Author: robdeb

Dune Part 2. Dennis Villeneuve It’s been a short time since I reviewed part one. In the meantime, I was at a family occasion.  It was the first one since the pandemic where my father’s side of the family had been together. Generations of uncles and cousins, those who came from India, those grandchildren who…

Scala documentary directors Dir Jane Giles, Ali Catterall It’s not unusual for someone to be jealous of an older brother. What’s remarkable is what I’m envious of. His age. Even now. Not his blue, yes, or his Ph.D., success, family, house, or anything. just simply his age. It comes down to the fact that it…

Aguirre, the wrath of god. It’s a cliche to shout, ‘It was a different time when something was in poor taste and judgement. I had a friend for whom this was a catchphrase, having spent his time in the industry from the late 70s to the present. I once pre-empted him after another anecdote about…

Perfect Days (Wim Wenders) I have a preference for cinema toilets when outside. They tend to be kept well, rarely that busy except on the blockbuster moments, and frequently have prominent enough cubicles to change my shirt after work. The Clapham Picturehouse ups the ante with handlebar hand dryers that are part of the tap.…

Dune 2021 Denis Villeneuve The thing about the IMAX is it’s big, it’s big. And the chairs are small. It’s tiny. But this is why a screening of Dune would be almost acolyte-exclusive. It was at 11 on a Sunday. Public transport, on a Sunday, to be in Waterloo from the lands by 11… is…

Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer I have a passing familiarity with Werner, partly as an auteur in philosophy rather than technique but also in films. He exists as the guy who made the film about the jewel thief I liked, or more precisely, that film Grizzly Man is entrenched, and the one about cave paintings that…

Zone of Interest. Jonathan Glazer. I’ve not read the Martin Amis novel; I only realised it exists in the end credits. I’m not Jewish. What I am, though, is a man raised and schooled in England in the 80s; I’m 48 in May. I was taken on a school trip to see Schindler’s List; I…

American Fiction For most of my life as a mixed-race man, race is part of my conversation. While not a person of colour, people ‘forget’ well like anyone who passes; when people say they forget, the tendency to go is good for you. The world will remind me of it within a few strokes of…

Godzilla Minus one Takashi Yamazaki. I have never really been one for Kaiju. My first experience was less sanitised than infantilised Godzilla and GODZUUKKIII! Of my childhood, compounded by the American renditions that seemed to exist in retrospect to take ownership of Godzilla, which in many ways America should, but washed off any of the…