redfiona99

I saw 14 films in the cinema in 2025. It was an odd year, because none of the 14 are actively bad. I would say 9-14 suffered from not doing anything interesting with their premises. I would actively recommend films 1-3 to everyone, 4-5 to some people and 6-8 if you're feeling in the mood for that particular genre of film.

As usual, I am also naming a film I saw for the first time last year but that was not released in the last year. In May I was in Brussels for work and was lucky enough to meet up with nwhyte who blogs at From The Heart of Europe. He recommended the Comic Art Museum (https://www.comicscenter.net/en/home), which was completely worth it.

There I saw 'Gertie the Dinosaur'. I am linking to the Wikipedia page because there is a full-length version of it on there - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertie_the_Dinosaur

She's just so charmingly silly.

For films released this year, I am applying my usual 4 criteria:

a – did the film do what it set out to do?
b – did it use its resources to its best ability? A £250,000 film is not going to have as good explosions as a £25,000,000 film, or it shouldn’t, and if it does, there’s something wrong with the £25,000,000 film. Basically, it's a technical merit score relative to budget.
c – Intellectual satisfaction – does the film’s plot pull some really stupid move at the last moment? Does the plot rely on characters being more stupid than they are?
d – Does this work as a whole? Did it work for me? I am aware that this is the most subjective of subjective criteria!

(As a note, film 13 is that low down because I could see the leading actress's wig tape. You are a Hollywood film, you can afford someone to check that.)

1 - Flow

It's another one of Zilbalodis's nightmare Edens. And it's so good. It's horrific and beautiful and wonderful, and I nearly shouted "Capybara, get out of there" twice in the cinema.

2 - Mickey 17

I want to put a content warning on this - it is disgusting and horrid in parts. It needs to be for the story to work.

It is a satire on modern consumerism and politics and rather obvious - we are in a time that requires obvious. On the other hand, it has the Creepers, Nasha and young Pattinson once again showing that he can act.

3 - Superman

You want to know when I fell for this version of Superman? Because I can tell you. "He's not even a good dog, but he's out there alone and he's probably scared." That's my vision of Superman too.

I was always going to enjoy it because James Gunn writes stories that work for me but I didn't expect to enjoy it so much. I enjoyed liking Superman and Lois, and Perry. I did not expect to love Mr. Terrific as much as I did.

4 - F1

I am the target audience for this. And I loved it. I suspect that if you were not the target audience, you would find this was insipid.

On the other hand, being an F1 nerd means I spotted all the things they got wrong. Like every single one of the stunts Sonny Hayes pulls is already against the rules, and in at least two cases, I watched the race where the rule was created.

5 - Roofman

I saw Roofman with D. It is not the heavy-on-the-comedy comedy drama the adverts promised. It is much better. It's about a weak man, trying to do his best, in a less than ideal world.

Channing Tatum is very good in it. Kirsten Dunst is even better.

6 - Nosferatu

Not even kidding when I said this was the most frustrating film in 2025.

The music, scenery, cinematography and Aaron Taylor Johnson are all outstanding.

The script, the leads, and the use of both sinister Gypsies and fridged women in the year of our Lord 2025 are not.

The direction seems to think there are five different films. They do not interlock well.

7 - Predator: Badlands

Not quite sure what to feel about Predator being an action comedy rather than a horror. But it was enjoyable fighting and explosions nonsense when I needed it. There's a lot to be said about how it explicitly positions the androids as robots not their own beings despite Thia and Tessa. Then again, I was worried about Bud so I think the film did what it intended to. Plus, you know, the universal truth - mothers are worse!

8 - The Phoenician Scheme

Arguments can be made that this ought to be a couple of positions higher, but I don't think a series of really nicely mounted set pieces can count as a good film, and it does coast on Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera and Benicio Del Toro's charisma and talent.

9 - Thunderbolts/New Avengers

Am I being a bit mean, given I liked it? Possibly. Am I marking it down because I was once again Kurylenko-blocked by a Marvel film? Yes.

On the other hand, this was very much like rice cakes. I like rice cakes. They fill a gap. But they're not the basis of a solid diet.

10 - Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning

Not its fault that it didn't live up to Dead Reckoning. But it really didn't. And one glorious returning character does not make up for that.

A mid-level spy film, an interesting sci-fi film and a mediocre action film had a baby.

As did Superman and Lex Luthor.

No, really.

