Tags: blog, film, sci-fi, action, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Tuesday June 23rd, 2026
Lone Wolf and Chub
I’ve just watched a bunch of middle aged men play with their Kenner Star Wars toys for two hours.
I wouldn’t mind if I’d watched a bunch of five year old kids play with their toys for two hours, at least that way it would have gone a bit bat-shit crazy. Had that spark of unfettered imagination that all kids have that makes them see stuff from weird angles and then mash them together with other weird stuff.
Nothing of the sort here. No wit, no spark, nothing memorable. I’d forgotten the first half of the movie by the time I’d got to the second half.
The plot of the film is that thing A happens, then thing B, followed by C, then D, we go back to C for a bit before moving on to E and then and then and then and then after five hours I check my watch and only forty minutes have passed.
The worst crime of this film is that the film makers don't care about Grogu and Mando. During the course of this film we learn nothing about either of them. Nothing is revealed about their past or their future. We learn nothing about their characters or their personalities. Nobody gets to to grow, to learn, to have to face up to uncomfortable truths. There is not a single character arc in the whole film.
The Mandolorian is a guy in a metal suit who shoots people. Grogu is a green alien baby who eats grubs and moves things. That is literally it. You could swap them for absolutely any other similar character you can think of and it wouldn't make a jot of difference to this film.
The visual aesthetic is nostalgia for the XBox 360 era of murky, grey-brown sludge. Having not a single piece of flair in the whole film, it is quite possible the most visually uninteresting sci-fi film I’ve ever seen.
Ludwig Gorannsenn tries his best, re comprising his magnificent score from the tv show, giving everything to try to elevate the story. But he’s got nothing to work with. You can neither polish a turd, nor inject any joie de vivre into something this dull and base.
I can see die hard fans of the tv series getting some enjoyment out of this. It's basically a filler episode of the tv series dragged out past the two hour mark and for some that'll probably be enough. But why bother spending time watching this when you could just ask ChatGPT to describe it to you? It'll leave the same mark on your soul.
I came out of the film humming the theme tune and then saw an urban fox.
So not a total waste of an evening.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
I've recently made the swap from hosting this website on a Synology NAS to a Raspberry Pi running Yunohost.
The main reasons being: A) I wanted to do more self hosted stuff and messing around with Docker containers was absolutely doing my head in. B) The Synology NAS was making too much noise with regular disk access.
Yunohost has been mostly straightforward to set up and has so far (touches wood) been extremely reliable. The Raspberry Pi 5 has been fantastic and more than fast enough for running this website and everything else I've been asking it to do.
Kiki has of course continued to be fantastic.
I'm going to keep the Synology pages below for reference. They're still relevant and may be useful in the future as I may use it again for another project.
Tags: blog, film, drama, essential, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Monday May 25th, 2026
Mary Magdalene, that'd be my first sin
All movies about pop stars are, in one form or another, about the gap between the fantasy of pop music and the mechanical reality it's built on. The interplay between the mask of the performer and the face behind it.
Todd Haynes' underappreciated masterpiece Velvet Goldmine is the absolute pinnacle of the genre and focuses on the idea of the Pop Star as an act of artistry itself, and the centring of that act between the person performing it and the audience who are moved by it.
Mother Mary explores similar territory whilst also taking inspiration from another masterpiece, Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a film about seeing and being seen.
Anne Hathaway's Mary has the ability to hold an audience under her spell but her identity has been at least partially constructed by the dresses and outfits designed by Sam, played by Michaela Coel. Sam is the person who Mary, out of desperation and needing a dress with which to relaunch her career, turns to after being estranged for a long time.
Mary knows that Sam has the ability to create a look for her that captures the way she sees her. And Sam adores Mary with an intensity that combines the infatuation of a first love with the devotion of a pop obsessive. Sam is both a fan and a crush, the two multiplying each other.
Or was anyway. The walls that Sam has constructed since are fierce and solid. The interplay and tension between the two as they try to negotiate the design of the new dress boils and tears at the two of them. Mary attempting to re-inspire Sam (and through her, her audience), Sam trying to remain in control and not get swept away and engulfed by the very idea of Mary.
The characterisation of Mary and Sam are superb. Anne Hathaway is indecisive and unsure of herself but when in a position where she can express herself artistically, utterly magnetic. At one point in the film the pair tell each other a ghost story: Sam's is functional and supremely evocative. Mary's is completely unhinged in a way that drags every part of your attention into the scene, to the point where nothing outside of it even exists.
