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Posts by hutchwp

Chief writer and editor at Cinema, Etc.
by hutchwp

Top 10 of 2025

I always fret over my favourite films of each year, like it’s somehow really important to anyone other than myself. Hence, my list is a week late! Here’s the list:

A Real Pain

Mickey 17

The Ballad of Wallis Island

Tornado

28 Years Later

Frankenstein

The Running Man 

Sinners

Grand Theft Hamlet

The Girl With The Needle

Lots of other films are also bubbling under and I’m trying not to overthink it. Fantastic Four, The Mastermind, The Thing With Feathers, Nickel Boys, Islands and Memoirs of a Snail could have made it. But that’s my list! What do you think?

With a list of films I love, there are surely also some films that I didn’t enjoy quite as much. My turkeys this year included Queer, Emilio Perez, Hot Milk and Fackham Hall, all of which I was bitterly disappointed with.

But they are entirely eclipsed this year by one film that is possibly the worst thing I’ve ever seen, which was Ice Cube’s War Of The Worlds film, available on Amazon Prime. So bad, it’s bad!

by hutchwp

Film review: Frankenstein (Guillermo Del Toro, 2025)

Frankenstein is a gothic novel, first published over 200 years ago. It remains Mary Shelley’s best known and most celebrated work, with an estimated 400 feature films having been made with the character as a central or supporting role. Filmmakers such as Danny Boyle, Kenneth Branagh and Mel Brooks have put their own spin on the character, and there seems to be an insatiable appetite for movie makers and cinema goers to revisit the monster.

And so, in 2025, master of gothic horror Guillermo Del Toro has blessed us with his own interpretation of the work. Screening as part of the 2025 London Film Festival, it’s an interpretation that feels luxurious in scale.

The story is told in a way that remains faithful to the original novel, mixing up the ordering to create a much more effective narrative for the purpose of the big screen, much in the same way as the 1994 Kenneth Branagh adaptation did. This version opens at the original ending, with a mysterious one-legged man (Oscar Isaac) appearing out of nowhere at a shipwrecked expedition to the North Pole, chased down by an even more mysterious hooded monster (Jacob Elordi), seemingly impossible to be halted in his pursuit of vengeance. The rest of the story is told through flashbacks to how they got there, with some very strong performances across a talented and varied ensemble cast that includes Charles Dance, Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz.

Following Pacific Rim (2015), a film that many consider a misstep in his career, Del Toro has had four exceptional critically acclaimed features: the daring gothic romance Crimson Peak, Oscar-winning The Shape Of Water, psychological thriller Nightmare Alley, and his first foray into feature animation with the beautifully realised Pinocchio. Adding this powerful fifth film into the mix will only cement his position as one of modern cinema’s true masters.

At 150 minutes, it isn’t for the fainthearted. It’s hard to condense it into anything less, without losing a lot of the story. When it arrives on Netflix later in the year, I’m sure many will take the opportunity to have a break at the start of Act II. However, this is a film that deserves to be seen on the biggest of screens, to allow the total immersion into something quite grand.

Glorious.

by hutchwp

Music Playlist – MUBI Scores and Soundtracks

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/mubi-scores-and-soundtracks/pl.u-b3b8r99TLkKKEM

I created this playlist on Apple Music for my own enjoyment. It’s music from the scores and soundtracks for various MUBI releases (or films featured in their platform) from recent years. I update it regularly. I thought it would be nice to share it for others to enjoy and relive some great modern cinematic releases.

by hutchwp

Film review: The Lost Bus (Paul Greengrass, 2025)

The Lost Bus is an intense action thriller based on the 2018 Camp Fire incident in Paradise, California. The action focuses on bus driver Kevin (Matthew McConaughey), who volunteers to retrieve and carry 22 children and their teacher Mary (America Ferrera) to safety.

At 130 minutes this film has plenty of time to explore sub-plots and give backgrounds to the main characters. Despite the length, it doesn’t feel like it drags at any point. Part of this is due to a careful mixture of suspense building as the town of Paradise is engulfed in the red-orange mist of the wildfire, with intimate camerawork and a relentless score from James Newton Howard working in unison to heighten the unfolding disaster.

Paul Greengrass is a master of this kind of film now, having established and honed his skills in the Bourne franchise, along with films like Green Zone and Captain Phillips. His last film, Western drama News of the World, also made its way to Apple TV+, and it was a happy partnership that led to multiple Oscar nominations in 2021. Whether this film will also be recognised in the same way remains to be seen, but it would hardly be undeserving.

by hutchwp

Film review: Tornado (John Maclean, 2025)

It is a busy year for John Maclean. After a 21 year gap, The Beta Band are reforming for a tour to play their classic The Three EPs album across a range of venues in September and October. John will be joining them for the tour, which has been a welcome surprise for fans of the band.

Not happy with just one return after a long break, Maclean is also returning to cinemas with period samurai drama Tornado, his first feature film since 2015’s Slow West. It has been a long time in the making, with stoppages caused by the Covid pandemic and the writers’ strikes, but it was absolutely worth the wait.

