by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
The Electric State | 2025
I've seen a lot of bad movies. Call it an occupational hazard, but I couldn't even guess how much bloated, bland, pretentious, and downright incompetent slop I've seen on screen. Yet, I can't remember the last time I saw a film so soulless and dispiriting as The Electric State - the latest "this can't possibly be real" Netflix mockbuster from Joe and Anthony Russo (Avengers: Endgame).
Last Breath | 2025
There's something agreeably no-nonsense about Alex Parkinson's Last Breath, a straight-down-the-middle, meat-and-potatoes true-life rescue thriller we rarely see anymore. Perhaps I'm looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, but there once was a time when mid-budget actioners like this were multiplex staples. Nowadays, you're more likely to see movies like this relegated to streaming rather than playing on a big screen.
In 1931, F.W. Murnau made his final film, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, on the island of Bora Bora. It was partly inspired by Robert Flaherty's 1926 documentary, Moana (no relation to the Disney film). Tabu would ultimately be Murnau's final film, he died in a car crash before the film was released. Both Tabu and Moana were examples of ethnographic films that sought to bring exotic locales to life for audiences of the silent era. I found myself thinking about both of these films as I watched Miguel Gomes' latest film, Grand Tour.