And yet it's Michaela Coel that the film actually focuses on. She's helped by a script that actors would probably kill for, down to earth yet occasionally so vibrant it veers towards spoken word poetry, perfect for Coel's East London dry and fruity wit. Director David Lowery clearly loves photographing her as the camera lingers on her long enough to capture the intensity of her, the ferocity of her unblinking view, the absolute force of everything she sees and feels.
And it's through this emotion that we tumble through the film, spiralling into the vortex that is Mary's personality and persona. That emotion is as believable as it is powerful, dragging everything to an ending that maybe isn't a conclusion. As by this point reality has been broken down by art and longing to the point where both characters are lost in their own truths. Or possibly fictions.
This film brilliantly updates the philosophies of Velvet Goldmine to a social media age. With that era of pop, there's an air gap between creation and audience where the fantasy and emotion can be poured into. Here and now, fledgling pop artists are in contact with an audience immediately and intimately, fan feedback helping mould the shape and direction of their early career.
How that changes the relationship between artist and audience, especially once they diverge and fall out of love, is what this film explores. It does so with an empathy and sincerity that is completely breathtaking. It treats pop music and it's fans with the passion, imagination and seriousness that they deserve.
The comparisons with Velvet Goldmine and A Portrait of a Lady on Fire are not made lightly, this film stands alongside them. If you've ever been a pop music obsessive then this film is one of the true greats.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
Tags: blog, film, action, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Saturday May 23rd, 2026
Stop getting rich people wrong
Move along, nothing to see here. Do you remember the first film? Probably not, it wasn't particularly memorable. Not bad, just perfunctory. This is more of the same, almost literally.
The only reason I bothered with this sequel is because of the inclusion of Kathryn Newton, who I last saw lighting up the screen in Lisa Frankenstein. Here she knowingly smirks her way through the film, like she's telling a series of amazing one-liners that have all been cut in the edit.
The whole film feels like everyone's going through the motions and there's no point to any of it.
But that's not what I want to talk about. Because, annoyingly, this film gets rich people wrong. It's not the only culprit, the majority of films that have rich people as 'the enemy' make the same mistake. The basic problem is that they keep portraying the rich as mad, bad and dangerously psychotic.
But we know that's not who these people are. We've all read excerpts from the Epstein files. We've all seen snippets of their twitter feeds. We've all seen their speeches. And what is clear about the super rich is:
The don't care who knows.
They don't care if people find out they're paedophiles, or nazis, or rapists. They know the press, which they own, won't call them on it and they have more lawyers than god.
They are desperately unhappy.
Happy, contented people don't post obsessively, continuously, on twitter about trans people. Confident people who are comfortable in their own skin don't get endless plastic surgery and post pictures of how 'jacked' they are. Generous, charitable people do not relentlessly endorse far-right conspiracy theories. Name me a single billionaire that looks like they're having the time of their life...
They are tediously boring.
Not just bored, but boring. When was the last time you read or heard anything spouted by a billionaire that made you're heart sing or piqued your curiosity? They are incurious people who are incapable of querying themselves, let alone the world around them.
They're cowards who never take risks and only prey on the weak
They (almost literally) have all the money in the world to enact their rich-fuck fantasies but they are terrified of any actual harm or consequences. They have networks of people who pre-select their victims to be the poor and vulnerable. The ones who can't fight back. And if there is ever any dirty work to be done then they'll just pay people who'll pay people who'll pay other people to do it for them.
All of which makes Ready or Not's world of ultra-wealthy psychopaths incongruous to the actual point they're (half-arsedly) making.
In Ready or Not's world, the global elite are confident and self assured, willing to take risks, get their hands dirty, and seem to love being rich. Some of them even seem to be a bit of a laugh, in a kind of rich idiot kind of way. They're scum, but they're fun scum.
The actual global elite probably quite like this kind of depiction. It makes them look exciting and interesting instead of the kind of dull, Nazi Colin Robinson's that they actually are.
The only film I've seen recently that really nailed this has been Relay. Where the rich bastard behind everything is coaxed out of hiding just the once and all of the actual antagonists are his minions, held at arms length and taking all the risks.
And whilst it's absurd to hold these disparate films to the same standards, I do wish that all films would try to properly skewer these pieces of shit, instead of cartoonishly portraying them in a way that manages to flatter how disgusting they really are.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
Tags: blog, film, recommended, sci-fi, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Wednesday May 20th, 2026
Lessons learned from Rocky...
