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Ok, so we all know that I’m not a sports fan, but golf in particular draws my ire as a racist, sexist, elitist game, played almost exclusively by wankers who have a picture of an Audi as their profile photo on Tinder. So I very nearly didn’t go see this movie, which would have been a tremendous shame, because it is excellent.

The Phantom of the Open is about Maurice Flintcroft, a working man from Barrow-in-Furness who, when facing the possibility of redundancy at nearly 50, decides to take a new career as a professional golfer. Armed with more optimism and moxie than awareness of the field he’s entering, he manages to sign up for the British Open. There he gains international fame for playing the worst round of golf in the history of the tournament.

Maurice’s struggle to get a toehold in a career, which is far more excluded to him due to class than ability, is a reflection of the times it’s set in. As the 70s turn into the 80s, and Thatcherism is on the rise, the narrative of being up-wardly mobile, that ambition will replace class boundaries to produce a new era of opportunity in Britain, is satirised in Maurice’s character. It not only is untrue, but requires a great deal of naivety to even believe.

But conversely, everything in Maurice’s life that is positive belongs to the previous era, where community and solidarity were sources of support. The heart of this film is Maurice’s family. The support and love they give him is only a reflection of the support and love he gives them. So often in films about a man pursuing his ambition, his wife or kids are reduced to just cheerleaders from the sidelines, and there is this icky subtext that this is what a family is for, to further a man’s potential and help fulfil his wants in life. The Phantom of the Open is a great example of how to tell that kind of story right. Throughout the film, both before and during his golfing hijinks, Maurice continuously encourages and supports other family members pursue their dreams. He continually gives words of encouragement to his twin boys who pursue a disco dancing career, and his other boy becomes a manager and engineer, which Maurice shows pride in. Scenes are full of little things, like his wife’s love of acting and involvement in a local community theatre, and Maurice is shown staying up late at night sewing costumes. The story of the film might be about his golfing career, but Maurice’s story is about his family.

Which is why it took me so long to write this review, because, while I’m sure the filmmaker hoped people would find this heartwarming, I doubt he expected to reduce me to tears quite so spectacularly. I was howling greeting through this film, because the character of Maurice so reminded me of my grampas. They just so brought to life what a precious treasure a good man is to his family.

Shot with more than a little whimsy, The Phantom of the Open is funny, inspiring, and heartwarming. A lovely film to spend an evening watching.

Ok, I lu-huve Jane Campion. I was hoping this would deliver the promise her name brings, and it is so sumptuous, the cinematography, the score.

I was a little hesitant about seeing Benedict Cumberbatch as a cowboy. I had dreads about a twangy accent and this pale, cat-faced thespian trying to embody a rugged steerhand. At some point you become too famous, it gets in the way. Instead of folk saying, “Benedict Cumberbatch was great in this!”, people just spend the movie going, “Look, it’s Benedict Cumberbatch.” Also it doesn’t help that my eye wanders over him rakingly, hoping I might leave scratches down his back with just my gaze. He’s fully nude in this, and we do at one point catch just a smidge of dong. So my hesitancy is as much based on my inability to suppress my dick as anything else.

The good news is, the Cumbersnatch does carry it at the end of the day. Eventually your eye stops catching on him, and he settles into being Phil, this absolute bastard rancher. His body is lean and muscular, his face dirty, gritty with beard, his expression cruel and mocking, closed off and swiping out. He’s just mean. He seems mean from his first breath in the morning to his last utterance at night. A full glass of mean with an endless supply to refill.

He strides into this story, cursing and sneering at his brother. He makes fun of a lisping boy, the son of his old, departed friend, Bronco Henry, and reduces the boy’s mother to tears. He has a nasty, ruinous quality to the small kindnesses and beauties of life. He is contemptuous of anything more feminine or comforting than his hypermasculine way of life. This extends even to his brother, a portly, be-suited, social climber who is ultimately harmless.

His brother commits the cardinal sin of loneliness, and need for love, and marries the widow. Phil is outraged, and feels fierce betrayal, and barely contained vengeance. His brother, already soft-bodied, a dandy and fool, now brings in this whimpering wretch, to live in *his* house, come between him and *his* brother. From almost the first moment, you can see his mouth pull down in a cruel twist, and then something funny occurs to him, and you can see some mean thought has entered his mind about what to do about it.

