American cinema stretches from the silent comedies of Buster Keaton, The Cameraman among them, through to the sharp, funny indie work of films like Booksmart. It's a tradition wide enough to hold big-studio spectacle, low-budget horror, and everything in between. Browse Macca's reviews below.
Rating: 3.0★
There is a very specific, unapologetically loud energy to the comedy of the early 2000s, and Keenen Ivory Wayans's Scary Movie kicks the door off its hinges right from the opening frames. It is crass, it is relentless, and it has absolutely no interest in your good taste.
Rating: 1.0★
I'll be straight with you: avant-garde cinema and I have never really got on. It's not a prejudice I'm particularly proud of, but it's an honest one. So when I sat down with Robert Breer's 2003 experimental short What
Rating: 3.5★
Brian De Palma had me from the very beginning. Not the beginning of his career, mind you, but the beginning of Sisters, a 1972 film I came to surprisingly late and with surprisingly little foreknowledge. The opening scenes hook you with a deceptively simple premise and then tighten the grip,
Rating: 2.5★
Somewhere between Aquaman and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, I stopped enjoying my self-imposed challenge of working through the billion-dollar box office club on Letterboxd and started genuinely dreading it. What I naively imagined would be a curated tour through modern cinema's crowning achievements has, in
Rating: 1.0★
Let me be upfront: I subjected myself to Mothlight as part of my ongoing challenge to complete every list on Letterboxd's stats page. Not exactly the most romantic way to encounter a piece of avant-garde history, but there you go. And having now sat through Stan Brakhage&
Rating: 3.0★
Ryan Coogler's Black Panther put me in a genuine quandary, and I've been trying to unpick exactly why ever since. Because on paper, this is everything I should want from a superhero film. Strong performances, real directorial ambition, a cultural significance that's impossible to
Rating: 3.0★
There are few cinematic experiences as universally scarring as sitting down with a bucket of popcorn, only to have your childhood innocence absolutely shattered by a woodland creature. I still remember the collective, stunned silence in the room the first time I watched Bambi. Not a word. Not a sound.
Rating: 3.0★
By the time the first skiff hits the water in Cutter Hodierne's drama, I was already fighting off a severe case of déjà vu. This is roughly the fourth film I've sat through that attempts to tackle the Somali piracy phenomenon, and while the geopolitical reality
Rating: 1.0★
There's a version of this review where I open with genuine respect for the avant-garde tradition, tip my hat to the academics, and ease you gently into my reservations. But honestly? Twenty minutes of a bloke cutting up someone else's footage and slowing it down
Rating: 4.0★
There's an early, sweeping aerial shot in this 2024 documentary that stops you cold. A brown, elegant shape glides effortlessly through the thick seaweeds of the Shetland coast, and it looks absolutely stunning. For a moment, I found myself bracing for the usual modern wildlife documentary catch: is
Rating: 3.0★
There are films that tell you a story, and there are films that hit you somewhere you didn't know you were vulnerable. Arthur Jafa's Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death is firmly in the second camp. Seven minutes long and composed entirely of found
Rating: 2.5★
There's a version of Aquaman that could have been genuinely great. Think about it: an underwater kingdom, bioluminescent cities, armies riding seahorses into battle, a king who talks to fish. Lean into that absurdity with real commitment and you might have something genuinely special on your hands. James
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