by hutchwp

Video Game Review – eFootball Kick-Off! (Nintendo Switch 2, 2026)

The latest football game from Konami has arrived on Switch 2 with little-to-no fanfare. With roots firmly in its franchise predecessor Pro Evolution Soccer/Winning Eleven, the game focuses on gameplay and ease of access. It’s a lesson that its noisy neighbour could and should learn from.

The first thing that strikes you when you load up the game is just how easy it is to navigate around the menus. The first thing you see is a choice of Solo, Local or Multiplayer. In my favoured mode (solo), the options are again limited: Quick Match, World Tour or International Cup. It’s a simplicity that feels like a breath of fresh air in comparison to the bulky, clunky process you need to follow on EA FC (and have done for years) – a sea of updates, inboxes to check, packets to open. There’s none of that here, just straight to the pitch and on with the next match.

I spent a lot of time in World Tour mode, which will remind long-time players of Master League at least in part. Here, you take over management duties for a squad of generic players (plus Messi if you buy it early enough). By playing matches against increasingly difficult opposition, you unlock better players. This is done one of two ways. Either you choose a player from the squad of the team you beat, or you save up points from each win (300-500) and spend them in the Hall of Fame. It’s a fun grind that allows you to progress at a decent pace. Importantly, there are no hidden charges or loot boxes here. You can only progress by winning.

The gameplay itself feels just like Pro Evo in its heyday. Quick passing, intelligent player movements, satisfying finishes. The controls haven’t changed much, with a few extra modifications that are introduced via training games and mini challenges within the matches. The physics engine is realistic and basically becomes unnoticeable very quickly, which is a good sign that the team at Konami got it right.

The game doesn’t have loads of authentic teams and kits, but that never feels like a huge let down. Of course, every realistic football game will inevitably be compared to FIFA, the dominant force in the genre for a long time. The balance of power has always swung between the two franchises, with FIFA effectively killing off Pro Evo a few years ago in 2020. FIFA had the market share and the consumers voted for the game with the team and player licences. I was never fully behind the idea that you could pay to improve your team, even though that is the way of a lot of video games now. The gameplay always let the franchise down, and that issue has carried itself over to the rebranded EA FC.

I’d take this cheaper and very enjoyable game over the alternative every single time. Strong recommend.

by hutchwp

Film Review: Back to Black (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2024)

Big-budget biopics have become a popular box office draw, with Queen, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen and Robbie Williams all getting the Hollywood treatment in recent years. Sam Taylor-Johnson’s retelling of Amy Winehouse’s rise to fame is certainly not a bad film, but it falls short in many ways.

Let’s start with the story itself. The narrative that has been concocted doesn’t align with the reality and what really happened in her life. My memory of her successful music career was that she exploded into public consciousness with the song ‘Rehab’, her first in a new-sounding musical approach she’d found alongside Mark Ronson, who produced the smash-hit album ‘Back to Black’. Seemingly for narrative reasons, this song is not focused on until much later in the film, and Mark Ronson is only mentioned a couple of times rather than being a key part of the story. The implication is that she was already a huge popstar, when in reality her first album debuted at #60 in the UK charts and was outperformed that week by new releases by Michael Ball, S Club 8, Myleene Klass and Daniel O’Donnell. Not to undermine any of their careers, but none are expecting a big screen retelling of their musical successes any time soon.

Of course, chopping and changing the ordering and minor facts is something we’ve come to expect with these kinds of films, and it’s a topic I explored in my previous article ‘Fact vs Fiction – How far is too far for biopics?’. As I said at the time, there is a a fine balance between telling a truthful story and telling an entertaining and dramatic story.

The problem I have with ‘Back to Black’ is that it does neither.

What it does well is provide a platform to showcase Winehouse’s wonderful music. The music took over the world for well over a year, soundtracking big nights out, house parties, dinner parties, car journeys and everything in between. The titular album was one of the last big sellers when it comes to physical media, shipping almost 2m copies in the UK alone in 2008. You only need about a third of that now. Anyone who sees this film and who lived through that period will surely be seeking out her music in the aftermath of their first viewing.

It’s not a surprise that her alleged struggles with alcohol and substance abuse and subsequent health decline after the success of the ‘Back to Black’ album are not a key part of the film. However, by choosing the much safer route the whole film feels a bit vanilla. As a standalone piece, it kind of works. But the world knows so much more about her life and knows it has been left out for a reason.