He casts his shadow over every corner of the house, so she never feels welcome, never feels safe. She’ll think she’s alone, then hear a sharp whistle. He taunts her attempts to live up to the higher status her marriage has given her. He makes her nervous and self-conscious. It reminds me of The October Game by Ray Bradbury, where the narrator follows his wife from room to room, just because he knows his presence makes her uncomfortable, and if he does it long enough, he will reduce her to tears.

About halfway through the film, the son discovers a stash Phil has hidden of Bronco Henry’s things. From them, there was clearly a sexual and romantic relationship between Phil and Bronco. Phil no doubt blames his widow for his suicide, his son too, the whole 2.5 kids dynamic that kept Bronco from him, and ultimately killed him. Not only has she taken his lover from him, but his brother now too. And his ceaseless cruelty becomes understandable.

It is not immediately apparent if the boy has understood the significance of what he’s seen, or if Phil, who catches him, realises just how much he’s seen, but from then on Phil makes an effort to mend their relationship, and treat him as a nephew. He teaches him how to ride, and starts making a rawhide rope for him.

I can’t explain to you, how this story, which is quiet, and slow, and sparse in actual ‘events’ just burns with unbearable tension. The whole movie you are waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because Phil is so clearly a man of repressed passions and barely contained violence. So it’s almost more dreadful when he befriends the boy, because you are just waiting for where the horror will come. Will he teach him how to ride, so he can take him out country and break his neck, make it look like a fall from the horse? Will he try to turn him against his mother, so she is completely isolated? Maybe get him to commit her as her secret alcoholism gets worse? You just know, that despite the lack of outright confrontation, something in this situation is going to have to give.

All that said, it is somewhat a regressive story. After all, it’s about how a nasty and jealous homo gets in the way of the hetero family living happily ever after.

But for me, it was just beautiful.

And definitely one you are gonna wanna watch if you are into leather. From the sensual saddle polishing to the erotic cigarette sharing. Thumbs up.

It’s a Wes Anderson movie, aye?

I know some people cream themselves over Wes Anderson, but I very much like his movies on a case by case basis. While people laud their iconic look, this is one of them that’s a triumph of style over substance. That’s fine if you like his style, but I find it kinda hollow.

The French Dispatch is an anthology of three short stories bookended by a wrap around tale. They have humour, romance, and action. And a cavalcade of stars that looks like a clown car emptied into rehearsals. Everyone’s very good and it’s all very Wes Anderson.

The only thing I can genuinely recommend it for is a quick flash of Timothee Chalamet in the scud.

Great Freedom is a moving, heartbreaking journey of one man’s life through the prison system, as a 175 convict.

Hans is a convicted homosexual. He comes to prison straight from the concentration camps. Not only were queer men sent to die in the camps, but after the war, survivors were sent back to prison, since, you know, a camp isn’t a prison, so they still have to serve out the rest of their sentence. Hans comes as a half-starved and jittery inmate in the 1940s, and we see him return again the 50s and 60s, each time more confident in his surroundings, more institutionalised. He spends his whole life a crime.

Viktor is his first cellmate, a brutish, homophobic lifer. The initial hostility and aggro settles into begrudging respect, after Viktor offers to cover up his camp tattoo. As Hans cycles in and out of jail, Viktor is the one constant. Although an unlikely pairing, theirs becomes a lifelong friendship.

In some ways, it shows that even a hardened homophobe cannot be as brutal as the systematic regimes of oppression. Viktor is never fully freed of some of his prejudices but he sees the humanity of the other man, he can feel sympathy and compassion in a system that never can.

And this film is both a condemnation of the horrific treatment of gay men in the very recent past, and an ode to their inspiring survival. Because despite everything Hans suffers, he remains kind, he remains unashamed, and he remains capable of love. In some ways this film is about love, how it can be passionate and sexual, how it can be romantic and tender, and how it can be the quiet realisation you cannot live without another.

Last film of Dame Diana Rigg, and she is a treasure in this as with everything. She’s joined by scream queen Anya Taylor-Joy and surprisingly sexy Matt Smith. Thomasin McKenzie plays Eloise, 60s-obsessed fashion design student who travels to the big city of London with dreams of its glamourous past. Small hitch is she sees ghosts, and begins to dream of Sandie, a singer with similar dreams of making it big in the city. But as the shine comes off the apple for both Eloise and Sandie, 60 years apart, the darkness from the underbelly of London seems to follow Eloise back into the waking world.

Well done, nice blend of horror and mystery with moments of humour. Entertaining.

