Roderick Heath
@roderickheath.bsky.social
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"Privilege and Edvard Munch prove engaged with the same essential point of enquiry: the idea of the artist as a barometer of their moment in history..." - I look at two Peter Watkins classics at Film Freedonia:
filmfreedonia.com/2025/06/06/p...
filmfreedonia.com/2025/06/06/p...
Viewing: James Cameron's Avatar: Fire and Ash. The best of the three to date; a little repetition here and there, but also great melodrama beats, good new twists, batshit energy in the action scenes; Oona Chaplin owns.
December 22, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Viewing: James Cameron's Avatar: Fire and Ash. The best of the three to date; a little repetition here and there, but also great melodrama beats, good new twists, batshit energy in the action scenes; Oona Chaplin owns.
Viewing: Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine. I can see why this wasn't popular but it's quite good. Blunt steals a movie off ballyhooed male lead for umpteenth time.
December 21, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Viewing: Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine. I can see why this wasn't popular but it's quite good. Blunt steals a movie off ballyhooed male lead for umpteenth time.
Leslie Halliwell told an anecdote about a newspaper that ran a competition for Shakespeare-like verse reviews of Olivier's Hamlet, which was produced of course by Rank, but they forbade anyone from using, "O, this offence is Rank."
December 20, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Leslie Halliwell told an anecdote about a newspaper that ran a competition for Shakespeare-like verse reviews of Olivier's Hamlet, which was produced of course by Rank, but they forbade anyone from using, "O, this offence is Rank."
By interesting, I mean early on I thought Zhao was going for something almost Ken Russell-esque, mixing hard realism with a symbolic approach to artist bio - moving from folk-oral culture represented by Agnes to dramatic-urban-commercial culture, represented by Will...
Viewing: Chloe Zhao's Hamnet. Good-looking, initially intriguing, proves radically empty. Give it one more bellowing sob for Britain there, Jessie.
December 20, 2025 at 4:15 PM
By interesting, I mean early on I thought Zhao was going for something almost Ken Russell-esque, mixing hard realism with a symbolic approach to artist bio - moving from folk-oral culture represented by Agnes to dramatic-urban-commercial culture, represented by Will...
Viewing: Chloe Zhao's Hamnet. Good-looking, initially intriguing, proves radically empty. Give it one more bellowing sob for Britain there, Jessie.
December 20, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Viewing: Chloe Zhao's Hamnet. Good-looking, initially intriguing, proves radically empty. Give it one more bellowing sob for Britain there, Jessie.
Tired: Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
Inspired: All post-Leone action movies are Jesus flicks.
Inspired: All post-Leone action movies are Jesus flicks.
December 18, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Tired: Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
Inspired: All post-Leone action movies are Jesus flicks.
Inspired: All post-Leone action movies are Jesus flicks.
Viewing: Jalmari Helander's Sisu: Road To Revenge. This really hit the spot for my mood, although it's certainly not as good as the first - it lacked the original's strong side characters, and all those bloody jump cuts betrayed a director already tiring of his own shtick.
December 18, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Viewing: Jalmari Helander's Sisu: Road To Revenge. This really hit the spot for my mood, although it's certainly not as good as the first - it lacked the original's strong side characters, and all those bloody jump cuts betrayed a director already tiring of his own shtick.
Viewing: Celine Song's Materialists. This one tends to get hard yays or hard nays; I'm ... nayay? Had moments, was best when being serious, and nice performances, but also felt like a barely revised and transposed theatre piece with often painfully arch dialogue.
December 17, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Viewing: Celine Song's Materialists. This one tends to get hard yays or hard nays; I'm ... nayay? Had moments, was best when being serious, and nice performances, but also felt like a barely revised and transposed theatre piece with often painfully arch dialogue.
...Vale Gil Gerard. He and my father costarred in a TV movie in 1990. Well, dad had a bit part because this was filmed down the road from our town. That's him running down the path towards the camera and inside at 4:53. Gil turns up later.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2PO...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2PO...
E.A.R.T.H. Force Pilot Movie - Part 1 / 6
YouTube video by MrsMacTaylor
www.youtube.com
December 17, 2025 at 10:23 AM
...Vale Gil Gerard. He and my father costarred in a TV movie in 1990. Well, dad had a bit part because this was filmed down the road from our town. That's him running down the path towards the camera and inside at 4:53. Gil turns up later.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2PO...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2PO...
Viewing: Óliver Laxe's Sirat. My god, these dipshits.
December 16, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Viewing: Óliver Laxe's Sirat. My god, these dipshits.
Mainstream movies are of course a popular art form with only limited scope for delving, but in the past year I feel like I've watched quite a few movies that seek congratulations for tackling "big" themes but then suffer cold feet, if not outright intellectual cowardice.
