REVIEW: Wake Up Dead Man – A Knives Out Mystery (LFF 2025)

Its title sounds like a declaration of an in-built twist, but Wake Up Dead Man, Rian Johnson’s latest addition to the Knives Out universe, has loftier ambitions in mind.

After the classic manor-house intrigue of the original Knives Out and the sunlit, self-refractive satire of its sequel, Glass Onion, we find ourselves in the isolated parish our Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, in Chimney Rock, upstate New York.…

PODCAST: 1917 & The Gentlemen [The Movie RobCast]

You may have noticed The Movie Robcast has a lovely new logo image. Created by the rather wonderful Bridge Fazio, we’re thrilled with it. See more of Bridge’s work here.

Episode 79 sees Robs Daniel & Wallis review both the ridiculous and the, not sublime, but well-crafted.

Spectre summons up the ghosts of the Bond franchise to diminishing returns

The evocatively titled Spectre, 24th installment of the Bond franchise, is a film steeped in continuity but light on originality.

While capitalizing on the back-story laid down for Daniel Craig’s super-spy in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall – the first incarnation of the character to have much by the way of continuity – it finds the time, over the course of 138 minutes – which also makes Spectre the longest film in the franchise – to riff on nearly every previous episode from the series’ 53 year history.…

Locke shows that all you need for a great film is an engine

 

The shadowy interior of a BMW, the sallow yellow glare of a streetlamp; road markings, overpasses. “You have a call waiting”.

As premises go, Locke’s is rivetingly simple: Ivan Locke, a foreman on a construction site, has had to make a last-minute trip from Birmingham down to London.…