Right, so, anyone who knows me knows that I kinda despise the biscuit tin fetishisation of a set of parasitic upper-classholes, and the embarrassment that is this country in the 21st century still running with the fucking feudal system. And as an object of that, Diana became the focus for an outpouring of maudlin posthumous deification which continues to this day. As someone who doesn’t want to join the jamboree, you might wonder why I went to see this at all.

The cast is the answer. It has a rocking cast. Kristen Stewart is rightfully praised for her title role. Timothy Spall, a stalwart if underappreciated golden shard in the list of national treasures. Sean Harris, as always, manages to bring heart and sincerity even in a smaller role. Everyone in it brings it.

And as I watched, I really began to enjoy it. If you put a pin in the actual reality of it, and just go with it, it’s really quite good.

It’s a Christmas ghost story.

A young mother in a loveless and faithless marriage tries to survive a Christmas weekend with her in-laws as she starts to unravel from the weight of expectations on her. You don’t have to wonder why she ends up bulimic and self-harming when you are told what to wear and when to wear it and where to wear it, when you eat and what you’ll eat, when you get up and when you open your curtains in the morning is all decided for you. The sense of constant failure is present from the opening scenes. Constantly being late, constantly being a basketcase, constantly failing to be able to fulfil what’s required of you without losing it.

And on this cold Christmas, this hungry and spurned woman begins to see ghosts. She sees and speaks to the ghost of Anne Boleyn, another woman who gave herself in marriage but whose husband loved another. Diana haunts her old family home, and finds her father’s old coat on a scarecrow, like a warning calling out from her past. All of it whispers, “Remember who you are”.

This film is pretty good for showing what is enduring about the Diana myth. Yes, it’s part the fairytale archetype of the princess sad in her tower. But it’s also the opposite, the identifiably human part of it. Almost no woman can’t see herself in this story. It manages to be both wish-fulfillment – the costumes, the sets, the trappings – and a universalism about our most intimate selves. We are made to fulfil roles, and don’t feel as though our welfare and inner-self matters as much to others than that we play our parts to perfection. And for women, that feeling is deeply set, because ours is traditionally the private sphere, our social roles are wife, mother, daughter or daughter-in-law. So we cannot escape back to a private realm of love and nurture when our role performance becomes lacking and crumbles. It is not simply the disappointment and displeasure of our bosses but our husbands. For women, the loss of love is intimately entwined with social failure.

And that’s why Spencer is quite an enjoyable film, because it sticks to the emotions of its story. It doesn’t tell the story of Diana, Princess of Wales, it tells a story that could be set in any time or in any place. Surprisingly engaging.

Unbelievably fun, unbelievably cool, The Harder They Fall features a stellar cast of Idris Elba, Lakeith Stanfield, and Regina King, all of whom bring the absolute storm in this movie.

Idris Elba is the quintessential Man In Black, the ominous taciturn baddie, whose cruelty kicks off the whole story. He plays a complete bastard, Rufus Buck, who thinks his ends justify his means, and he’s never been sexier. Bristling with malevolence and smouldering sexuality, he looms large throughout this film, even when not physically present, his shadow cast long.

Jonathan Majors is his opposite, the hero of the film, if somewhat of an anti-hero, in true Western style. A robber of outlaws, he plays Nat Love. Subject to Buck’s savagery as a child, Love holds a lifelong need for vengeance. In some way Majors has the harder part, because he has to be likeable, while still being thrilling. His character is an upbeat, scrappy survivor, but his need for revenge runs like scar down his heart. His performance is excellent, charming without being saccharin, adventurous without being callous, vengeful without being bitter.

He has a rag-tag motley crew helping him in his endeavour, of special mention goes out to Cuffee, beautifully played by Danielle Deadwyler. Despite the majority of the characters being based on real-life cowboys, Cuffee appears to be an amalgam of queer life on the frontier. Cuffee dresses, presents and takes a new name as they want. They are not misgendered for the majority of the film and accepted without comment. This is only broken in one scene which requires a disguise, where it is revealed that Cuffee was assigned female at birth, but rather than a ‘Aha gotcha!’ moment, it feels like this is put in more just to highlight Cuffee’s queerness, to state definitively that being born within this framework, Cuffee has found freedom in the West.

Stylistically blending spaghetti westerns, (I don’t wanna say Tarantino-esque coz that gives him too much credit, but) exploitation aesthetic, and gangsta flicks, with an absolute banging soundtrack. The Harder They Fall is just non-stop fun, and a pure fuck-yeah! of a film.