It's a frustrating film because it comes so close to being better but it's also solid for what it is.

You have the conflicted agent working against a conspiracy - and Will Smith can do that easily (and does).

You've got the international espionage angle - it works.

You've got the everyday setting film that turns out to be sci fi and I like that style of sci fi.

I'm going to go through the three films that don't quite mesh together in increasing order of goodness.

Let's begin with the action film part, which is the bit that doesn't really work. I can understand a director choosing this film to try new technology, and unlike say, Cats, where you're there going 'why are you using tech that isn't quite there yet for an adaptation of this beloved piece from another medium?', this at least uses the tech that isn't quite there yet for an original story so the high frame rate not quite working doesn't ruin anything.

Why am I putting the technical detail in the action film section? Because it was in the action scenes where I noticed it. If I notice you are doing something technically different, my escape into the film is damaged.

I understand that, for the film to work (and probably to get the budget to make it), it needed action scenes. But they don't work and there's too much time spent on them, which means that some of the quieter character scenes that the film needs either aren't there, or are too short.

The middling spy film - it does what a lot of Hollywood films do. Get a bunch of British actors to play morally grey. They're cheap and they can do American accents. I'm fine with this, it gives Benedict Wong and Ralph Brown money. All good.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is stuck with the most obvious "oh hell, we haven't got a single woman in this film, stick one in" role I have seen for some time. She does very well in a horribly under-written role. I am not exaggerating about how obviously Zakarewski was added in to give the film a female character. There's one scene where she's being searched for bugs, and the way it is shot is totally just an excuse to get Mary Elizabeth Winstead in her underwear. It would have been filmed completely differently if the character had been male and it's so frustrating. I had hoped we'd moved beyond that.

There's travel and subterfuge in Budapest and you know what, it's middling.

The science fiction bit is the bit that works the best. I think it is, at least in part, because they don't try and explain the how, and just go with the why. Clive Owen is very good in his short screen time, because you can understand a younger Verris meeting Henry Brogan for the first time and seeing his belief that you can bend someone to being a superman by how you bring them up supported by evidence, and how he moved from that to cloning and every idea he's had since. (It's very Lex Luthor and Superman and Superboy/Kon-El)

And of course it ends up in child soldiers, because children are more malleable and aren't as aware of right and wrong, and isn't interesting the Verris starts to turn against Junior when he becomes old enough to develop his own set of ideals.

Junior is why the film has to use the fancy special effects and Will Smith is an excellent choice because the animators have lots of footage of a younger him to help mould how Junior looks. Will Smith is an excellent choice anyway because he sells Junior as well as Henry Brogan - he plays them differently enough that you could probably pick them apart even without the special effects. And the scene where he talks about his father!!! (Plus, as I said, the way it's obviously that story that made Verris choose him as the DNA donor for Junior.)

When the film does slow down for the emotional scenes, it works well. I almost want Ang Lee to have the chance to re-do it and pace it more like the original Day of the Jackal. Or make it a mini-series. There's so much potential in this that they can't get into because of time constraints.

It's not a good film, don't get me wrong, the bits don't fit together and its under-written, but there's potential there.

For the purposes of the film location chart, this had scenes in Belgium, US, Colombia and Hungary.

This entry is a bit easier to write, because there are no bad versions of the Prisoner of Zenda.

There is definitely a best version.

The best version is the black and white 1937 version with Ronald Colman, Douglas Fairbanks jnr, Raymond Massey and David Niven.

If, like me, your tastes tend sword-fight-wards, it's one of the greatest films you'll ever see.

Why do I say this?

1 - The way it adapts the book. It is such a good adaptation. It digs out all the best parts of the book and dispenses with most of the opening section which is … not good.

2 - The lighting and set design. Everything looks so good.

3 - The acting. Ronald Colman does such a good job as both Rudolf Rassendyll and Prince Rudolf. As Rassendyll, he is a good man but tempted, ever so tempted. He makes it believable that Rassendyll might turn on the Prince. (He's also good as the Prince who learns to be better. You believe he will become better for this.)

And you believe C. Aubrey Smith and David Niven when their characters say they know Rassendyll is a good man, probably better than the King, but that if he does betray the King, they will be the first people he has to kill.

