Gillespie | 2026 | USA

I’m in danger of getting sucked into the new DC Universe. Perhaps it’s already happened. Moments of this were unexpectedly moving, a testament to the care being taken to develop these new takes on familiar characters (and in a contemporary moment of “cinematic universe” fatigue, no less). Darker than you might expect, as well, with the more upsetting villainy rendered textually, right in front of your face, rather than off-camera.

Milly Alcock is perfectly cast; sublime in her ability to fully embody Kara Zor-El in flashbacks that constitute her origin story (a deft move that allows us to enjoy the adventure at hand even as we learn more about her and her complicated relationship with Clark) and Supergirl in the present. If anything, this film is a tantalising preview of things to come for her very nuanced portrayal of a complex character.

It’s no easy trick to be troubled and funny, but she pulls it off. The writing supports the effort, thankfully, lifting a rather straightforward hero’s journey into the rarest of treats: an “episode” film that can stand on its own two feet.

As we are not burdened with remaining Earthbound, we get to travel a universe filled with compelling suggestions of infinite other stories. This is something Star Wars does at its best: suggest other lives that pique your curiosity (and then Star Wars at its worst tries to satisfy that curiosity by retconning backstories that never stood a chance of being compelling). Here we have the trick at its best: pirates, villains, shady dealers, clans, and bus drivers who knew they should have called in sick.

And yet, it never becomes too much. The IMAX scenes wow, as they should. The action is fluid and coherent. The music steadily rows the boat. More of this, please.

Viewed in IMAX at Hoyts Melbourne Central.

Rehmeier | 2026 | USA

A little miracle of a film, and I say that because what it does is so very hard to actually pull off. The first act is a parade of genre tropes so densely concentrated but measured in their presentation that one immediately gets the sense your expectations are being calibrated. It’s not my phrase, but it applies: a good film teaches you how to watch it.

All of that groundwork allows the ‘turn’ of the second act to actually wallop you. The movie itself slows down and gives you a chance to process what you’ve just seen and at the same time you might realise this is not a tropey romp about a couple of bank robbers tearing across the American South, but a meticulously crafted and expertly paced character study of the titular bank robber.

All of this hinges on the performances of Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner – both better known for their horror work – and they both deliver. You’re never sure where this movie is going to take you but you absolutely get there.

Streamed at home.

Gunn | 2025 | USA

Second watch, as (likely unnecessary) prep for Supergirl. Half-hearted prep at that, as I found this aggressively average upon first viewing. And so I was rather delighted to have enjoyed it *much* more this time, appreciating everything I liked the first time all over again even as subtler elements clicked with me.

What Gunn gets right is the balance. He doesn’t go over the top with the comedy, but instead uses it to underscore character moments that are revealing rather than trite. And this is important, because this movie is really about everybody *but* Superman.

There are some really interesting formal touches here, most of which relate to the photography. The camera moves as in a third person shooter video game, which has the effect of making your perspective the perspective (rather than merely looking cool). Maybe that’s the real punk rock.

Streamed at home.

ハウルの動く城
Miyazaki | 2004 | Japan

First watch – indeed, my first ever Ghibli. 2026 is the year of the watchlist so far. Viewed subtitled in cinema, which made the wait to crack this particular seal feel worthwhile. I was already familiar with the game here – the beautiful animation, the fablistic storytelling – and the hype is real. It’s all rather magical, really, and feels like a warm hug, even in its tensest moments.

Animation often makes me sleepy (especially “adult animation” – I love Bob’s Burgers but midway through a second episode, I’m ready for bed) but I had no such problem here. Indeed, this is surprisingly pacey – two hours goes by in the blink of an eye (the beat of a heart?).

Frankly, it’s nice to see a story where everybody is giving everybody else the benefit of the doubt. There’s a war going on in the background, but infinite grace in the foreground. In between those two planes is literal magic. How could you not get swept away?

Viewed at Lido Cinemas in their Studio Ghibli retrospective.

Spielberg | 2026 | USA | IMAX

I teed myself up for this rather well over the past week by dipping into previously unseen (by me) Spielberg aliencore (namely: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and the fact that I was happy to do a lot of work on behalf of this, a film with grand ideas but not many runways on which to land them, speaks to why I’ve moved on from attempts to objectively analyse a film and determine its “quality”. I went in to this movie as I do all movies: wanting to like it. And I did.

The FBI dossier on me surely reveals that I love Josh O’Connor, but he’s given very little to do here. It’s Emily Blunt who steals the show with a more or less perfect turn. She broke my heart again and again.

And the action is exactly what you’d expect: tense, and executed with long tracking shots that draw you in and allow tension to build naturally. There’s even a bit of playfulness underneath it all – Spielberg inverting your expectations by playing directly into them.

Once again he gives us a movie about aliens that’s scarcely about aliens at all. Instead, we are invited to ponder (through perhaps a few too many suggested lenses, including Christianity) how we would react if we discovered all the rumours about aliens were, in fact, true.

