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SMB Film Thread 2026

Dangerous Crossing (1953)

Newlyweds Jeanne Crain and her husband book passage on a liner for their honeymoon after a whirlwind romance. He vanishes after about ten minutes and nobody claims to have seen him. She starts to think she has possibly lost her mind, but gets help from ship’s doctor Michael Rennie.

Very watchable potboiler from the pen of John Dickson Carr, who specialised in locked room mysteries. Crain does well to span the gap between hysterical wife and paranoid sleuth, who refuses to fully accept that she may be imagining things. Decent.

7/10
 

Watched ‘The Ballad of Wallis Island’ (2025) last night.

Thoroughly enjoyed it as a slow, easy watch with Tim Key being, well, Tim Key.


**********WARNING: (MINOR) SPOILER ALERT ******************************************************

Other than the character ‘Michael’, who clumsily left his wife with her unpredictable ex-partner while he disappeared for days to go puffin watching on an island so small that it didn’t have a harbour, it was well written and charming.

7/10.
 
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Metropolis (1927) - The restored version.

As part of my project for @Cockney Mackem DoubleReel Monthly Podcast this year I'm planning on watching more foreign language science fiction films. Th first one of my list was Fritz Lang's Metropolis - a film I've been aware of but just never got around to watching.

I grew up watching silent movies (Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton etc) during the school holidays etc but because it's been a long time since I've watched a silent film it took me a bit for me to focus my attention. I've become so used in watching modern "talkies - being able to turn away while I listen to the characters dialog, that I had to force myself to pay attention to what was going on. Fritz Lang effortlessly draws the film along using his "show, not tell" method - something as I an author I've learned to do myself in my writing.

I have to be honest for some reason I didn't expect Metropolis to have such a long running time (2 hours 30 minutes), but I managed to watch it in one sitting. Quite a visually stunning film with a brilliant score. Some truly eye-catching set pieces ie the power station/Morlock scene. But I also found it to be quite disturbing at times - the scene with the fake Maria seducing the males leering at her in particular. One thing I really enjoyed while watching this, is watching the actors show their emotions visually.

Not sure if it is a film I will probably watch again, but I am glad I finally got around to watching it.
 
Marty Supreme (2026).

Just got back from watching this at the fantastic Omniplex in Sunniside.

Contrary to the near universal positive reviews about this, I was left feeling a bit confused about where the story ended up. Lots of left-open sub plots and, while the acting was good, I did check my watch around 2 hours in to see how long was left.

The screen (screen 2 - so a biggie) was nearly full, which was great to see.

6/10.
 
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Solid 8/10 for me, if you've seen any of the docs or clips anywhere about tourettes it's likely you know exactly who this about
 
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