The Whisper Man (2026)

 "If you're lonely, sad and blue, the Whisper Man will come for you...

This film is, I suppose, a harbinger of the future- no big screen release, straight on to Netflix. Yet we no longer live in a world where I could differentiate on this blog between films and feature length one-off TV dramas. Yes, this had no cinema release, but the cast, the production values... I can't say that this isn't a film. It's something I'll have to let go. Just like people pronouncing "h" as "haitch", as I was taught never to do. Language changes, and so does the way we consume culture.

This is bloody good, though. A well-executed thriller based on an apparent copycat killer taking the same methodology of an old serial killer from the '80s, with a clever plot and lots of excitement. It reminds me a little of Se7en, Zodiac, even Saw,  but thankfully more in the sense of story than gore, which is quite rightly not dwelt upon here.

The characterisation is very much worthy of the impressive cast, who most certainly do not disappoint, with Michael Keaton particularly impressive. And, importantly, this film is about something, at its heart being about family, the importance of relationships, and indeed of kindness and forgiveness between the generations, accepting that we are all fallible human beings.

Highly recommended. This film fulfils all the requirements of a good serial killer crime thriller yet it works on more than a surface level.

Pixels (2015)

"Don't tell anyone I killed a smurf..."

I am, to put it mildly, far from an Adam Sandler fan. Worse, this film seems to have left the critics unimpressed. But, perhaps because I'm very old school when it comes to computer games (I was born in 1977 and pretty much stopped buying new games in the early '90s as albums by rock bands replaced games in my limited teenage budget), I found this film pleasantly and nostalgically entertaining. I'll admit, though, that I'm still not particularly enamoured with Sandler as such.

The film looks great, and it's huge fun seeing Space Invaders, Centipede, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong recreated in real life. And Ludlow is an enjoyable piss-take of conspiracy nuts ("JFK shot first!"),  so insane that he actually uses 4chan. The film also makes a good point; those 8-bit games from the '80s relied on recognising the pattern, not something that applies these days.

I love the scenes in London- Hollywood certainly seems to love our visually arresting national capital, and Fiona Shaw gets a great cameo as the prime minister. There's a lot to love. But I'm a little disturbed by the treatment of Fox News as a legitimate news source and the troubling idea that it's ok for  a US president not to know big words. But there's no denying how much I enjoyed this film.