E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Everyone can google IMDB and Metacritic, in about a second, or Variety or Den of Geek or Sight and Sound , and find other lists of the best movies of 2024. Here are ten out of 20ish I will post eventually, though the final 10 may only come in a few months, since in the UK many of the releases are due later in the year (or I have yet to see the movies). Of the ten I expect to appear in the second half, some you will have heard of - Anora, The Brutalist, A Real Pain, Sing Sing, Wicked, The Nickel Boys, A Complete Unknown. Still - each of these ten listed below is already on many end of year lists, and is, in their own right, a great movie. At least three of the films listed below have a very good chance of winning the Oscar for Best Picture in a few months (their list is ten films long) - look under C, D and E. BLITZ - a beautifully-filmed revisionist take on the Blitz Spirit by Steve McQueen CHALLENGERS - a witty, erotic highly-stylised play on the tennis as love theme CIVIL WAR ...

I usually write a brief report on the year, from my perspective, at the end of each 12-month cycle - sometimes closer to Christmas, or after. Of late, they've been relatively solemn, and the main message has been gratitude. I have been grateful for the medical care and treatment that has allowed my failing heart to recover somewhat, at least temporarily, and for the chance to live a few more years. I have also been grateful for the love and support of my partner, the hard work and talent of my publishing team, my friends, and those authors and investors that have miraculously helped stave off collapse of BSPG. So it is, this year, that message remains the same. I wish to add a few more things, though - my mother is facing terminal cancer, a rare aggressive kind, and while she is private, her dying impacts those who know and love her most - her sisters, and her children, and her friends; this past year has been very painful, sad, and filled with some brief good moments of shared mem...

Christmas Violence Viewers of the streaming film Mary (2024) starring Anthony Hopkins as Herod may be surprised to discover how sadistic Herod was, or that Mary was once a startlingly beautiful young woman who looks very much like Israeli model Noa Cohen , a fine young actor. But those familiar with the Biblical story of "Christmas" - the birth of Jesus - will know that, along with the myrrh, frankincense and gold, and the bright star, comes the most violent and cruel moment (arguably) of the entire Bible, when Herod orders the slaughter of hundreds, maybe thousands, of young children, to try and destroy the risk of a new king entering the world to topple his earthly dominion. The horrible irony, we know, is that Baby Jesus is not coming to take over in that way, and the murders are not only evil, but not even politically required. They simply typify Herod's monstrous wickedness. The Virgin Mary depicted in Christmas Drama It is therefore a curious thing to reflect on th...

  POEM FOR MY MOTHER   I have not done justice to my mother, The sweep of her life, How when young, she was young, In a country, on a farm, and other children, And I will never know their names, I have forgotten to ask so much, How lazy have I been! Now that she is going, Out of this room, where we can see her, Where she can be talked with, now that she is Leaving the scene of all our disputations, All the tomfoolery of this world, and the music She listened to, her cooking, her reading, Her studies at McGill, those meticulously marked Textbooks, the kisses, the childbirth, the sons, Jordan, the colds, the flying to China, The mourning, lovemaking, waking to make instant Coffee, the long discussions about serial killers, About our ancestors, about Uncle Sandy and Port Daniel, the summers, the winters, the cross-country Skiing, the wedding photos, the modelling career, The rages, the laughing, sometimes, the criticism Of certain TV ...

110 years ago, the Futurists of 1914 began to splinter into factions - but they had already made their biggest impact, and now, 115 years since they basically started in 1909, their vision has won. Forget simply "fascism" to describe what the age of Trump/Musk  is about to look like - it's more complex, radical, dangerous and at times visionary than that - 2025-2030 is going to be New Futurist - or to be blunt, just Futurism Redux. The main interests and aims of Futurism's manifestos were to celebrate a new age of the Machine - an age of speed, violence, money, power, nihilism, war, global travel, and disruption. It was not to be an age of peace, stability, good government or democracy - it was about a radical and total overturning of the values of the world order up to that stage in history. Now, 2025 is set to fulfil this hope and programme - The richest man in the world, a tech visionary businessperson who fetishes rockets and cars, and instant messaging, is ...

Others will say it better - but, here goes my small part in this - I stayed up last night, as the horror dawned on me, literally and otherwise, that VP Harris was losing. I was wrong, thinking she'd win in a landslide possibly, see the other post. Separate from the deep concern for the world, especially with regards to Ukraine, and global warming, and American democracy (which is robust but about to be dismantled) is the deeper wounding realisation that a majority of humans would choose such a person, rather than actually vote for a woman.   It feels like misogyny and racism was on display. Concern for the economy should not mean exemption from moral or ethical concerns.   The digital online world has clearly contributed to a new unreality in America and beyond, where so many millions could not see the truth of the man they elevated, and bestowed such triumph and power onto.   And, what makes it worse, we are all now in this with him, because we have to live in his terri...