Raymond Massey's take on the line "God save the King" when a Rudolf turns up at the coronation is one of the funniest things you will ever hear. He's so marvellous as Black Michael. (He's Raymond Massey, he's always marvellous)

And then you have Douglas Fairbanks jnr as Prince Rupert of Hentzau. He's just so perfectly charmingly villainous. There's a reason some part of you cheers when he escapes most consequences. When he leans against a doorway early on he is absolute smouldering desire.

In a film with perfect casting, he is the most perfect.

Prince Rupert can easily overwhelm a film but that's where Ronald Colman's ability to convey decency is so vital (in much the same way as James Cagney gets all the glory for Angels with Dirty Faces, but that film wouldn't work if Pat O'Brien couldn't do decency that well).

It also has the best swordfight in Hollywood films (some people suggest the long fight in Scaramouche is better. These people are wrong.)



The Stewart Granger, James Mason, Robert Douglas and Robert Coote version from 1952 is often derided as being nothing but a colour remake, and it's true that it's not as good, although their Princess Flavia (Deborah Kerr) is stronger.

There aren't as many other versions of this as there are of several other entries in this series. I'm not sure why. I think it's because it's harder to bend the story to other ways of telling it … although I do like that love makes the good people better and the bad people worse. It's very much set in a time, place and cultural setting. Which makes my choice of something different quite amusing.

For my something different, I am going with a Doctor Who episode, the Androids of Tara which runs the plot straight into a Doctor Who episode, with added bonus android doubles. It takes that silly premise and runs with it.



My favourite character is Lamia who is mostly original to the Doctor Who episode (she is the stand in for Antoinette de Mauban but gets more oomph and stuff to do) and I still don't quite forgive it for what they do to her but it does feature Peter Jeffrey as not-Rupert and he is marvellous avuncular evil, which sadly the trailer does not feature enough of.

It also has the Fourth Doctor pointing out how ridiculous the whole thing is, and swordfighting, where they steal chunks of the Colman fight.

Given the recent upswing in sword-fighting films, I live in hope we might get a new film for this as well.

(Mild spoilers for Thunderbolts and from that to Fantastic Four)

I have more skin in this game than I did for Superman (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2025/05/17/superman-the-new-one-some-scattergun-thoughts-about-comics-history-and-culture/). The coterie of comics fans I was in at high school were very much Marvel (and later 2000AD).

Fantastic Four was C's comic of choice - mine was X-Men (I am filled with trepidation about what Marvel will do to them because while the Fox films haven't been perfect, several of them have come pretty damn near).

I'm intrigued by the retro-futurism of the trailer for the new Fantastic Four, and amused by sudden unexpected Mark Gattiss appearing as I-can't-believe-it's-not Ed Sullivan.

There's a sinister uncurrent in the trailer, even before Galactus and the Silver Surfer turn up, that would have made it clear that it wasn't going end well, even before the bad guys do arrive. Also, Ben Grimm is somewhere where he is happy and beloved and they seem to be determined he will never get that for long *.

Given what we get in the Thunderbolts end credits teaser, I presume the end of Fantastic Four has them slingshotted over into our universe, which at least has precedent in the comics.

Part of me wants it to be "them slingshotted following abject failure to beat Galactus." but I don't think Marvel will go there, no one likes to see their heroes lose. Although they did go there for the Avengers: Infinity War cliffhanger.

What I think is more likely is that Reed Richards is going to have to make a choice, save the world and potentially doom the family, and luckily they end up over in MCU-main-verse.

But that leads to the question of why would they give that away in another film? Or am I just putting too much thought into it?

* Ben Grimm is my favourite in ways that words cannot explain.

D took me to the Mockingbird Cinema (https://mockingbirdcinema.com/MockingbirdCinema.dll/Home) because, as an indie cinema, they reshow older films sometimes.

I had seen Time Bandits before, but never in the right order. As you can imagine, it has a very different effect in the right order - it works better, despite it very much being Terry Gilliam doing the child hero's journey.

And ending it very Gilliamly. (Which I define as an ending that is sort of, if not unhappy, then lacking in comfort. I think that might be the hallmark of his films, they provide no direct comforting message.)

But at least things look interesting. (I will forgive a lot for interesting)

Writing this has made me realise how difficult I find it to describe Terry Gilliam's films and my responses to them. They're very much experiences rather than a solid thing that can be described, or certainly not by me, who, I admit, comes from the science and sense end of things rather than humanities and sensibilities. I am happier with things that are and aren't, rather than -ish, but Gilliam's films are full of -ish and questions, but I like that about them. They're full of that feeling, without trying to explain everything, as opposed to some films that aim for that and then try to explain, and that never works for me. (Spoiling my review in advance, I think that's why I did not jive with 'Everything, Everywhere, All At Once'.)