Tornado’s opening immediately draws the viewer in. A mysterious girl runs across an open grassy plain, hotly pursued by a young boy and then a gang of mercenaries. The shot is reminiscent of the opening of Star Wars (1977) – you know the smaller characters are in trouble and you want to find out why. Hiding in a forest, before taking refuge in a country house, the girl watches on as she realises the gang are moments away from finding her.

This girl is the titular Tornado, portrayed wonderfully by the Tokyo-born actress Kōki, a relative newcomer who takes centre stage throughout the film. As the daughter of actor Takuya Kimura (Blade of the Immortal) she is clearly well-versed in the art of samurai swordsmanship, but the role calls for much more than just swinging a sword. Indeed, that doesn’t really become relevant until the final third of the film, then the action ramps up.

Elsewhere, Tim Roth and Jack Lowden provide an intriguing father-son relationship as their bickering threatens to cause a rupture in the close-knot gang they are part of. Joanne Whalley, Takehiro Hira and Rory McCann all feature capably in supporting roles.

Visually, Tornado is a beauty to behold. Shot on 35mm cameras on a low budget, Maclean and cinematographer Robbie Ryan (The Favourite, Poor Things, Slow West) clearly have an eye for cinematic beauty. It was surely a risk to take film on a punishing January shoot in Scotland, with only 25 days to capture the entire film, but it absolutely pays off.

It’s a great time for British film, with The Ballad of Wallis Island also proving to be popular and critically celebrated. The films couldn’t be more different in tone, but both deserve to be sought out.

by hutchwp

Kunitsu-Gami – a brilliant underrated Switch 2 launch title flying under the radar

If you’ve been excitedly waiting for the delivery of your new Switch 2, chances are you’ve already decided on what games to buy. You aren’t short of options! One of the launch bundles includes Mario Kart World, which is the biggest title out on release day and the flagship game that Nintendo are pushing., whilst a few other big hitters are on the radar from the likes of Zelda and Sonic.

I suspect most people are also going to have another game on the way, be that Street Fighter 6 or maybe one of the Zelda upgrades. Perhaps some have opted to pre-order the Mario Party or Donkey Kong games that will hit the shelves next month.

Whilst most of the launch titles are available in physical form, one title seems to be flying under the radar a bit, and I can honestly say it’s one of the best games I’ve played recently.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is a beautiful game that’s awash with Japanese folklore. In it, you play as Soh, a warrior on a mission to return the legandary Mount Kafuku to peace, free from evil spirit monsters and defilements, and guide the divine maiden Yoshiro back to the peak of the mountain in safety.

The genre is officially an action-strategy, but in reality it is part tower defence and part third-person slasher. You get a full daytime to prepare your village, converting villagers into different ability classes and placing them around the fighting area to strategically defend against an onslaught of monsters (“seethe”) when nightfall hits.

The music plays a huge part in building the atmosphere. Chikara Aoshima provided 53 tracks that range from twee musical background music to full-on nightmare. As night time approaches, the tension builds as you frantically rebuild structures around the village, search for items that will help your cause and generally begin to panic that you didn’t quite have enough time. The balance always feels just perfect – you can’t do everything and you have to prioritise what you think will help you most.

Visually it is a stunning proposition. It’s a Capcom game directed by Shuichi Kawata, who previously brought us Resident Evil 4 and 5, along with Shinsekai: Into The Depths.

It’s a substantial game, taking me over 70 hours to complete New Game+ when I played through on the Xbox Series X. There are further benefits to aim for by playing through New Game+ several times over, though I haven’t gone down that route yet.

It’s also full of horror visuals so is certainly not one for children!

If you find yourself wanting an extra game to supplement Mario Kart World this weekend, you could do much worse than give this a go. If you do, be prepared to lose a good few months to this wonderful game!

by hutchwp

Happy ‘Heaven Can Wait’ day!!

10:17am on 20th March 2025.

The date and time that Warren Beatty’s character Joe Pendleton is scheduled to die in the 1978 film ‘Heaven Can Wait’.

Today is the day. Now is the time in fact!

‘Heaven Can Wait’ is quite a strange film. Starring Beatty alongside the likes of Julie Christie, James Mason and Buck Henry, it tells the story of an American footballer named Joe Pendleton who almost dies, but is taken to heaven by an over-eager administrator. Having never supposed to leave Earth, he is given a second chance at life as a rich industrial called Leo Farnsworth, who himself is due to die imminently following an attempted murder by his wife and her lover.

If that sounds complicated, the reality is a little less daunting. It breezes along at a nice pace, with whimsical musical cues and engaging dialogue. When Julie Christie’s Betty Logan looks longingly into Beatty’s eyes, there is real chemistry on screen. That they had previously been romantically linked comes as no surprise to me – I was born in the 1980s so was unaware of their relationship.

A cute romantic comedy that provokes thought without ever really feeling too taxing.

Celebrate by watching the trailer below then wondering why you’ve never seen the film before.