A space ship sets sail from a dying earth, with a small crew, in search of ways to save humanity from the gradual plague that is enveloping it.
If that sounds like the plot of Interstellar then it’s not a surprise. Film makers Miller and Lord take liberal inspiration from the Nolan movie, but what makes this movie interesting is how it interprets the genre differently and ends up with something that feels fresh and modern.
The most obvious difference is clear from the trailer: An alien. Nolan's movie is about actual physics, so: no aliens. PHM's relationship to physics is a little woollier. It's aware of the concept but doesn't consider it to be bound by them, so: aliens.
Which is where the movie gradually morphs into a buddy movie. The film invests a huge part of it's runtime depicting the blossoming friendship between Ryan Gosling's Grace and his newfound alien partner, Rocky. It's highly unusual to see a film to not only show, but to focus so heavily on the subject of friendship.
Yes both Grace and Rocky are lonely, yes they have the same goal, yes they need each other to complete their mission, yes they both help each other and return the favours, but that's not why they become friends. It's not why they're so believable.
It's because they like each other.
Most of the film's appeal is simply Grace and Rocky goofing around, completely enamoured with each other, and loving the company. Lord and Miller lean into the concept of positive masculinity with their whole heart, to the point where it becomes the buddiest of buddy movies ever made.
To give the film a more interesting narrative structure, there's a series of flash backs that lead up to Grace being catapulted out of Earth's orbit. Both the literal and the metaphorical down-to-earthness of it all contrasting beautifully with the apocalyptic level of what's at stake, as well as the outrageous visuals of the space scenes.
This is one of the rare instances of a film where the main motivation of the CGI artists was to produce something beautiful. Every scene is lit in a way that is visually arresting, seemingly aware that the long runtime needs the eye to be delighted at every moment. As a result, even when not much is happening, the whole film zips along.
This has the feeling of a film that delights on first viewing and is destined to become a fondly loved classic in years to come.
Amaze, Amaze, Amaze!
Poster Credit Where to Watch
Tags: blog, film, comedy, recommended, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Monday May 11th, 2026
Over the Top
Where the hell did this come from? Nobody told me about this. A gender swapped version of an eighties Sylvester Stallone vehicle, mashed up with a wrestling movie and a rom-com. Hell yes! The Trailer tells you everything you need to know about the movie, if that piques your interest then go, go go! You'll love it.
Mary Holland, fresh off her film-stealing role in the best Christmas movie since The Muppets Christmas Carol, stars as Melanie, a struggling baker who's roped into a road-trip by her old trucker friend, Danny (played by Betsy Sodaro with all the gusto of Jack Black playing Nanny Ogg) who is secretly setting her up to take part in an arm wrestling championship.
There's nothing here you haven't seen hundreds of times before, in uncountable sports movies, but the freshness of the female led cast and the variety and vividness of their characters reminds you just why there have been so many movies using this template.
It’s just great fun.
The emphasis on the wrestling part of arm wrestling is a little stroke of genius. Every bout is a brief visual delight and a poppy joke. Rosie the Riveter as an arm wrestler? Of course! The names on the leaderboard are Bob’s Burger of the Day worthy.
The whole thing is a labour of love from everyone involved and is a delight from start to finish.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
Tags: blog, film, action, thriller, recommended, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Tuesday April 28th, 2026
Oh boy!
If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.Terry Pratchett The opening shot is of Irene in the middle of murdering someone. The next scene is also of her murdering someone. The third scene arrives without even pausing for breath and yet again, she's murdering someone. That's how the film tells us she's a good person. She's killing instinctively, quickly, with purpose. Irene is hopping through dimensions in what initially was a quest to find a universe where her daughter is alive. But on finding her murdered in every single one, enacts revenge on the man, the same man, who did it. She no longer seems to hold out hope of, well, of hope, and instead goes straight to the murdering part. Like an episode of Quantum Leap where the solution every single week is to murder a paedophile. This film differs from other multi-verse movies by pointing out that an infinite number of universes also means an infinite number of universes imperceptibly different from our own. It has a Groundhog Day like focus on grinding repetition, only here it's about a serial killer trying to avoid dealing with their grief. It's brutally efficient at showing the effect that numbing, relentless repetition has on a person. The violence, the shooting, the stabbing, the bludgeoning, the murder, isn't the problem. It's the obsessive yearning for something that can never be, refusing to confront the actual pain that you are going to have to live with. It's not really in the same league as Hamnet for it's empathetic portrayal of grief. For one thing the dialogue, although a lot of fun, has almost zero subtlety, the characters just plain tell you what they're thinking at every moment. The script is written for efficiency, not artfulness. But it hits incredibly hard in a few moments, that efficiency catching you off guard with it's swiftness and it's eagerness to cut right to the chase. The soundtrack is also brutally efficient. An electro boomer that matches the soundtrack of Sirat for chest-thudding, analogue bass wobble. A treat of a film that I'd recommend to literally anyone.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
Tags: blog, film, drama, essential, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Sunday April 26th, 2026
Grief as a muscle
The word I can't get out of my head after watching this film is muscular.