Catching up on film reviews

Wiser heads than me have written about how weird, wrong and bad it is to have Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi, so I shan't be writing about that.

The thing that freaked me out was how things that the Major did in the animated film version became things that happened to her in this.

Obviously it's not a shot for shot remake but there's several scenes that are blocked to look and play out in really similar ways.

The example I'm going to use is from towards the end, so there's slight spoilers.

In the big end fight, in the animated film, already injured and knowing that interfacing with the wild killer robot guards will do her further damage, the Major chooses to plug herself in to solve the mystery.

In the equivalent scene in the live-action film, the robot plugs the Major into itself.

It's not the only example, but it's probably the clearest because of how similarly the two scenes are shot.

It gives the film (and the Major) a very different vibe than in the animated version, and I do not approve.

Batou is my favourite, but if Batou isn't my favourite in any version, that's probably a signal that I'm trying to tell you I've been kidnapped and am being held against my will.

Because L assures me that sometimes my post should be up to date and my film reviews are now running 5-6 years late.

I start with some caveats:
1 - in my comic book days, I was very much a Marvel girl. Make mine Marvel etc. The nearest I got to DC was Batman.

2 - James Gunn is one of those creative types who appears to have a direct line to my soul. He is responsible for an excessive amount of me crying in cinemas; somewhat famously, the time Guardians of the Galaxy made me cry so hard I gave L a migraine.

I have very little skin in this game (Superman) and I know that I will enjoy it anyway.

That being said, it's so nice to see a friendly Superman on screen.

I blame a mixture of Quentin Tarantino and the comics' Dark Age for the dour Supermen we have been having on the big screen recently (this applies to big screen only, the cartoons have been suitable).

Quentin Tarantino because of the whole which of Clark Kent's identities is the "real" one spiel, and everyone wanting to be an auteur like him and ape him in every possible way. (Said with affection for his films)

The Dark Age for that period of comics were everything had to be bleaker than bleak. And fellas, I understand the appeal, because those were the comics of my teenage years too. But they were a short blip in a long lifetime of the Superman character.

Superman is the best of us and happens to be an übermensch, not just an übermensch.

My "not first released in 2024" option is Galaxy Quest, which I saw at the Electric, about two weeks before it closed. Which was a real shock! The owner was perpetually threatening to close it but hadn't ever (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clm7nnyx2d5o). It just means I really need to get myself more organised to actually get back to going to the Mockingbird (https://mockingbirdcinema.com/MockingbirdCinema.dll/Home) when I get the chance.

For films released this year, I am applying my usual 4 criteria:

a – did the film do what it set out to do?
b – did it use its resources to its best ability? A £250,000 film is not going to have as good explosions as a £25,000,000 film, or it shouldn’t, and if it does, there’s something wrong with the £25,000,000 film. Basically, it's a technical merit score.
c – Intellectual satisfaction – does the film’s plot pull some really stupid move at the last moment? Does the plot rely on characters being more stupid than they are?
d – Does this work as a whole? Did it work for me? I am aware that this is the most subjective of subjective criteria!

I saw 13 films this year, 12 in the cinema and one on a plane, because the cinema-to-plane turnaround time is ridiculous nowadays. The bottom 3, which didn't make the top 10, can all be missed quite happily.

Of the 10 here, I can find something to recommend in everything down to 9, while I'd say the top 4 are actively good and Kalki 2898 AD is intriguing but that might be my lack of knowledge.

1 - Monkey Man - If we could give Dev Patel all the money he wants to make any film he wants, I would be so grateful. This was marvellous. Fills my need for arthouse violence exactly.

2 - Kneecap - I am going to caveat this one. How do you feel about about swearing, drink and drugs? If any of the above are not your thing, please skip. The politics is also ... intriguing (let's be honest, they go with 'Band banned by the UK gov' for a reason). (The politics is a whole section of the full review, a long section.)

On the other hand, other than 'oh heck, Fassbender is old enough to be playing parents', this was good. Openly, 'our story as told by a drunk', in the best sense, and DJ Provai can act (the other two, not so much but not worse than many pro-actors).

