• Wake In Fright

    Kotcheff | 1971 | Australia | 35mm

    I’m new to the Yabba, so why not ring up my 1,600th movie with what is probably the best Australian film I’ve ever seen – and on a pristine 35mm print from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, while we’re at it.

    Wake In Fright had been on my radar for more than ten years and it was worth the wait. I have within me a few thousand words about what I would call “waking liminal space” and how it’s represented in this film, but l’ll save that for another day. What we’re left with, then, is a waking hell that includes a kangaroo hunting sequence that might be the most grotesque thing l’ve ever seen committed to celluloid.

    Possibly perfect? I dunno. I’m new to the Yabba. Just passing through.

  • Weapons

    Cregger | 2025 | USA

    Julia Garner now 2-for-2 since Wolf Man and we’re back!

    Enough here to sustain interest, but a case of there being a great movie in here somewhere that just is never really drawn out. This is likely my own fault, as I went in expecting a much different tone and approach. It was only at the very end of the film that I realised I had primed the pump for the wrong well, but that’s obviously a bit too late. I look forward to revisiting it in the future with a clearer sense of what it’s trying to do, and I imagine I’ll like it much more.

  • The Fantastic Four: First Steps

    Shakman | 2025 | USA

    Trivia Factoid: the subtitle of this film refers to the first steps on the road to forgiveness for Julia Garner (who subjected me to Wolf Man earlier this year).

  • Le Rayon vert

    Rohmer | 1986 | France

    Considered by many to be his greatest film, this was a Rohmer blind spot for me until now. Knowing people loved it, I’d saved it for “the right moment”. Ironically so, it turns out, as the central character is also waiting for something she can’t articulate or read in the playing cards she finds on the ground as she moves through the world. I knew how it ended, alas, because I had read the story of Rohmer (captive always to his preference for natural light) waiting a year for favourable weather conditions to allow him to capture a pivotal shot. The foreknowledge did little to lessen the impact – it’s a beautiful moment in a beautiful film.

  • Affeksjonsverdi

    Trier | 2025 | Norway

    My most anticipated 2025 release, and it delivered. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus posits that suicide is the only true philosophical question. He ultimately rejects suicide and outlines his absurdist philosophy, using the stage actor as one of his illustrative examples of the “absurd man” [sic]. The stage actor can live a thousand lives, but they are all ephemeral lives. It is an essential absurdity to live this way. A film performance, meanwhile, is captured and can thusly outlive the performer; achieve immortality.

    Trier is swimming laps in this same pool with a central character – played by the singular Renate Reinsve – who seems to prefer the stage to the screen, but is repulsed by both. If one views her struggle as a choice between absurd ephemerality or individualistic (and inescapable) immortality, we transcend a mere “hero’s journey” and instead receive what Camus would call a “tsar […] covered in glory”.

    So yeah, I adored it.

  • À bout de souffle

    Godard | 1960 | France

    3rd watch; first in cinema.

    And what a delight to see the recent 4K remaster on the Ritz’s biggest screen in the dark of the matinee. Godard’s manner of punctuating nods to his influences with idiosyncratic formal touches is what makes him inimitable. This is my favourite of his films that doesn’t feature Anna Karina. The vibes are immaculate.

    When I was in Paris last year, I went out of my way to find the street, Rue Campagne-Première in Montparnasse, where the final scene was filmed. Surprisingly little had changed in 64 years, in particular the door of the apartment where Patricia (Seberg) and Michel (Belmondo) are hiding before the final shootout unfolds.

    This is the only of the several film locations I visited in Paris that was formally marked as such. This sign had been erected to mark the significance of the street:

    I was particularly touched that somebody had — unofficially, I imagine — traced a chalk outline in honour of Michel/Belmondo:

    This is the first time I’d seen the movie since that visit, so it was very fun to meld those memories with a film I adore.

  • The Talented Mr. Ripley

    Minghella | 1999 | USA

    I’d never seen this, and can’t stop seeing people note how good Jude Law looks here. And, agreed, but let’s not sleep on late-twenties Cate Blanchett, people. Elsewhere, there just seems to be too much story for a single movie. It’s pacey to the point of feeling like a dot point outline of the story’s most important beats.

  • Friendship

    DeYoung | 2025 | USA

    As somebody who has seen every episode of I Think You Should Leave many times over, it’s very hard for me to take Tim Robinson seriously in any other context. Fortunately, that seems to be a feature of this production rather than a bug. The attempt to balance a very dark (borderline sinister) tone with laugh-out-loud gags more or less works, and they really stick the landing. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.

  • Superman

    Gunn | 2025 | USA

    The character/concept of Superman has never really done it for me. Consequently, this imperfect but well-executed piece of cinema is about as good as I can imagine a Superman movie ever being. There is a thread of humanity here that is rendered tenderly and extratextually rather than aggressively and overtly. Maybe I can be into the new DCU.

  • La Femme de l’aviateur

    Rohmer | 1981 | France

    3rd watch.

    A movie that I adore so unreservedly that when I was in Paris last year, I went out of my way to visit Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, where the above sequence was filmed. It’s hard to show a character completely wake up to themselves in merely 106 minutes, and Rohmer waits until the last of those minutes to punctuate the journey. Perfection.