirk Jones (of, surprisingly, Waking Ned and Nanny McPhee fame) and telling the real-life story of Tourette's sufferer/survivor/educator John Davidson. Wrestling with the condition's onset during the 1980s when few knew what Tourette's syndrome was, he ran a gauntlet of misunderstanding, ridicule, and physical abuse before meeting people empathetic enough to see past the tics and the swearing to the intelligent and funny individual beneath. Swiftly ascending star Robert Aramayo smashes the lead role, while Maxine Peake and Peter Mullan bring heart-warming support in a story that's hilarious and poignant by turns, but too tough to be sentimental. The result is one of the year's most life-affirming theatrical outings.

10. Black Bag

Don't be fooled by the presence of Pierce Brosnan in this film. Black Bag is espionage with all the shoot-outs and car chases stripped away. It's much more akin to the Cold War stories of John Le Carré. Directed by the prolific and genre-hopping Steven Soderburgh, however, it's sleek and sexy and streamlined, driven by wittily dangerous dialogue and coming in at a compact 90 minutes. At its centre are glamorous spy-couple Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett, the former of whom is tasked with identifying the traitor within a small group of associates, one of whom is his beloved wife. What follows is a devilish and tightly plotted game of truth and lies, including one exquisite sequence of friends at dinner with a truth drug in the chana masala. Contender for classiest film of the year.

9. Thunderbolts*

2025 was a year in which the Marvel Cinematic Universe course-corrected. February saw the hotchpotch by committee that was Captain America: Brave New World, but subsequent months gave us two properly conceived, tightly constructed offerings that set things on a much stronger footing. While I enjoyed The Fantastic Four: First Steps' retro-futurist production design and breezy tone, Thunderbolts* (if you don't know what the asterisk in the title signifies by now, you probably don't care) was my favourite Marvel movie of the year. Its tale of antiheroic misfits bonding in time to save New York from an existential terror turned out to be all about issues of mental health and overcoming trauma. Yet it still managed to be genuinely funny and properly thrilling. Add to that, it opted for practical effects over CGI at every turn and told a satisfyingly cohesive story. A more grounded version of the MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy, I'd like to hang out with this bunch again.

8. The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Here's a different kind of cinematic marvel  - apologies for the pun. The story behind this film serves to heighten respect for the storytelling on screen, making it all the more compelling. Secretly filmed on location in Iran, The Seed of the Sacred Fig caused an uproar in its native land when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, dealing as it does with the 'Women, Life, Freedom' protests of 2022. The crew were reportedly taken into custody and questioned for hours, while director Mohammad Rasoulof fled the country, taking refuge in Europe, to avoid incarceration. His offending film centres on the daughters of a newly appointed judge in Tehran's Revolutionary Court who find themselves at odds with their father over the growing protests. Incorporating social media footage of the protesters and their often brutal suppression, this film shouldn't just be watched because it's worthy - it's one of the most gripping and painfully authentic family dramas from last year. (Likewise my no. 6.)

7. One Battle After Another

Here it is - everyone's front-runner for Best Picture at Oscars '26 and the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson, creator of awesome films like Magnolia and There Will Be Blood. And while I don't love One Battle After Another as much as some (at least not after a first watch), it's still formidably good, worthy of its predicted Academy Awards. Its subject of left-wing American revolutionaries pitted against an authoritarian regime has come at a politically fraught time, sparking much culture-war controversy. Maybe it's best, however, to set all that aside and focus on the central plot of Leonardo DiCaprio's pot-frazzled ex-resistance fighter trying to rescue his daughter (a revelatory first-time film performance by Chase Infinity) from Sean Penn's vengeful military colonel. That and the dazzling VistaVision cinematography, Johnny Greenwood's consistently inventive score, and some bravura action sequences the like of which you've never seen before. As ever with PTA, it's for those who admire true cinematic ambition.

6. I'm Still Here

While I loved Mikey Madison's Best Actress win for Anora at last year's Oscars, there was a strong case for Fernanda Torres as the indomitable matriarch in biographical family drama I'm Still Here. Based on a 2015 memoir, the film charts the journey of Eunice Paiva from mother to activist when, in 1971 her husband was taken by Brazil's then military dictatorship never to be seen again. What begins as a terrifying story of life under an unforgiving and unpredictable regime transforms over two hours into a moving story of familial bonds and mutual support. Torres is at the heart of the movie's success, convincingly ageing decades while conveying love, grief, and strength of will with understatement and complete authenticity. It's a story of heartbreak and beauty that despite the grimness of its subject-matter is ultimately uplifting.