3 - The Beekeeper - Kurt Wimmer is a member of the Garth Marenghi school of writing, where subtext is for cowards. His style really works for me. The Beekeeper is a very straightforward story of good guys, bad guys, necessary bad guys and a lot of violence. They fill this out by casting a bunch of British actors in random roles (and have Josh Hutcherson being the sleaziest sleaze ever).

Catnip for me.

4 - The Count of Monte Cristo - It needed to be a mini-series. But I enjoyed what there was. Pierre Niney was excellent, I did not expect to fall for Andrea Calcavetti quite that hard and loved how they did Dantes acting as the Count.

5 - Kalki 2898 AD - The full story of how I ended up watching this will wait until the write up. Safe to say it was longer than expected, and could have done with some judicious cutting. On the other hand it felt very fresh, although how much of that is me not knowing the Mahabharata, I do not know. (It is a gap I am planning on fixing eventually)

I do find it interesting that 4 out of my top 5 are not English as their main language. Monkey Man and Kneecap (and the Count, to an extent) are also good at the way people who use more than language use their languages and flow between them.

6 - Furiosa - It wasn't as good as Fury Road (but that's a very high bar), and it did make Furiosa far too nice and cut-out how she was supporting Immortan Joe. But the images were still awesome and it does interesting things with revenge.

7 - Dune 2 - I am the problem with this. I acknowledge this. But there are three scenes I demand in any adaptation of this part of the book, and it whiffs all of them. I grant there's reasons for one of them - can I recommend SelenaK's review here - https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1573791.html? - but I still want those scenes.

8 - Argylle - It has problems. For spoilery reasons, Bryce Dallas Howard is mildly miscast, but she's not miscast for the more important part. I would have re-edited several of the scenes that ran too long. But it's pleasingly silly, and does some fun things.

9 - The Fall Guy - This is probably better than Argylle, I just do not vibe with Ryan Gosling. The parts that are David Leitch's love letter to stunt guys, and any part that features Winston Duke, are absolute love, mind you.

10 - Venom 3

Everything above 10 has some redeeming feature. Films 10-13 have almost none of these. Venom 3 comes the top of them because while it is a pointless sequel (like film 11), I enjoyed it more than 11. Unlike film 12, I didn't consider that it might have been written by AI, because AI would be more evenly-toned. Unlike film 13, it didn't make me drunkenly rant at L, because it's just so wrong.

Also, it did have Venom Horse and Mrs Chen.

And Venom Penguin!

In 2023, I watched 12 new films in the cinema. I was on track for more, but then I broke my leg. A determination to watch Napoleon was on of the things that helped get me out of the house.

The very best film I saw last year was Blue, which I saw with ioplokon as part of the Horrorshow exhibition (https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/the-horror-show) [fuller review of the show eventually].

If we agree that art is trying to convey experience through a medium, Blue is exceptional. It's undoubtedly one of the greatest works of art I've seen in any medium.

The chance to see things like that, so utterly better than any of this year's films (most year's films), is why I have a separate category for films not released in that year.

I was also lucky enough to see Dr. Strangelove and Grand Budapest Hotel at the Electric Cinema (https://www.electricbirmingham.com/)

For films released this year, I am applying my usual 4 criteria:

a – did the film do what it set out to do?
b – did it use its resources to its best ability? A £250,000 film is not going to have as good explosions as a £25,000,000 film, or it shouldn’t, and if it does, there’s something wrong with the £25,000,000 film. Basically, it's a technical merit score.
c – Intellectual satisfaction – does the film’s plot pull some really stupid move at the last moment? Does the plot rely on characters being more stupid than they are?
d – Does this work as a whole? Did it work for me? I am aware that this is the most subjective of subjective criteria!


1 - Polite Society

This gets both style and ridiculousness points, and extra bonus points for Eunice Huthart (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Huthart) [every girl my age wanted to be Eunice Huthart when we grew up] and introducing me to Nimra Bucha.

It also get a bonus for not being based on a pre-existing media property.

2 - Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning

If you'd told me that Mission Impossible 7 would be one of the freshest films I'd see all year I would have laughed at you. It is still a series of action set pieces barely held together with a plot and the lead villain is miscast, and everything I loved about Elsa Faust's fight choreography in Fallout (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/mission-impossible-fallout-is-solid-but-the-fight-scenes-are-exceptional/) this one got wrong.

On the otherhand Vanessa Kirby, Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Cserny and Shea Whigham's Briggs. I am so easily pleased.

