Oliver Battershall

Chinatown (1974) 5/5
This feels like an appropriate time to dish out my first 5-star review since January (excluding rewatches). I’d wanted my first experience of this film to be a proper one so when I saw it on Blu-ray in Fopp I seized the chance and put it on the same night. What an experience. This film wined and dined me with its sumptuous visuals, then gave me a sobering slap round the face with up close and personal handheld shots and an unravelling mystery that kept my heart racing. Nicholson is magical, he somehow looks ten times cooler with a massive nose bandage on. The costumes, the sly dialogue, the score, the crescendo of suspicion, all so delicious and engrossing. The kind of film that when the credits roll you just sit there digesting it all.

The Naked Gun (2025) 4.5/5
A triumphant return to form for Daft Laugh cinema. Eclipses the original I think! Maybe I should’ve waited for a busier weekend screening because no one was laughing as loud as me, but I just had a real itch to see this before work. I’ve never been bothered about celebrity couples but I’m fully invested in Neeson and Anderson being an actual item now, they need to stay together otherwise love is a sham.

BlackBerry (2023) 4/5
Matt Johnson is one of my favourite directors to have emerged in the last 15 or so years. His understanding of tension building combined with great dialogue, a charming handheld visual style and splashes of comedy makes for such entertaining viewing. Like any good filmmaker he nails the basics then adds a bit extra. This was great fun, Howerton is a gem and steals the show as expected.

It Follows (2014) 4.5/5
The worst and scariest kind of pain in life is the kind that no one else can experience or understand except you. Some of the best horror movies tap into the paranoia that this brings, the feeling of being trapped in an invisible prison helplessly awaiting your fate. David Robert Mitchell explores this with one of the best horror concepts I’ve ever seen. A concept so engrossing you can’t resist putting yourself in the shoes of the characters. Especially true if you watched this in a pitch black living room and could’ve sworn you heard footsteps in the back garden…hypothetically. I wish the praise for this and (especially) Under the Silver Lake was more universal, they just don’t get you like I get you David. Yes some of the movie’s logic doesn’t make sense but with the constant fade transitions and array of anachronistic props it’s surely supposed to feel dream-like, and I’ve never had a particularly logical dream.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) 3.5/5
Fun silly comedy with some great portrayals of the monsters. I feel like today’s comedies have lost the art of the lovable bumbling oaf character. #BringBackOafs

Downsizing (2017) 3/5
I remember when the trailer for this dropped I got so weirdly hyped for it. Like I barely watched movies back then but something about small Matt Damon must’ve intrigued me. Anyway I never got round to watching it until now, and it’s fine, if quite odd. A decent movie by all accounts but just strange that this came from the guy who made Election and went on to do The Holdovers. The social commentary wasn’t ineffective and I think the characters were compelling enough, but yeah, a weird one.

The Hangover Part III (2013) 3/5
Combines the decent comedy of the first film with the decent action and stakes of the second film to make a decent third entry to the most decent trilogy of all time. Glad they got rid of the most boring of the main characters. No one was hungover in this one.

Cobra (1986) 3/5
Clichéd tough guy copaganda enhanced by a hilariously 80s original soundtrack (the kind where a singer sings about what’s happening in a very on-the-nose way) and some other general silliness like Cobra’s little logo on his gun and some dynamite pre-kill one-liners. Also some properly solid fight scenes.