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SMB Film Thread 2026


Crime 101 (2026)

A great ensemble cast featuring Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, Mark Ruffalo, Nick Nolte, Monica Barbaro and Barry Keoghan. Hensworth plays the career thief, Ruffalo the cop chasing him around LA. Of course it sounds like Heat, but what’s not to like about that?

It’s a well made crime thriller.

7/10
 
It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley (2025) 7/10
Documentary about Jeff Buckley made with the cooperation of his estate, so it's mainly hagiography. The circumstances of his death have always been murky, and this doesn't really clear it up.
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The Frisco Kid (1979) 5/10
Bizarre comedy-Western. Gene Wilder as a rabbi from Poland, and Harrison Ford as a gay bankrobber. Blazing Saddles it ain't.
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Le Roman d'un tricheur (The Story of a Cheat) (1936) 10/10
Inventive, brilliantly constructed comedy by Sacha Guitry. Hugely popular in the UK when it came out, but now almost forgotten. A major influence on Ealing comedies.
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The reluctant fundamentalist

About a Pakistani lad who studies and gets a top job in New York, the the two towers happen and well……….

Riz Ahmed. Class as usual, brilliant that lad like. Liev Shreiber, Hudson and K Sutherland.

Really enjoyed , could have cut about 5/6 scene down to keep under 2 hours, but worth a watch, free on prime.
7/10
 
Today I learned (or was reminded) that the much beloved but basically straight to video 80s thriller F/X: Murder By Illusion had the cinematographer off Amadeus. And the Oscar-winning composer from The Right Stuff doing the score
 
Predator Badlands 2025 watched it on Disney channel at the weekend different take on the predator films and quite enjoyable watch. Rate it 7/10 worth a watch .
 
Wuthering Heights (2026) - Omniplex

Big budget A-list 'adaptation' of Wuthering Heights from the director of the excellentSaltburn. I put adaptation in inverted commas because, aside from the character names and a few of the events in the film, it doesn't really have relation to the original novel. It only covers about third of the timeline of the original novel, and even with that remaining third there are significant changes and bits of 'artistic licence'.

Didn't work for me at all. The visual style is massively overblown and glossy, to the point where it felt like watching a 2hr 15min high concept perfume advert, or Lady Gaga music video. Some people might like that, but for me it was a total distraction from the action/dialogue/atmosphere of the film. Also found the acting and directing to be histrionic and overdramatised to the point of it seeming like pure charcature, particularly of Catherine.

I'm not a prude, but I also found all the sex in it didn't work at all. Part of what works so well in the novel is that everything is so achingly repressed and hidden away behind closed doors, all left to the imagination. With this is was like watching 50 Shades of Bronte at times.

Not my cup of tea.

4/10
 
Speakeasy said:
Wuthering Heights (2026) - Omniplex

Big budget A-list 'adaptation' of Wuthering Heights from the director of the excellentSaltburn. I put adaptation in inverted commas because, aside from the character names and a few of the events in the film, it doesn't really have relation to the original novel. It only covers about third of the timeline of the original novel, and even with that remaining third there are significant changes and bits of 'artistic licence'.

Didn't work for me at all. The visual style is massively overblown and glossy, to the point where it felt like watching a 2hr 15min high concept perfume advert, or Lady Gaga music video. Some people might like that, but for me it was a total distraction from the action/dialogue/atmosphere of the film. Also found the acting and directing to be histrionic and overdramatised to the point of it seeming like pure charcature, particularly of Catherine.

I'm not a prude, but I also found all the sex in it didn't work at all. Part of what works so well in the novel is that everything is so achingly repressed and hidden away behind closed doors, all left to the imagination. With this is was like watching 50 Shades of Bronte at times.

Not my cup of tea.

4/10
Click to expand...

Any non binary servants?
 
Speakeasy said:
Wuthering Heights (2026) - Omniplex

Big budget A-list 'adaptation' of Wuthering Heights from the director of the excellentSaltburn. I put adaptation in inverted commas because, aside from the character names and a few of the events in the film, it doesn't really have relation to the original novel. It only covers about third of the timeline of the original novel, and even with that remaining third there are significant changes and bits of 'artistic licence'.

Didn't work for me at all. The visual style is massively overblown and glossy, to the point where it felt like watching a 2hr 15min high concept perfume advert, or Lady Gaga music video. Some people might like that, but for me it was a total distraction from the action/dialogue/atmosphere of the film. Also found the acting and directing to be histrionic and overdramatised to the point of it seeming like pure charcature, particularly of Catherine.

I'm not a prude, but I also found all the sex in it didn't work at all. Part of what works so well in the novel is that everything is so achingly repressed and hidden away behind closed doors, all left to the imagination. With this is was like watching 50 Shades of Bronte at times.

Not my cup of tea.

4/10
Click to expand...

Haven't seen this version but my thoughts from reading the book and seeing other adaptations, is that a faithful adaptation of Wuthering Heights might be unfilmable.

My thoughts from Promising Young Woman and Saltburn is that Emerald Fennell has a problem with endings of her films. Not as bad as Edgar Wright's but still a problem
 
The McGuffin. 1980. BBC2s Screen 2 series of made for TV films. 7/10.

Film Noirish Hitchcockian pastiche/tribute in which Charles Dance is a Film Writer in Hammersmith living opposite a block of flats the double of Jimmy Stewart’s when he’s got the chalk on his leg. Keep an eye out for Hitchcocks Timber Merchants who iirc were on the weird series of back doubles and short cuts used to avoid Hammersmith Broadway back then.
Obviously summets happening ower the road there and CD finds himself reet in the middle of it. Mark Rylance, Trigger from OFAHs, Chris Langham urgh, Brian Glover and a few other 70-80s faces appear inc the lad who played Paul Temple and the tube driver in the original Pelham 123. The English Bull Terrier is the star though, Archie is his name in this. Gazundheit (sp?).
Nice Chinatown style jazz soundtrack.
 
Visions of Eight (1973) 9/10
Eight renowned directors provide their impressions of the 1972 Munich Olympics. John Schlesinger's segment's especially good, contrasting the trials and tribulations of marathon runner Ron Hill with the unfolding Israeli hostage crisis.
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Is This Thing On? (2025) 7/10
Origin story of a stand-up comedian loosely based on the life of John Bishop. Could have done with a few more laughs. Some of the same ground - a broken marriage provides material for a novice comedian - was covered in the brilliant TV series The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.
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Train Dreams (2025) 8/10
Poetic exploration of grief. Very heavily influenced by Terrence Malick. Memorable performance from William H Macy.
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