5. Train Dreams

With Netflix currently negotiating purchase of the Warner Bros studio, it's reassuring to know that despite the frequent blandness of their original film output, they can also get behind quality. A House of Dynamite and Frankenstein I've already mentioned, but Train Dreams is arguably the most visually ravishing film of 2025, with a moving story of love and loss to match. Joel Edgerton is a railroad worker and logger, toughing out life in the early 20th century Pacific Northwest of America. It's an unremarkable life in a time of remarkable change, but the camera captures the man's stoicism through hardship, sorrow, and joy with a frame by frame sense of screen poetry. It searches, in fact, for meaning within the limits of this man's existence, along with a tender narration by actor Will Patton. All that this movie lacked was a widespread theatrical release to properly showcase its rapturous beauty. If Netflix does win the battle for Warner Bros, let's hope they seriously rethink their strategy and allow the likes of Train Dreams proper cinema time.

4. A Complete Unknown

Okay - as a Bob Dylan fan, I'd probably have put this film in my list had it been half as good. But since Walk the Line director James Mangold did such a fine job of recreating the enigmatic troubadour's early career, it's vying for a top spot. Don't listen to anyone who tells you this is a by-the-numbers biopic, because - (1) it's an immersion in the New York music scene of the 1960s, (2) it limits itself to Dylan's early folksinging era and his controversial transition into rock, (3) it therefore centres on themes of artistic licence and perceived betrayal, rather than presenting a beat-by-beat life story. The same critics may well tell you that the film doesn't help you understand Bob any better, to which I say, "Ehhh - clue's in the title." All that aside, this is a music film for music lovers, with Timothée Chalamet inhabiting the lead role and his acting cohorts similarly nailing their turns as Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Johnny Cash. We can't travel back to that time and place, but for those of us who'd like to, A Complete Unknown is quite the consolation prize.

3. Weapons

Zach Cregger's 2022 film Barbarian was perhaps the most suspenseful and narratively inventive horror flick of the year. It was also the director's debut horror feature, and he's followed it up quite masterfully with Weapons. The basic premise is there on the poster - a class-ful of inexplicably vanished schoolchildren. Suspicion falls on the teacher, the town flips out with paranoia, so far so freaky. But then the film's structure becomes apparent - multiple overlapping chapters, each with a unique character viewpoint, so that we piece together the awful truth a little at a time until finally everything locks into place. And by that time, the movie has gone truly batshit insane. It's unsettling, nightmarish, and - at points - darkly hilarious. It also showcases great work from Josh Brolin, Ozark's Julia Garner, and a clutch of others, including one turn that vies with Sally Hawkins for Horror Performance of the Year. If you like genre cinema that subverts all the clichés, this one's for you.

2. The Ballad of Wallis Island

Here's an exquisitely wrought little gem of a film - as funny as it is melancholy, as heart-warming as it is cringe-inducing. Expanded by writers (and lead actors) Tim Key and Tom Basden from their 2007 short, it centres on a reclusive, accidental millionaire who makes the questionable decision to invite his favourite folk duo to his island home to play a private concert. This despite the fact that they have broken up professionally and romantically, and neither knows that the other will be there. Key is priceless as benign borderline-stalker Charles, an unstinting torrent of apologies and puns. Meanwhile, both Basden and Carey Mulligan impress as the one-time folk partners, feeling and sounding like the real deal, even as they cope with Charles' eccentricities and the awkwardness of the situation into which they've unwittingly landed. The Ballad of Wallis Island is a deliciously happy-sad treat of a film and almost my favourite of last year...

1. Sinners

How to describe Sinners? It's a captivating drama of entrepreneurial brothers in racist, Depression-era Mississippi. A musical odyssey through Delta blues, gospel, bluegrass, and Irish folk. An erotically charged double romance. A retelling of the Robert Johnson Devil-at-the-crossroads myth. And yes - a blood-soaked vampire horror film. There are scores of reasons to love writer/director Ryan Coogler's most recent film. Here's a few. The genre-blending originality of the screenplay. Autumn Durald Arkapaw's brooding cinematography. An evocative, rootsy score by Ludwig Goransson. Michael B. Jordan's expertly calibrated dual-performance as the Smokestack Brothers. The depth of the supporting cast, not least Delroy Lindo's ageing bluesman and Jack O'Connell's creepily charismatic chief villain. Newcomer Miles Caton's otherworldly vocals. The single most audacious movie sequence of the year. Style. Sexiness. Suspense. Hoodoo. Gore. Dancing. TUNES. Sinners is a thematically rich and constantly surprising tour de force that looks as good as it sounds as good as it feels. And that's why it has the top spot on my films of 2025.  