3 - Across the Spiderverse
It's not Across the Spiderverse's fault it's not as good as Into the Spiderverse. Unfortunately, some of it did feel like filler when they realised that they'd made one and a half films and they needed to turn it into two.

I also really don't like cliffhangers.

4 - Guardians 3

Was it "a bit much"? Yes. Does James Gunn need someone to shout "no" at him? Yes.

On the other hand, did I go in knowing that? Yes. Did various bits of it, not least of all Teefs, break me in the way James Gunn always breaks me? Yes.

It was horrific, in a way this sort of film often isn't, but probably should be. It also had the best explanation of why I skew Marvel rather than DC - "everyone deserves a second chance."

5 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Could I have done without the romance? Yes. Other than that, it was pleasing Turtle-y nonsense.

6 - Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania

To return to the cake metaphor I first used for the first of the Fantastic 4 films, bad superhero films are like bad cake. Yeah, it's bad, but it's still cake. And this was only mediocre cake, not actively bad cake. I didn't like what they did with MODOK, and it was too obviously setting up Wave 4 rather than being its own film (see also my problems with Stephen Strange 1 and 2) and there wasn't enough of team minor criminal, but it was bland not bad.

7 - Indiana Jones 5

I know what they were trying to do, it just didn't work for me. Sallah steals the film entirely.

8 - Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves

I am the problem with this one.

My first exposure to D&D was Neverwinter Nights so I totally squeaked when they moved around Neverwinter, and when I play that I almost always play a lady barbarian so Holga, entirely my speed, ditto Doric.

On the other hand, it was just too ironical for my tastes. I find irony fine seasoning but a poor main course.

9 - John Wick 4

The problems with John Wick 4 were accidentally caused by John Wick 3. That was a series of excellent set pieces barely held together by some excellent acting. In this one, the thread holding the action set pieces didn't work, because John spent 3 desperately trying to find the Elder, only for spoiler to happen at the start of this.

Okay, given spoiler, ragnarok is coming for the High Table. I could get behind that.

Only then they don't do that either.

The plot made no sense!!!

10 - Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan/Three Musketeers: Milady

If this ranking was just based on the acting, the set design and the lighting, these films would be in second.

The directing would have moved them down anyway (directors, we have steady cam, use it).

And then we hit the screenplay. May the good Lord grant me the self-confidence of someone who adapts one of the most popular books in the world, one which has been consistently popular since its release, and then changes every single bit of the plot.

By the end of the second film, it wasn't even suggested by Dumas anymore.

Also, given they changed everything, one of the revelations in part 2 means someone's actions in part 1 make no sense, and it's just urgh!

I can happily recommend everything down to 3, would say 4-8 depend on people's likes and dislikes, and several of them have been moved around in this ranking every time I sat down to update it, and 9 and 10 had serious flaws.

The year it came out, I named "Blinded By The Light" my favourite film of the year. I stand by that.

I have no idea if it's a good film mind you, because it just blows past good, straight past all my critical faculties.

It captures that teenage feeling of no-one understanding you except your band, in all its melodramatic glory. I mean it, that windswept scene, who hasn't felt precisely that.

Maybe that's why I love the film - the way it reflects so many of my experiences. Not just "my favourite band are the only people who understand me", but the town in economic distress ('Luton is a Four-Letter Word' indeed), the friend you shared your music with, Leicester being the escape from your rundown town, so much of it. That's before we get to Roop looking so much like A who was my mate who shared his music with me. (No, seriously, that was uncanny, and means I get guilt for not keeping in better touch with A every time I think of the film.)

The whole thing is filled with so much love, from Javed on down. Everyone is trying to get tomorrow and helpd each other as best they can (except Eliza's parents and the National Front, and fuck the National Front).

The love is everywhere - find me a scene more filled with love than the one where Javed's Mum dyes Javed's Dad's hair.

It would have been so easy to make Javed's Dad the boo-hiss disapproving Dad of legend, but he's not. He disapproves, yes, and he doesn't understand, but he's trying so hard and it's clear throughout that he loves his son. Even if he's terrible at showing it.

The other thing I really like is that Javed is not over-idealised. As it's based on an autographical book, it must have been so tempting to make Javed super-sympathetic and always right, but he isn't. He gets to be mean, throughtless and selfish at times. He's a teenager and feels like it. I also like that, unlike a lot of other Bildungsroman-type films, Javed grows through his own experiences and not the suffering of others.

In short, I loved it.