“Empathy” is the word trucked out a couple of times, but empathy needs a target. Can we stop moving long enough to aim? Would we ever try to empathise with ourselves? What would it take to get us there? Interesting, essential questions. Perhaps the finest compliment I can pay the film is that it trusts you to come up with your own answers to them.

Viewed in IMAX at Hoyts Melbourne Central

Spielberg | 1977 | USA

First watch – my final Spielberg blind spot addressed, and I now feel adequately prepared for Disclosure Day. Some of the photography here is breathtaking, including the shot above (and the one below). I find it much more interesting when the existence of aliens is just taken as given (rather than teased) and so the story can instead focus on how people react to their existence. He perfects this trick with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

This is the least “Spielberg-y” of his movies, playing more like a straightforward thriller. The extent to which you enjoy his later signatures of backlighting and, shall we say, “mom stuff” will colour that conclusion but the layers are all still here. If anything, he trusts his audience more to connect the dots.

As a filmic artifact, it’s ceasessly compelling. The Girl joined me on the couch for the third act and we mused that old school special effect shots are in many ways much more interesting than so much CGI and the use thereof to render unreal realities in a photo-accurate manner. I don’t mind being made aware that I’m watching a movie. Especially if it’s a good one like this.

Streamed at home.

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Recommended Reading:

2017 Review by Adam Kempenaar

2024 Review by Christopher McQuarrie

Spielberg | 1982 | USA

I know that I must’ve watched this a lot as a kid but I have no single memory of ever watching the whole thing through and so, rather improbably, this is my ‘first watch’. A blind spot I was correcting as I prepare for Disclosure Day and not one that I expected to affect me the way that it did. Suffice to say, this made me feel things.

You see, I became a father to a boy just a smidge over five years ago. In a previous century, I was a little boy myself. My memories of this time are troubled by the role adults played in my life through those years, up to and including the adult bully who plagued my high school years. But I was, for sure, a little boy with the built-in thirst for adventure.

Parenthood has forced me to confront my boyhood through an inescapable duality – I see my son and at the same time I see myself as my father would have seen me. This film presented me with a boy who is my son and also me, and he encounters adults who understand him and want to help; adults who give the benefit of the doubt. Considering how significantly this differed to my own experiences, it moved me deeply and made me hope the world will better accommodate my son as he grows up.

Naturally, this take is highly idiosyncratic to myself, but it wouldn’t land if the movie itself wasn’t excellent. Tightly paced and delightfully whimsical, these two hours feel like 80min- and yet there’s more character development here than you’d get in an 8 part Netflix series. Even Mike’s gang of friends have distinct personalities.

The first time Elliot and E.T. take flight on the bike, Elliot is initially afraid. “Not so high!” he yells, but the thrill overtakes him only a moment later and he yells “go higher!” My childhood made me timid for a long time, but parenthood has me wanting to fly higher.

Streamed at home.

Luhrmann | 2013 | USA, Australia

5th or 6th watch; first since 2020. In my younger and more vulnerable years, I fell in love with this film at first sight. I was in the minority at the time (outnumbered by an oddly large portion of the cinemagoing public that engages with art so literally that they can only judge an adaptation by its fidelity to the text) but it’s rightfully won over a few champions through the years. For me, the only dissonance is caused by the recognisable Sydney filming locations.

Many of the things I like here are exactly the things others do not: the saturated colours, the earnest dialogue, the modern music airlifted into a previous age. I don’t even mind that they stuck Nick in a mental hospital and put a pen in his hand.

I’m a big DiCaprio head – he’s probably my favourite working actor – and his turn here is atypical for him (and so, rather arresting). Stilted and layered to the point of being off putting – so, more or less exactly Jay Gatsby. I’m always impressed when an actor can be good playing a character that is, in the story, a bad actor. This would be my favourite Tobey Maguire performance if I didn’t have an incurable soft spot for Spider-Man 2. So yeah, lots to like. I always enjoy giving this a spin.

Blu-ray at home.

Leitch | 2017 | USA

4th or 5th watch; a singular pleasure but one I had apparently not indulged in for five years. I’ve never liked Charlize Theron as much as I do here – she’s all in and understands the assignment. Highly stylised from lights to soundtrack (a frequent spin before my turntable went kaput, and a good motivator to get it fixed), which has the effect of making this feel like a neon postcard from an electric moment in history (being the fall of the Berlin Wall).

What stops this from being merely flash are the moments of reversion to verisimilitude – take, for example, the deservedly famous stairwell fight (which is itself only one component of a longer and consistently stunning action sequence).

Here the music stops and the light is natural (read: bleak). The scene unfolds in real time (as a simulated “oner” with hidden cuts). The only sounds are those of punches landing, guns clicking (and firing), and bodies hitting surfaces. A bag of supplies is thrown and the clattering of its contents hitting the ground echoes throughout the building. You are instantly drawn in; a part of it. When it’s over, you realise you’d sort of stopped breathing. Heady, rather miraculous stuff.

4K Blu-ray at home.