by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
Gladiator II | 2024
Even in a sea of nostalgia-driven legacy sequels, Ridley Scott's 2000 Oscar winner, Gladiator, feels like a strange candidate for the sequel treatment 24 years later. With its story complete and its protagonist dead, there seemed little point in revisiting this world.
All of Us Strangers | 2023
It's difficult not to get personal writing about a film like Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers. I didn't really write about it when I first saw it back in December of last year. I managed a half-hearted piece for my top ten write-up (where it came in at number five), but it somehow felt too close, too raw, for me to fully grapple with.
There's something agreeably no-nonsense about Alex Parkinson's Last Breath, a straight-down-the-middle, meat-and-potatoes true-life rescue thriller we rarely see anymore. Perhaps I'm looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, but there once was a time when mid-budget actioners like this were multiplex staples. Nowadays, you're more likely to see movies like this relegated to streaming rather than playing on a big screen.