Weapons (Zach Cregger)

Cregger follows Barbarian by going bigger, darker and more structurally unhinged, folding multiple disappearances, small-town rot and a creeping sense of moral contagion into something that plays like a cursed multi-viewpoint fairy tale. Weapons understands that the scariest thing isn’t the monster (altho she is pretty fearsome) but the community that quietly reorganises itself around trauma. Precision-made dread, bleakly funny in places, and proof that Cregger is now operating as a full-on American horror architect rather than a one-hit disruptor. Some of the crowd I saw this with at the cinema were standing and cheering at the climax, that's such a rush!

PTA goes muscular and mischievous here, shaping a post-idealism America haunted by its own protest movements and ideological aftershocks. Looser than Phantom Thread but more focused than Inherent Vice, this feels like Anderson riffing on history as a looping argument rather than a straight line. There’s sweat, humour, and a low hum of paranoia beneath the talk, a film that knows revolutions don’t end, they just change fonts. And the cinematography is some of the best ever!?

Sinners (Ryan Coogler)

Coogler’s first outright genre pivot lands as a blood-soaked Southern Gothic with teeth and intent. Vampirism here isn’t sexy immortality but inheritance (think sin passed down, monetised, ritualised). Anchored by Michael B. Jordan in dual roles, Sinners fuses horror with blues history, racial memory and the idea that America never really lets anything die. Lush, angry, and mythic in the best way, saw this in IMAX and it blew my mind!

Bring Her Back (Danny & Michael Philippou)

The Talk To Me duo double down on grief-horror, crafting something meaner, sadder and more intimate. This isn’t about jump scares so much as the unbearable desire to undo a single moment. The brothers show a growing confidence in letting scenes rot in silence, and when the violence comes it feels earned and oh boy, that scene with the melon knife is one that will never leave you... Bring Her Back is a film that understands mourning as a kind of possession, one you invite in yourself, not for the faint of heart.

The Ballad of Wallis Island (James Griffiths)

Gentle, funny and unexpectedly bruising, this feels like a folk song discovered on an old hard drive, and instead of sucking, they take you places you didn't expect. Built around loneliness, fading friendships and the strange ache of unrealised lives, this film sneaks up on you with warmth before quietly breaking your heart. There’s a distinctly British melancholy here, rain, memory, missed chances, handled with such lightness you barely notice how deep it cuts. Plus Carey Mulligan is still my fantasy woman :)

F1 (Joseph Kosinski)

Do you feel the need? The need for speed... Only on four wheels rather than in the air!? Kosinski does for Formula One what he did for fighter jets: strips away the gloss to reveal the terrifying ballet underneath. Shot with punishing immediacy and physicality, this is less sports movie and more controlled experiment in speed, risk and ego. Brad Pitt’s ageing racer isn’t chasing glory so much as relevance, and the film understands that velocity is addictive precisely because it’s unsustainable. Big, loud, and surprisingly reflective.

The Phoenician Scheme (Wes Anderson)

Anderson’s espionage fantasia plays like a diorama stuffed with double-crosses, deadpan assassins and emotional repression rendered in pastel. Beneath the symmetry and whimsy is a story about legacy, trust and the absurdity of inherited power. Benicio del Toro grounds the film with unexpected weariness, reminding us that Anderson’s brilliant dollhouse worlds increasingly function as mausoleums for broken men. But they are oh-so-much-fun!!

Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos)

Lanthimos remakes the Korean cult oddity Save the Green Planet! and leans fully into conspiracy as emotional illness. Wildly funny, deeply uncomfortable, and shot with clinical indifference, Bugonia asks whether believing the world is fake is any worse than accepting its cruelty as normal. Emma Stone continues her fearless collaboration with Lanthimos, operating at the edge of satire and collapse. One guy fainted in the screening of this I saw, hope he's ok (and has the chance to catch the ending as the answer to 'is she an alien' does get answered!!

Eddington (Ari Aster)

Aster’s COVID-era Western is his angriest film yet, a portrait of a town atomised by misinformation, masculinity and performative morality. Less horror in the traditional sense, more social exorcism, Eddington is deliberately abrasive, often hilarious, and deeply unsettling in how recognisable it feels. Joaquin Phoenix is a walking wound of authority and resentment, and Aster refuses the comfort of catharsis.

The Order (Justin Kurzel)

Kurzel returns to extremist psychology with grim focus, charting the rise of a white supremacist terror cell with procedural coldness and moral clarity. Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult turn the film into a duel of belief versus obsession, and Kurzel resists sensationalism at every turn. This is not a thriller designed to entertain but to warn — violence shown as banal, contagious and terrifyingly organised.

