Gonna buy a hundred of those Backrooms candles and hold a seance to summon an unnerving doorway.

Yep, need Kore-eda Look Back more than life itself.

This shiny dolphin is the most I've been sold on GTA VI to date, tbh.

First impulse was this for shot of the decade tbh.

Stuntman: Hollywood SGF previews are up.

God of War Laufey boldly merges several mythologies into one universe: Norse, Egyptian and dated ITV game shows.

Afraid to report that the new NWR film has the coolest synopsis of all time.

Physical copy of Rhythm Heaven/Paradise Groove on the docket because LOOK at that delightful key art:

9 games that are all, in their own dazzling little ways, very J-coded.

Backrooms has such potential to be another paradigm shifter for contemporary cinema. Absolutely one of my most anticipated this year.

we are so back

This poster is already a stunner.

Tough to beat Dollman as one of my fave guy-on-your-waist characters. But, special shoutout ofc to the Lumines chameleons.

Perennial favourite of mine.

HAMNET is impossible to review in a calm manner; the screening was introduced by Steven Spielberg with a guided meditation by Chloé Zhao. Either way, this is a wonderful film. Primordial and pastoral with an exquisite sense of stillness. Pathos as healing tincture. Art as a reckoning. #LFF

TWINLESS is the biggest fest surprise so far. Entered with modest expectations, left feeling electric. Ostensibly a twee Sundance dramedy, Sweeney's moving and mischievous tale quickly diverges into bizarre, psychosexual territory. Clever, complex and led by a phenomenal Dylan O'Brien. #LFF

BUGONIA is another twist of the knife by Yorgos Lanthimos. Restrained by his standards (until it isn't), the film adopts a suffocating theatricality to its staging/score/performances. Stone and Plemons' rapport is magnetic. Robbie Ryan's career-best compositions take no prisoners. #LFF

Bi Gan's monumental elegy to cinema RESURRECTION is my current fave of the year. A truncation of 20th-century China via a symphonic collection of film genres, Gan once again displays his masterful craftsmanship. Another oner for the ages. Special nod to the surprise (sob-inducing) M83 score #LFF

Also attended a last-min screening of BAD APPLES: a wickedly deviant comedy with (an ever-excellent) Saoirse Ronan. There's a lot of absurdity, wish fulfilment and catharsis - particularly if an unruly child has ever sabotaged your day. It's all utterly ridiculous but weirdly satisfying. #LFF

Kicking off #LFF with a video game adaptation - what a time to be alive. EXIT 8 is a jolting, deliriously enjoyable translation of the original, nailing the liminality and the inexplicably addictive rhythms of its mechanics. Somehow wrests a moving morality tale out of the plotless source too.

Forever baffling.

frothing at the mouth

Every film I've got booked currently for LFF this year. Some corkers inbound, I'm sure.

The LFF programme is now up and I'd be remiss not to immediately spotlight the thriving IMAX Games Lounge. My personal recommendation this year would be the elegiac and moving Some Goodbyes We Made, my absolute A Maze highlight.

SORRY, BABY is a universal triumph, but what impressed me most were its cutting structural choices. Eva Victor loads the screenplay with arch charm & biting wit; but this film also nails how a single devastating event can obliterate memory and chronology.

Pretty rad that DEAR ME I WAS is one of Switch 2's first third-party exclusives - a tone poem with echoes of Look Back and the films of Hong Sang-soo. Kanasaki's art secures this as the year's most beautiful game by default. A work of gentle brevity that enlivens the world simply by existing.

I wonder what Pynchon thinks about all this.

Reader, I have stumbled upon an actual Deadstorm Pirates arcade machine in the wild. What a day.