As a result, it doesn’t really land and it feels like a struggle to enjoy.

by hutchwp

The Art of the Music Video and Why We Don’t Watch Them Anymore

I had a sudden realisation the other day. My daughter is going to see Mamma Mia the musical soon. After she’d watched the film version, I thought it would be fun to show her some original ABBA performances. This led to a bit of a fun chat about how music videos have evolved over the years, and how much of a big deal they were when I was young.

Nowadays, of course, music videos are consumed very differently. The likes of Top of the Pops, the Pepsi Chart Show, and even just MTV, are simply not available anymore. I’m 41 now, and it isn’t especially obvious how to discover great new music now. I listen to a wide range of new music, but I couldn’t tell you how I found out about some of the newer bands I like. I’ve been listening to Kingfishr recently, but I really don’t know how they found their way into my music rotations.

In the 1990s, when I was in my peak discovery phase, I knew what the routes were. The aforementioned music video programmes were reliable, and I often tuned into MTV2 to the Sara Cox or Zane Lowe shows to find out interesting new tunes. There was also a plethora of trendy music magazines, reliable radio channels and also a thriving mixtape community at school.

In 2026, how do we consume music videos? the landscape has certainly changed. If you’re relying on YouTube, then you’re in luck. 99% of the entire history of the music video is there, usually in at least HD quality. Also, you’ve got a fair amount of live footage, TV appearances and anything else you can think of.

The catch? You need to know what you’re searching for in the first place. I knew there was a new Rolling Stones single on the way, so knew to search the video out on YouTube. The video itself is a wondrous piece of art, with Ana Taylor-Joy and Charles Melton playing out an intense argument with a luscious Mick Jagger falsetto accompanying it.

With all this in mind, I started to wonder if other people would be interested in a curated list of music videos to sit back and play on their TV, allowing them to focus on the music video without the need to have a phone at hand to click onto the next song. So, I decided I’d do it for you.

Cinema Etc’s New Music Videos Monthly

Hopefully if you click through to the above link, you can access the playlist on Apple Music. You can either watch it on your devices or sync to your TV.

The first playlist is a fair mix of established acts, A-list pop stars and a few upcoming artists that I think you’ll enjoy.

Let me know how you find the list and if you know of anything else I should be checking out, especially if there’s a cool new video to enjoy!

by hutchwp

Film Review – Power Ballad (John Carney, 2026)

Irish filmmaker John Carney shot to prominence in 2007, when his romantic musical drama ‘Once’ became an unexpected hit. What had started as a little film that cost just $150,000 to make ended up grossing over $23m at the global box office, won an Academy Award for Best Original song, and was later remade into a stage musical. The warmth shone through the end product to make a connection with the audiences beyond anything that Carney could have ever dreamed of.

Since then, he has focused a lot of his directorial output on the musical genre. These have been fairly consistent in their quality despite varying box office returns. First there was 2013’s Begin Again, a saccharine effort starring Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo. Then in 2016 he helmed Sing Street, an Irish-set bittersweet musical that again outperformed expectations. Finally, Flora and Son, a Gary Clark collaboration, performed poorly with a limited release in 2023 before moderate success when it arrived on Apple TV+.

And so we come to Power Ballad, his latest musical comedy. This time, Paul Rudd takes centre stage as Rick Power, the front man of a jobbing wedding band called The Bride and Groove. We are introduced to the band in the middle of a very successful performance at a wedding party, which goes awry when Rick decides to use his formerly successful rock band’s biggest hit as the encore. Inevitably the audience doesn’t dig the sound and the show falls flat. This is a great springboard for his story – he has made a compromise on his personal success by fully committing to family life with his wife and daughter, but is still writing songs with no platform to showcase them.

We are then introduced to Danny Wilson, played by Nick Jonas. He is a struggling former boyband member that is looking to write a hit comeback single. When a chance meeting between him and Rick leads to them jamming out a few song ideas, Nick takes one of Rick’s songs and uses it as the lead single on his new album. The catch? Rick didn’t give him permission and he isn’t credited on the song.

As a member of a very unserious dad rock band who had flashes of musical success in my youth, a lot of the film resonated hard with me. John Carney is a talented songwriter himself, and he is uniquely adept at showing the songwriting process in a realistic manner. I really enjoyed Paul Rudd’s performance in the lead role, which is both lightly humorous and soaked with emotional baggage too.

