A Real Pain: despite the quite high cringe/awkward levels, I really enjoyed this. Both leads were superb, and it features the most devastating and brutal delivery of the line “Bye David” in the history of modern cinema.

Great article. As well as this horrifyingly accurate snippet, there is also some useful, practical advice.

Side note: @curzoncinemas.bsky.social Sheffield is a gorgeous cinema!

We Live in Time: “So, we’ve got a decent-ish romantic comedy drama, but it’s frightfully smug and middle class, lacking in edge and the characters are borderline insufferable. What do we do?”

“Umm, how about a daft non-linear structure to emphasise how clever we think we are?”

“Perfect.”

Conclave: I really did not expect to enjoy a film about the pantomime of a papal conclave so much. It looked and sounded magnificent, Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci were brilliant, the plot and script flawless. Go see it.

Anora: it feels wrong to say I enjoyed it, just as it felt wrong to laugh at some of the farcical scenes which were really pretty dark. Mikey Madison brilliant in the title role, and a really strong supporting cast too. Recommended.

I don’t remember the 80s bingo-based gameshow Bob’s Full House being especially treacherous… #thetraitors

This seems like a good enough way to start posting here…

Merry Christmas!