Moulin Rouge!

I’d never seen Moulin Rouge! before. When the trailer came out, back in the day, I just thought, ach, I don’t fancy that. However, in the intervening years this has now meant 1 demerit point on my queer card, so when the GYFF had it as its closing film, I thought I’d rectify that. The…

A Bunch Of Amateurs

Wiping away tears of laughter. It would be really hard to write something as naturally funny as the folk in this film manage to be. A Bunch Of Amateurs is a documentary about Bradford Movie Makers, an amateur filmmaking club that has lasted nearly a century. It has a vibrant cast of characters, each with…

Corpse Bride

Going into seeing Corpse Bride, I remembered watching it at the pictures back in the 2000s and coming away rather underwhelmed. I remember thinking that the music felt very phoned-in. As I went for a rewatch in 2022, I struggled to remember if there were actual songs in it. Trouble is, Corpse Bride was the…

Napoleon Dynamite

GYFF showing Napoleon Dynamite was just the excuse I needed for a rewatch. It wasn’t until it started that I realised, shit I must not have seen this since I first watched it, back in the mid-2000s. I hoped it was as good as I remembered. My trepidation was at least partially founded on the…

See How They Run

Fourth wall-breaking, meta whodunnit. Thoroughly enjoyable. An extra game to play throughout the film, if you’re a loser like me, is spotting actors who have been in Agatha Christie adaptations, and trying to remember from which story and which character they were. Last minute Lucian Msamati was also a delightful treat.

Miss Juneteenth

Miss Juneteenth is about a mother and daughter, as they strive to make a better life. The mother, Turquoise, is a former Miss Juneteenth, who was granted a full university scholarship with the title, but through circumstances almost certainly to do with her drunk mother and waster boyfriend, was forced to drop out, and now…

Rocks

Went to see this coz I gret at the trailer. A story of sisterhood in the face of hardship. Rocks is a teenage lassie who is left to look after her young brother after their mum takes a nervous breakdown and disappears. Rocks spends the movie trying to handle this on her own, and stay…

Drag Kids

A documentary about young drag queens and how there’s not really a venue for them to perform. They kinda have to exist on social media. Drag shows are traditionally held in clubs and bars, where you can’t get in if you’re underage. Pride is a great venue but drag can often be lumped together with…

The Witch

The Witch was excellent. Paced more like a story of family breakdown than a stereotypical horror, it evokes a great sense of time and place. Would recommend if you want to remember what it was like when you were little and scared of witches. Also an excellent film to make me thankful I didn’t have…