As a piece of cinema, I have only one small gripe with Power Ballad. The whole film hinges on the magic of one single song as it becomes the most popular piece of music in the entire world. Unfortunately, the song itself is not quite of that quality. It’s not a bad song by any means, but it does have an unlikely callback to another recent musical comedy: K-Pop Demon Hunters. When you watch that film and the same snowballing success happens with ‘Golden’, it’s believable because that song is pop perfection. ‘How To Write A Song (Without You)’ isn’t really hitting that level, and it undermines the entire plot.

Frustratingly, the song that does hit that mark from a previous John Carney film is ‘Falling Slowly’. We do briefly see a busker belting it out in central Dublin, giving us a glimpse of what could have been if that song had been used in this film.

Overall, despite a few limitations, this is a very good film. If you want a bit of uplifting musical comedy in your life, then this is the film for you.

Power Ballad Official Trailer

by hutchwp

Film review – Propeller One-Way Night Coach (John Travolta, 2026)

Quite soon into the opening of John Travolta’s directorial debut, you may find yourself audibly gasping. Or perhaps saying things like “What’s going on here?” or “Why?” or “Is this a parody?”Perhaps, like me, you paused it to work out what the back story about this kind-of film was. Maybe you’ve come across this very article and feel like you wrote it yourself.

In many ways, ‘Propeller One-Way Night Coach’ is unlike any other film you’ve ever seen. Unique in many ways. It sets the bar quite low, then runs head first into it. Indeed, The Telegraph writer Robbie Collin declared that it was like “watching a toddler run into a lamp post”. It’s hard to disagree.

Watching the opening credits, there are some classy animated visuals that set the scene quite well, with a vintage jazz track providing additional vibes. Sure, it says ‘John Travolta’ a few times more than is necessary, but I’m on board.

Then the narration kicks in. Nothing can prepare you for the effort required to stay engaged with this narration. It makes Harrison Ford’s infamous voiceover for Blade Runner sound like Robin Williams doing a standup routine after 10 cans of Red Bull.

The story itself is quite a simple recounting of how Travolta, as a child, fell in love with planes. It is easygoing, formed as an adaptation of his children’s book of the same name from almost 30 years ago. It isn’t bad exactly. It’s a very personal book for him, and I’m sure it’s great for aviation enthusiasts. Undertaking a passion project is often where movie magic happens. I shudder to bring up Citizen Kane in relation to this film but here we are.

I just absolutely don’t think this needed to be adapted for the small screen and it felt like a complete waste of time to watch it. It falls into the category of being so blandly bad that you should absolutely not watch it, not even ironically.

Sorry John. I, like you, gave it a go. I think we both wasted our time.

by hutchwp

Film review – Outcome (Jonah Hill, 2026)

A film directed by the extremely talented Jonah Hill, starring Keanu Reeves, and with supporting roles from Cameron Diaz, Martin Scorsese, David Spade and Drew Barrymore, should really be better than this. But alas, it is not. And I am struggling to work out why.

The ambitious plot rattles along with a snappy script, as we explore the fallout of a mysterious video being used to bribe the fictional beloved movie star Reef Hawk (Reeves). Under the advice of his lawyer Ira Slitz (Hill), Hawk embarks on a journey of reconciliation, as he seeks out and apologises to everyone he feels he has annoyed throughout his career.

There’s nothing wrong with this, and there are some hilarious turns along the way. Susan Lucci showing up as Hawk’s mother and demanding he discusses their relationship as a scene in her Real Housewives TV show is a real highlight, as is Drew Barrymore featuring in a solitary scene as a caricature of herself.

One critical issue is the performance of Keanu Reeves. As th focal point of the plot, his role needed to be delivered perfectly. It’s actually a very risky role, as it asks the viewer to find sympathy for a rich and famous man who has been caught out in an act of perversion. It is no mistake that certain shots linger in foyers with the like of Kevin Spacey and Kanye West prominently positioned in the backdrop. Reeves is not offensive in his portrayal, and the message seems to be that we shouldn’t be overly judgemental until we’ve seen the details of these scandals. But his acting, as is often the case, feels like the handbrake has been left on – emotionally stitled, and lacking the hues and colours required of a fairly complex role.

The net result is something that isn’t particularly enjoyable, feels extremely flat and is an altogether missed opportunity.