December 16, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Mainstream movies are of course a popular art form with only limited scope for delving, but in the past year I feel like I've watched quite a few movies that seek congratulations for tackling "big" themes but then suffer cold feet, if not outright intellectual cowardice.
Watching a parade of right-wing creeps eagerly dashing in to make political capital out of the Bondi shootings is perfectly loathsome. Beyond loathsome, reaching into a negative universe of sleaze and shamelessness.
December 16, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Watching a parade of right-wing creeps eagerly dashing in to make political capital out of the Bondi shootings is perfectly loathsome. Beyond loathsome, reaching into a negative universe of sleaze and shamelessness.
Viewing: Jon M. Chu's Wicked: For Good. How the hell do you spend that much money on a movie musical and have musical staging that lifeless?
December 15, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Viewing: Jon M. Chu's Wicked: For Good. How the hell do you spend that much money on a movie musical and have musical staging that lifeless?
You gotta be fucking kidding me.
December 15, 2025 at 4:56 AM
You gotta be fucking kidding me.
Viewing: Rob Reiner's Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. I got about a half-dozen much-needed laughs from this, so I'll call it better than expected.
December 14, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Viewing: Rob Reiner's Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. I got about a half-dozen much-needed laughs from this, so I'll call it better than expected.
Viewing: Rian Johnson's Wake Up Dead Man. An improvement on Glass Onion, but not that much. Outstayed its welcome, the mystery got a bit torturous this time; the satirical asides tired; the faith aspect a bit corny and schematic. O'Connor really good.
December 14, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Viewing: Rian Johnson's Wake Up Dead Man. An improvement on Glass Onion, but not that much. Outstayed its welcome, the mystery got a bit torturous this time; the satirical asides tired; the faith aspect a bit corny and schematic. O'Connor really good.
There's a sickness seeping into the blood of the world again, where neighbour kills neighbour, and we aren't immune.
December 14, 2025 at 11:56 AM
There's a sickness seeping into the blood of the world again, where neighbour kills neighbour, and we aren't immune.
Viewing: Lucile Hadzihalilovic's The Ice Tower. A really excellent film, and one that reminded me of Vampyros Lesbos more than I was expecting.
December 13, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Viewing: Lucile Hadzihalilovic's The Ice Tower. A really excellent film, and one that reminded me of Vampyros Lesbos more than I was expecting.
Actually I'm not bewildered at all. It's bristling, immoderate, garish, frantic. It throws ideas, images, gags around with careless gusto until reality breaks. It's as un-Nolan-ish as contemporary big budget moviemaking can get.
Viewing: Edgar Wright's The Running Man. The mixture of tones in this didn't always cohere, and it was a bit overlong. But I also generally found it a blast, littered with Wright-isms, and I'm highly bewildered by the vicious reception.
December 12, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Actually I'm not bewildered at all. It's bristling, immoderate, garish, frantic. It throws ideas, images, gags around with careless gusto until reality breaks. It's as un-Nolan-ish as contemporary big budget moviemaking can get.
Viewing: Edgar Wright's The Running Man. The mixture of tones in this didn't always cohere, and it was a bit overlong. But I also generally found it a blast, littered with Wright-isms, and I'm highly bewildered by the vicious reception.
December 12, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Viewing: Edgar Wright's The Running Man. The mixture of tones in this didn't always cohere, and it was a bit overlong. But I also generally found it a blast, littered with Wright-isms, and I'm highly bewildered by the vicious reception.
Ana de Armas in Eden is still my favourite performance of the year. A perfect meta study in the black hole suction of star power.
December 11, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Ana de Armas in Eden is still my favourite performance of the year. A perfect meta study in the black hole suction of star power.
Viewing: Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value. This didn't seem to know what it wanted to be so settled for being warmed-over Bergman. Trier only ever goes so deep and no further, and no number of pretty framings helps.
December 11, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Viewing: Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value. This didn't seem to know what it wanted to be so settled for being warmed-over Bergman. Trier only ever goes so deep and no further, and no number of pretty framings helps.
Viewing: Dan Trachtenberg's Predator: Badlands. Generally really liked this and would happily anoint it the best entry since Predator 2, even if Trachtenberg isn't the greatest shooter of action in the world.
December 11, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Viewing: Dan Trachtenberg's Predator: Badlands. Generally really liked this and would happily anoint it the best entry since Predator 2, even if Trachtenberg isn't the greatest shooter of action in the world.
Piracy on the high seas now. Oh, very chic.
December 11, 2025 at 4:41 AM
Piracy on the high seas now. Oh, very chic.
Viewing: Aleksey German Jr's Air. Very understandable no-one's in the mood to watch a Russian war movie at the moment, but this is really good.
December 10, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Viewing: Aleksey German Jr's Air. Very understandable no-one's in the mood to watch a Russian war movie at the moment, but this is really good.