Just finished my penultimate therapy session, and coming to the end I feel like I’ve made a hell of a lot of progress, both with past and present trauma, but also, unexpectedly, with my attachment issues too. For maybe the first time in my life, I’ve been able to partake in a 1/4 relationship rooted in care, trust, and respect without torturing myself by bringing to it my childhood self’s continued search to love and be loved by a parental figure. This is obviously a lot deeper than a thread on Twitter could (maybe should) get into, but my therapist 2/4

Still thinking about Aftersun. Today, *THE* shot. And I’m thinking about it because it distils in a single frame some heavy things I’ve grown up with and experienced since becoming a father that it overwhelms me to see on screen. I feel like this one’s going to need a thread 🧵: Throughout Aftersun, we - like the adult Sophie - are tasked with piecing together a portrait of her father in the spaces between the words he says, the things she films, and the fragmented memories she has of that epochal trip to Turkey from her childhood.

Cow was a really powerful viewing experience. How Andrea Arnold can create something that confronts our ignorance with such unfaltering compassion and perpetual grace is beyond me. To the fullest extent which a cow’s story can be told in their own words, a mother’s tale is given in shades of harrowing suffering and fleeting but vital glimpses of peace and connection. Scant little joy can pierce the veil of industrial gloom that pervades Cow, but to see a mum who has endured so much still protect calves (even those who aren’t her own) is a testament to

#NoTimeToDie: A beautiful swansong for Craig’s Bond. It really does feel like the culmination of all that came before. The style and swagger of Casino Royale, the brutal viscera of QoS, the elegiac heft of Skyfall, the grandiose excess of Spectre - proper end of an era stuff. Also, after waiting so long for a Bond who is human, who can cry, it feels somehow poetic that Craig’s final bow as 007 would be the first to promise a tear from us. The bombast and callbacks and quips are all well and grand, but it’s a huge relief to see emotion drive this film.

The Green Knight… what a picture. To take one of the most notoriously contentious and elusive legends there is, and to pick it apart as both text and metatext on the nature of storytelling, to do so so beautifully and confidently is astonishing. Gawain is so fascinating because in the knowledge that he has little claim to goodness and even less to greatness, he marches on - at first reluctantly and then resolutely - towards his fate, figuring out on his path the man he is and making his peace with that self-excavation. What David Lowery does so superbly

#TIFF21

#NowWatching: ALI & AVA, dir. Clio Barnard

(UK)

Review 🔜 @MoviesWeekends Think I’ve just seen my favourite film of #TIFF21 so far. Ali & Ava is just fucking beautiful, the kind of film that notices the infinitesimal gestures and moments that make people - with all the messiness of their lives and weight of their pasts - fall in love.

Stories like this inspire me so much, and give me hope at a time where things have felt on the edge of a cliff. Huge huge congrats to @sophiefbutcher on an absolute dream job, and for having the drive and putting in the work to make it happen.

👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻

https://twitter.com/benstravis/status/1437806996745605121

Also, it’s great to see that there are folks like @BenSTravis and @Terri_White in this industry who have actively been a part of opening doors, breaking glass ceilings, and rewarding hard work and passion. EMPIRE is at the forefront of shaping culture, and the work you guys have

#TIFF21

#NowWatching: YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER, dir. Kate Dolan

(Ireland)

Review 🔜 @MoviesWeekends @caatdolan’s You Are Not My Mother, a Samhain chiller nestled within the framework of a sympathetically crafted story about mothers, daughters, and the monstrousness of mental illness’ ravaging effect on both the afflicted and their loved ones really got under my skin.

#TIFF21

#NowWatching: SUNDOWN, dir. Michel Franco

(Mexico) Sunkissed, serene, surreal, and shot through with an unnerving dosage of sociopathy, Franco’s Sundown is the sort of film you imagine Haneke would daydream on a beach someplace nice. More about us as viewers than any of the characters, this provokes with scant provocation.

#TIFF21

#NowWatching: ENCOUNTERS, dir. Michael Pearce

(UK) A classic case of “starts out as one thing, becomes another”, but whilst I was initially disappointed when I realised the film Encounter started as wouldn’t continue that way, I was gradually bowled over by the depths of the other thing it strove for. Riz Ahmed is typically class

#TIFF21

#NowWatching: THE STARLING, dir. Theodore Melfi

Ready to cry and probably not handle the subject matter but hey 🤷🏻‍♂️ Not sure how I felt overall about The Starling. Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd were both very good in it though, and I cried a lot, but I think that was more because of the subject matter and its closeness to losing my baby last year. It’s very twee, very film festival-y, and

#TIFF21

#NowWatching: THE GUILTY, dir. Antoine Fuqua

(USA)

Review 🔜 @MoviesWeekends Jake Gyllenhaal is absolutely outstanding in THE GUILTY, Antoine Fuqua’s remake of Gustav Möller’s single-location thriller about a troubled police officer who finds himself in over his head when he receives a call from a woman who seems to have been abducted. The first two acts

#TIFF21

#NowWatching: ALONERS, dir. Hong Sung-eun

(South Korea) I really loved ALONERS. Hong Sung-eun’s gentle examination of the chosen isolation of a call centre worker, the comforts found in routine and the quiet pain of severance from the outside world, is carried out with boundless empathy and subtlety. Gong Seung-yeon is fantastic as

My favourite customer at the cinema came back today for the first time since last February and I nearly cried. He’s a lovely Scottish man called Eddie - he’s 87 years old and has been going to the cinema since 1939, when he watched King Kong as a little boy. He loves sci-fi and is a sucker for special effects. While many of us hated films like F4NTASTIC and don’t give Avatar or Jurassic World huge props, Eddie is blown away by the effects and revels in talking about the plots in great detail and regaling us with stories of old creature features and how

TW; Baby Loss/Miscarriage

I hate to take the mood down, but something I feel like shouting into the ether so I can let it out of my head is how hard it is as a dad-to-be going through pregnancy after losing a child. Physically, I’m going through not even an iota of what Lucy is and I’m wholly aware of that, cripplingly so in fact. But mentally, it’s been so rough. The more excited I get to meet my little girl, the guiltier I feel because my first baby seems to get further from my reach. And when I feel her kicking, in the gap between my heart’s beats I

I’ve been watching This Is Us for the past few weeks, and having recently been diagnosed with Panic Disorder and GAD, I can’t quite explain what watching Randall’s story and character develop has meant to me. @SterlingKBrown’s work is communicating on a level that touches my soul and I could not be more grateful to feel like I’ve found in his portrayal of Randall a hand reaching out to help guide me through a storm. I’ve just watched the episode with the break-in and it’s come around on a day where my anxiety has been peaking again. When Randall goes to

Scenes from a Marriage, the full 5 hours. So honest,fragile,aggressive,loving, regret filled,human,heartbreaking, and in a strange sense reassuring, that you simply cannot help but believe the way you see life changes as Marianne and Johan’s relationship transforms. Vital cinema. I thought Marriage Story fucked me up. Bergman’s serialised work of cinematic genius sustains what Marriage Story achieved in 2 hours for a further three, without once feeling overwrought or anything less than necessary. It’s almost documentarian, such is its forensic detail. AND