Trailer for Outcome, streaming now on Apple TV+
by hutchwp

Film review – Father Mother Sister Brother (Jim Jarmusch, 2026)

Jim Jarmusch returns after a six-year break with Father Mother Sister Brother, a comedy-drama anthology that explores the relationship between parents and their children. It’s a welcome return for fans of the auteur, providing an entertaining and thought-provoking entry to his filmography without stepping too far outside common ground.

The film tells three stories in three separate cities: New Jersey, Dublin and Paris. Each vignette is a variation on the same theme, with two siblings reconnect with their parents after a time of separation. It’s a starting point that allows Jarmusch to explore in depth the connection and disconnect that often exists between generations of the same family.

Common elements and callbacks are sprinkled throughout. In each, a comedic exchange occurs around the phrase “Bob’s Your Uncle”. An expensive Rolex watch is given prominence in each tale. There is a mutual appreciation of the social sharing of a cup of coffee or tea, in a way that harks back stylistically to Jarmusch’s previous anthology film Coffee and Cigarettes. 

The stories work extremely well together, and deserve to be enjoyed as a single body. For it is not in the details of each story that the real impact is made. Instead, the overarching themes are teased out over the three stories: familial dysfunction, alienated parents, strained relationships. The fact these play out across a global landscape feels deliberate too – this is not an isolated situation but one seen time and time again by adults with loving parents.

This is a stylish and thoughtful piece that is well acted. It delivers on expectations without overachieving. Sometimes that’s enough.

by hutchwp

Film review – Pompei: Below The Clouds (Gianfranco Rosi, 2026)

A carriage rocks slowly over a modern train line. An emergency service desk responds to the fears and panics of a city. A dilapidated old cinema screens images from forgotten masterpieces to an empty auditorium. Japanese archeolegists slowly and methodically uncover relics from the past.

And so it goes.

For almost two hours, Gianfranco Rosi’s carefully curated imagery builds up an astonishing portrait of modern Naples, a city that exists in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius and its terrifying presence.

Pompei: Below The Clouds is an undoubtedly beautiful documentary. The black and white cinematography serves as the perfect means to showcase the contrasting darks and lights within the images Rosi has captured. The soundscape builds on this, with low industrial hums and raw chatter giving even more gravitas to the proceedings.

There is no singular narrative here. The multiple threads sit alongside each other, serving to create something much more than the sum of their parts. Each one plays a role in bringing to life the city as it is now, steeped in its inescapable past. Think of it as a very distant cousin of Love Actually; an unexpectedly stylish family member you didn’t know existed until the Easter gathering, who you now find much more interesting than anyone and anything within eyesight.

Pompei: Below the Clouds is a film that needs your attention. Streaming on MUBI in the UK, if you are planning to watch at home then you need to find a full night of peace to fully allow yourself to be immersed. It’s deserving of this focus.

Official trailer for Pompei: Below the Clouds
by hutchwp

Film review – It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley (Amy Berg, 2026)

In the late 1990s, in years that were critical to my musical development, there was a flurry of popularity for emotionally poetic rock. Radiohead opened the door, and Coldplay, Travis and Muse gladly stepped through it.

As a nerdy teenager, it was typical of me to get heavily into bands I liked and read anything and everything that was written about them. Interviews, snippets, reviews, articles. One musician that was namechecked a lot was American singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley. He was a key influence on a lot of my favourite bands. A mystery surrounded both his music and his short life, and it was a no-brainer for me to take a punt on picking up his album based on hype alone.

It proved a wonderful gift at that time in my life. Those ten songs contributed heavily to the soundtrack of my late teens. Outwardly fitting in with my peers by frequenting local rock bars and declaring my love of bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Offspring, at home I studied hard and allowed to Jeff Buckley’s ethereal voice to inhabit whatever brain capacity was left at the time.

A frustratingly short career is a good way to secure your eternal legacy, with every song heightened and held up as clear evidence of a future cruelly denied from your new-found fans. And so it is with Jeff Buckley and the new documentary that covers his life, music and untimely death.

The documentary is the most in depth study of his life that has ever been committed to film. It builds up layers of his life slowly, by incorporating audio messages, demos, live recordings, never-before-seen video footage, and new interviews with people key to his life. The focus here is his relationship to the women in his life, including his ex-girlfriends and his mother Mary Guibert.

Tbe film was a wonderful way to rekindle my love of Jeff Buckley and his small but strong musical output. His life may have been cut short but his legacy will live on for many years to come.

Official trailer for Jeff Buckley: It’s Never Over