Rose of Nevada (2025) Following on from Enys Men (2022), director Mark Jenkin is inviting us into a dark & distant realm of rural life. Difficult to follow first viewing, as it’s not always clear what people are referring to (even though I knew the plot outline beforehand); though much easier

Bait (2019) Like Aftersun (2022), Bait is at heart slight, & praise for it (cf Mark Kermode in Guardian) is way overblown. Little Cornish fishing village; incomers, modernisation, tensions, tourism, resentment; the usual. That’s the gist of it. These issues are not nothing,

Cuckoo (2024) Diabolic sound control, mixed with eugenics! What on earth is sinister Herr König up to? Regular rewatching will not help resolve these issues, which is what makes this a great movie. Vomiting hotel guests, seizures, confusion, strange noises, hooded figures, murder, the lot.

Obsession (2026) Not clear what the title refers to, plot-wise. Who exactly had the ‘obsession’? Key pivot is a ‘wish-fulfilling’ ceramic stick which grants a wish to whomsoever activates it by breaking it open; timid, uncertain, shy silly-ass Bear wants Nikki – self-assured,

Backrooms (2026) A nightmare angle on strip mall retail, where Clark, a struggling furniture store owner, descends from basic financial & marital jeopardy into both psychosis plus something like an inexplicable extra-dimensionality.

Haven't seen the Odyssey & probably won't: it sounds incredibly boring; Nolan's films are worthy but dull. Any movie pre-modern city life (neon, crime, mental illness, loose women) is sure to be tedious. Let's see; not holding my breath. (Hard not to be wearied even by the mere sight of these two:)

Repetitive, dull & dishearteningly vapid, Jeanne Dielman takes forever to tell us nothing at all. It breaks a cardinal rule of the avant-garde (which no artist ever remembers) 'don't bore your audience'. Experimentation is great but more often than not it fails. Chantal Akerman was no Joseph Beuys.

Anna is fascinated by her rear end, as well as by her nether regions - in all their insinuative glory - & why wouldn't you be? I am fascinated by them as well. Ann Uddenberg, Swedish contemporary artist. (An artist with somewhere to explore & those like Tracey Emin with nowhere.)

Hockers greatest was 'A Bigger Splash' (1967); still & hyperreal & oddly haunting; a strange moment fixed in timelessness. His other stuff is pleasant but forgettable. That he was a great raconteur & a very good sort goes without saying. Go well, old boy - you did good! - & thanks for the Splash.

Taste - a sense of visual beauty - is about education, learning to get a feel for what's attractive & finely crafted. But 'art' - serious contemporary - has long since moved into narrative. Compared with narrative (Warhol, Beuys, Koons, Marina, Cindy, Bacon etc) beauty is trivial.

red flowers but Irene can sometimes just keep walking through the shadows to find herself outside in a silent forest bounded by blackness. An unseen path leads to a disco where dancers are moving awkwardly to music. /

Hotel (2004) Everything clean, sharp, quiet and in focus; so plenty of time for us to study Irene (Franziska Weisz) - a receptionist - in all her icy beauty. The hotel has guests but feels both empty and abandoned. A passage leads to a dead-end wall offset by a table with a vase of dark /

Only interested in movies that confuse & disturb, so not a fan of Scorsese, Pluribus, OBAA & the like. Majestyk (repeat) for pure enjoyment; still processing Hotel (it's a beauty) & of course Andrea Riseborough is another goddess. Mainstream go away.

Nothing is more fun than commercial art signposting a realm you didn't know existed. Welcome.

Buying a book based on its cover: not something I do but how could one resist a cover like this!? (Now happily in my library & a great read.)

Classical horror (slashers, scream queens, jump scares) are dull as hell; these are more to my taste; disturbing, confusing, unsettling, bizarre.

Narrative shift in Industry (S04) from an insider look at high-end day-trading to quasi-political ‘drama/thriller’ exposes an inherent weakness; other than erupting with frenzied deals, trading floors tend to be populated by jittery dullards.

Ad for psychiatric facility, found in the back of the sort of magazine you can pick up off the coffee table in a waiting room. & a tribute to a great outsider musician, Cecil Dill. Works are portals to strange & disturbing worlds beyond AI in any form. images.saatchiart.com/saatchi/7611...

Not meant to be cruel to a very successful poet but Jorie Graham's output over the last few years is very weak sauce. She is channelling Sam Beckett's 'Not I' stream of consciousness voice & like all late Beckett, is not very interesting/meaningful to say the least. Mystifying.

Harry Pussy (1992–1997) Masterpieces of modern/contemporary art #10 Extraordinary noise band led by the wonderful Adris Hoyos - you really need to give them a listen. (Article free to read, as always) jakobzaaiman.substack.com/p/harry-puss...

The Secret Agent (2025) (dir Kleber Mendonça Filho) Wagner Moura. Great start; desolate countryside, saturated colours, a dead body. Military rule; a contract killing. But plot & action slacken as if secondary to the vibrant Brazilian look & feel plus way too much explanatory chatter. Loses its way.

The Rip (2026) Matt & Ben go about dangerous cop ‘work’ apparently unaware of safety procedures, despite having been threatened with sudden death; & when the shooting starts they fire wildly at nothing. Much noise to no effect. Action becomes so inexplicably silly not worth watching beyond halfway.

‘I was sick of beauty.’ Louise Bourgeois One reviewer complained her new works looked as though ‘the sculptor hadn’t felt like working.’ (LRB article) but the point is that Louise was inviting us to explore a new realm in which 'beauty' & 'fine crafting' were no longer key ingredients.

Peter Hujar's Day (2025) Gently compelling as a conversational record of an artistic workday; too prosaic for some perhaps but writers & poets will soon respond to the flow of elemental detail.

Which Hitchcock for a beginner? The Birds, followed by Vertigo. Why? Birds is a science fiction nightmare in which a parallel realm crashes into ours temporarily; Vertigo is a romantic psychopathology which teams nicely with Phantom Thread; these movies look innocent but are sure to detonate later.

Clarice Lispector (talk with Edilberto Coutinho) "I am Jewish, you know. But I don't believe in that foolishness of the Jews being the chosen people of God. No way are they chosen. The Germans must be because of what they did. What special kind of choice was that for the Jews? "

Different kinds of trauma: some make you psychotic (Irreversible; The Golden Glove); others can be fun (The Monkey). Go for the latter b/c we can also laugh at the apocalypse. As the man said 'Well Sir, can't speak for you but I don't feel especially fucked to hell!' Dance.

Liz Truss=performance art. Pinheads for Incorrect - Shaggs, Lucia Pamela, Jandek, William Shatner - find Liz does spoken word. David Icke - 100% LIZard - could sing. Lizard TV is borderline hebephrenic garbage & unwatchable yet glorious. Angst: das Grauen. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpH8...

Wazzing as a girly artform not squalid post-pub emergency; Sophie Rickett graces the cover in a neat standup slash; very elegant; not a Vivienne Westwood suit but a cheap charity shop number. Other pissers (all dressed for work) give off a more boss woman vibe. Great book = art.

John Calder badly misunderstood Sam Beckett by trying to 'domesticate' (ie tame/blunt/ameliorate) his key theme: failure wasn't a badge of honour or bad luck; it was the inevitable destiny of anyone with the least decency. Too much for most, this message needs to be hidden in misdirection.