Jessie Buckley's Agnes holds the focus of the story like a rugby player cradling the ball, stiff-arming any attempt to divert the narrative towards her husband, powering through notions of artistic metaphor or allegory.
Agnus' story (and it is her story) is down to earth to the point where the dirt under finger nails is a mark of her character. She's practical and resourceful, always having a plan, always working towards a goal. Her husband is not the dreamer you might expect him to be, he's her counterpoint, not her opposite. But still, she's the driving force of the marriage.
Which is why it's so affecting when it goes wrong and there's nothing she can do to fix it. Watching somebody who's spent their entire life making things right and ensuring everything works out, suddenly left completely helpless by random chance is heartbreaking. The powerlessness of it is a full-bodied hit.
Even the way Buckley portrays grief feels strong. Her breakdown is shown not as a weakness but of a muscle being flexed. All that love and all that aching and nowhere to go, her sinews stretching with the strain of it, trying to crush the pain.
A lesser film would lose focus and dabble with the greatness of the play, of the artfulness of it. And indeed it nearly fumbles it when Will does the 'To Be, Or Not To Be' speech, seemingly put in just to remind viewers which play it's supposed to be inspiring. But thankfully the turnover back to Agnes is swift and decisive.
The final scenes involving the play are magnificent. Whilst it is about the transformative power of a well told story, the focus remains squarely on it's effect on Agnes. It's still her story and it drags you through that fourth wall completely and utterly.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
Tags: blog, film, horror, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Saturday April 18th, 2026
League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen
The better this film gets, the more frustrating it becomes.
It's mostly a surprisingly good script. The main character of Rob is well written and his background is well constructed. So when events start to enclose him, you feel trapped there with him. This sounds like script writing 101 and it is, but it's surprising how many horrors and thrillers fail this basic hurdle.
Eddie Izzard is always worth watching and this is no exception. She's clearly enjoying herself and the few minutes at the end where she really gets to let loose is worth watching the film for alone. It felt like early stand-up Izzard, that glorious mixture of free-floating surrealism delivered with razor sharp wit, and a reminder as to just how great she is on her own terms.
And if the film makers had attempted a tight, focused account of their deteriorating relationship and the games being played, then it has everything it needs to be genuinely great. Instead, the film has ambitions to be the next generation of Hammer Horror movies, rich in monsters, dripping in gothic style, drenched in histrionic orchestration.
None of which is built towards in the script. Dramatic moments seem inserted as a cheap way to build tension, rather than trusting in the story to do the work. The music sounds like it's ripped from a different film.
It's constantly pulling in two directions, neither complementing each other and falling flat. It's a missed opportunity.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
Tags: blog, tv, animation, fantasy, recommended, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Friday April 17th, 2026
RRROOOOOAAAAAAARRRRR!!!!
ROAR ROAAAAARRRR ROOOOOOR AAAHHHH GAAAAHH ROOOR RAAAAH ROOOOR ROOAAAARRRR RAAAAAAWWWWWRRRRRR!!!!
ROOOAAARR ROAR RO-RO-ROOAAAAARRRR!
BABABA GAAAAHHH RRAAARRRR
GRRRRR RRAAAAAHHH
RRAAAAHHHH YAAAAAAA!!
BZZZZZ MMMMM BZZZZZ MMMMM
RRAAAAAHHHH BWAH GAAAAAHHHH
GWUH? BWUH HHHHRRRR GAAAAH
RRRAAAAHHHH ROOOOAAAAAARRRR
MMMMM GAAAH MMMNNN
GRRR RRAAAHHH GRRR
GWWAAAAHHHHH!!
RRRUUUUUURRRR GAAAHHH RAAAHHHH
GRRRRRRR
RAAAAHH, AAAHHHH ROOOAAARR!
MMMMMMMMM
RAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!