What's left to say? Simply the fact that there are multiple films making me second-guess the above list. How Warfare or A Real Pain, or Stephen King double-bill The Long Walk and The Life of Chuck didn't make it on all seems wrong. What about Wicked: For Good and Ballerina? Companion and Predator: Badlands? September 5 and Flow? Point is, the impossibility of creating a definitive list is a good sign. Modern cinema, for all the valid criticisms levelled at it, is still thriving and innovating and evolving. As with any entertainment form, there's be a lot that's throwaway and forgettable. And among it, there'll be gold. Maybe even a rush of the stuff.

Happy New Year, and Happy Watching. 🍻🎦

(Addendum - shortly after finalising this list, I saw Marty Supreme, which had a limited UK release on Boxing Day but only opened nationwide on New Year. It would have stormed the upper half of this list. Guess I'll just have to review it separately.)

Film Review - Twisters (12A)

 You don't face your fears. You ride 'em.

Was there ever a more '90s film than Twister? The 1996 summer spectacular ushered in a new generation of CGI-enhanced disaster movies, none of which quite matched its blend of fun characters, environmental mayhem, and patently daft, seat-of-the-pants action. Well, twenty-eight years have passed (sorry to break the news, y'all) and it's time to revisit the Twister universe - if not it's characters, most certainly its spirit. 

(The 1996 crew.)

There's no direct reference in Twisters to the characters played by Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt et al, just all manner of visual ones. This is without doubt the same storytelling universe. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kate, a college-grad and one-time stormchaser, who ceased her pursuit of bad-weather systems after she tangled with the wrong tornado. Now she's lured back into that world by old pal Javi (Anthony Ramos) in the name of using science to tame twisters before they devastate further Deep South communities. Her methods are challenged by self-styled 'tornado wrangler' and YouTuber Tyler (Glen Powell) and his fellow mavericks, right as storm season descends on Oklahoma. It's going to get a wee bit windy.

The question that occurs with such a film release is Why now, after all this time? In answer, comes a groundswell of affection for the original from the movie geek regions of the internet. Twister mightn't have been a great film, but it's one that inspires a whole lot of fondness from a generation of cinema-goers. Its pluralised spiritual sequel makes the smart move of not breaking what didn't need fixing. Twisters takes the awesome spectacle and warm character dynamics of 1996 and adds just enough of its own meteorological spin to make the whole enterprise worthwhile. In some aspects it's arguably better.

The unlikely-seeming director is Lee Isaac Chung, best known for 2020 migrant story Minari. He takes the beautiful visuals and intimate character details of that Oscar-nominated indy film and applies them here, providing significantly more beauty and heart than you might reasonably expect this popcorn sequel to have. There's also a near-seamless combining of computerised and practical effects, including scenes of post-tornado devastation that might come straight from the news. (One subplot alludes to the economics of what might be termed the disaster industry, even if it doesn't attack that subject with real teeth.) And the Oklahoma setting is underscored throughout by a rocking-good country soundtrack. This film really knows where it's taking place.

Powering the story along with wind machines and great production is an extended cast who really sell the thrills and the jeopardy. Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People, Where the Crawdads Sing) earths the story emotionally as the trauma-wrangling, heroic Kate, while Glen Powell lassos multiple scenes as Stetson-topped glory-hunter Tyler, a guy you'd probably hate if he wasn't so damn charming. They're backed up by a band of lively, ragtag support, including a trepidatious British reporter from a hilariously specific part of London who's along for the wild ride.

Ultimately, Twisters is the kind of unifying experience that the contemporary box-office needs. It's an outlandish story written with a smartness and played with a conviction that undercut its most ludicrous elements, making the audience care whether or not its characters make it to the end without being spun off into oblivion. As a throwback to 90s disaster flicks it succeeds, capturing the awe and the terror, while amping things up with some 2024 rising-star power. It's quality B-movie entertainment, so grip those big-screen arm rests and enjoy.

Memorable Moment: What's playing at the movie theatre? A ruddy great windstorm!

Ed's Verdict: 8/10. Not just a nostalgia-fest, although there's plenty of that. Twisters is what summer blockbusters are supposed to be - big fun, and not nearly as dumb as you might expect!

2023 Film Review: Till (12A)

 Now I want America to bear witness.

Gist: In August of 1955 a 14-year-old African American lad named Emmett Till left his home in Chicago to visit relatives in Mississippi. It was the final time his mother Mamie Till-Mobley would see him alive. While in the Delta, young Emmett died at the hands of a lynch mob, having been accused by a white woman of inappropriate advances. Till is the story of Mamie's efforts to achieve justice in the aftermath of her son's vicious torture and murder, a struggle that would act as a major catalyst for the US Civil Rights movement.

Juice: This film is a compelling watch and a difficult one, as, realistically, it should be. It only alludes to the central act of violence, but lingers on the consequences - both the emotional devastation wrought by Emmett's death and the appalling image of the boy's body that his mother shared with the world's news outlets. It's a tough and unflinching drama that doesn't seek a way to soften the black American experience in that era. At its heart (and wrenching those of the audience) is a performance by Danielle Deadwyler that's nothing short of extraordinary. She portrays a mother's love and grief, for sure, but also a fierce, controlled rage and steely courage as the story progresses, the camera fixing on her and refusing to cut away in protracted moments of intensity. 

Nor is hers the only noteworthy talent on show. Nigerian-born director Chinonye Chukwu makes some striking decisions, not least to have the film shot in vivid colour, giving it the warmth of a Normal Rockwell painting at odds with the ordeal endured by the protagonist and her extended family. She also keeps the story's racist tormentors shoved to the periphery, focusing instead on both the grief and the endurance of its black characters, and aided all the while by the elegiac depth of Abel Korzenioski's score. The support performances are strong too, not least that of Jalyn Hall, who with limited screen time invests the precocious Emmett with a naive likability that only rubs salt into the story's emotional wounds.

Judgement: 9/10. Co-written by Keith Beauchamp, director of a 2005 documentary on Emmett's murder, Till is a terrifically made film underpinned by a sense of authority and carried home by Deadwyler's remarkable performance. That the Academy failed to nominate its lead for a Best Actress Oscar this week suggests that many of its members simply haven't seen the film, resulting in one egregious oversight. Till is one of those movies that once seen may prove too painful for a rewatch. But its ongoing relevance, its accomplished direction, and that frankly astonishing central turn deserve your time. They'll certainly have your attention.

2022 Catch-up: The Wonder (15)

 I live on manna. From Heaven.

Gist: In post-Famine rural Ireland a girl named Anna O'Donnell has seemingly gone four weeks without eating, yet without starving. Enter Florence Pugh as Elizabeth Wright, an English nurse come from the Crimean War and summoned to Ireland specifically so she can observe young Anna. Locals are calling the girl's condition a miracle, but Elizabeth, along with London reporter (Tom Burke) originally from the locality, are understandably skeptical. The truth behind the fasting girl's situation, however, may prove more haunting than either believers or dissenters could fathom.

Juice: Based on Emma Donoghue's 2016 novel, The Wonder is a film where characters clash on multiple fronts, the lines of division either explicit or merely implied. Faith versus science, Irish versus English, community patriarchs versus a female outsider - relations are complex and strained, with slim chance of common ground as the odd and secretive Anna's fate plays out. It's a finely tuned screenplay, with input from both director Sebastian Lelio and Succession writer Alice Birch, who supplied lines for Pugh in the equally bleak and windswept Lady Macbeth. 

For all the cross-currents of conflict, this is a dramatic slow-burn. Lelio is restrained in his direction, letting the story get its hooks in elsewhere. Like in the austere, perfectly lit cinematography of Ari Wegner (The Power of the Dog and - again - Lady Macbeth) and Matthew Herbert's creepily mesmerising score with its evocative, unsettling female vocals that insinuate their way right under your skin. Pugh is - no big shock - terrific, gradually exposing depths of empathy under a brittle exterior. Her chemistry with the amiably cynical Burke is a welcome counterpoint to the grimness elsewhere, and the support cast, including Ciaran Hinds and Toby Jones (he gets everywhere these days), provide additional weight. But it's relative newcomer Kila Lord Cassidy who gives the other standout performance as Anna, embodying the peculiar, otherworldly girl with enough humanity to get you fully invested in her increasingly precarious fate.

Judgement: 8/10. The Wonder deals, among other things, with the stories we tell ourselves to explain the inexplicable, the heartbreaking, or the just plain scary. That helps explain the film's strange third-wall-break framing, and just maybe the events of the final act, where all that simmering emotion pays off in ways you won't necessarily expect. While presenting a very different mystery from fellow period drama The Pale Blue Eye, it could work well as a companion piece, with both movies' chilliness - environmental and otherwise - ultimately countered by the intensity of complex human passions. At any rate, it's a lovingly crafted and affecting tale, with a further knockout turn from unstoppable Florence. Yet she's only one one of many reasons behind the film's stealthily creeping power.