- - - 

Full disclosure I haven't seen Marty Supreme or Sentimental Value, both of which I have a strong feeling might have made it into my top ten!?

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Review / guide by Matt (@cleric20) Adcock

Just when you thought TV had got safe, Vince Gilligan is back and he’s brought the end of human authenticity with him. Pluribus, Apple TV’s new flagship sci-fi drama, opens not with a bang but with an unnervingly serene smile. Across Albuquerque, people are just a little too happy. It’s the kind of world where your neighbour waves at you for too long, and the local news signs off with a grin that won’t fade.

Enter Carol Sturka (Rhea ‘Better Call Saul’ Seehorn), a best-selling romance novelist who is, deliciously, “the most miserable person on Earth.” While everyone else is busy basking in newfound joy, Carol’s having none of it. She’s hollow, cynical, sharp — and crucially, immune to the mysterious wave of euphoric contagion sweeping humanity.

The episode’s opening ten minutes are a minor masterclass in tone. A sun-bleached diner, a radio DJ announcing that happiness levels have reached “record highs,” and a slow pan to a woman methodically licking a donut before putting it back in the box. It’s absurd, funny, grotesque and perfectly Gilligan.

The title isn’t subtle. Pluribus (Latin for “many,” as in E Pluribus Unum) evokes the collective, the idea that unity through conformity might just crush individuality. Episode 1 plays with this tension beautifully.

The premise: a new condition, part mental ‘glue’, part spiritual awakening, is spreading. It makes people radiantly optimistic and relentlessly cooperative. Crime vanishes. Depression disappears. Governments praise it as the dawn of a new humanity. And yet Carol sees only the rot beneath the smile.

Gilligan shoots her loneliness in harsh daylight, wide shots of her trudging through crowds of blissful citizens, the only frown for miles. She looks like a glitch in a utopian simulation.

Rhea Seehorn carries the episode with controlled weariness. Her Carol is brittle, intelligent, and visibly allergic to the enforced good vibes. There’s a moment where her publicist (a perfectly oily supporting turn from Carlos Manuel Vesga) tells her, “You could sell more books if you just smiled in photos.” Carol’s dry retort: “Maybe you could read more if you stopped smiling all the time” - lands like a prayer for everyone still clinging to emotional honesty.

Science fiction has long explored emotion as contagion, think The Stepford Wives, Smile, or Black Mirror’s Nosedive. But Pluribus takes that metaphor and runs it through Gilligan’s moral lens. Happiness here is institutionalised. Clinics hand out “optimism boosters.” Street billboards flash with slogans like “It’s your choice - be happy!”

The result feels like a spiritual sequel to Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul but instead of meth or moral decay, the drug is contentment itself. As one background voice on a news broadcast says:

“Happiness is the new herd immunity.”

For those of us who watch with an eye for deeper meaning, Pluribus might be Gilligan’s most explicitly theological work yet. The idea of a world that worships false joy echoes ancient warnings against idols … the golden calves of comfort and self-satisfaction.

Carol’s immunity feels almost prophetic. She’s the lone dissenting spirit in a culture that has mistaken chemical calm for salvation. There’s an echo of Jeremiah here, lamenting while everyone else throws festivals.

It’s rich ground for reflection which is exactly the kind of moral discomfort Gilligan excels at.

Visually, the show is stunning. Albuquerque’s deserts are rendered in eerie pastel hues, giving it a slightly ‘off’ vibe,  like the world’s been lightly Photoshopped. Director Michelle MacLaren (also  Breaking Bad veteran) frames scenes with surgical precision, keeping Carol just slightly off-centre, always an outsider.

Composer Dave Porter returns too, with a score that oscillates between lullaby and dread. It’s a soundscape of enforced calm elevator music that wants you to relax but leaves you itching instead.

Out of a potential 5, you have to go with a Darkmatters:

Matt Adcock (@Cleric20)

What a cracking start to this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival! From razor-sharp editing wisdom to riotous political cartooning, the first day had a bit of everything – and set the bar high for the weekend ahead.

The LICAF kicked off with an international rights fair – bringing together buyers of comics, the acquisition editors from foreign publishers, with publishers wishing to sell rights to comics, who discuss and negotiate possibilities and terms – leading to the buyer translating, publishing and distributing these comics in their own language/country or countries. 

The Rights Market featured several buyers, drawn from across Europe who the Festival identified, with expert help, as ripe for buying British comics. 

https://licaf-rights-market.com/ 

Shelly Bond: Ten True Editing Crimes & How to Avoid Them

Kicking things off in The Other Space marquee was none other than Shelly Bond – legendary editor and creative powerhouse. With three decades of experience and more red ink than a stationery cupboard, she pulled no punches in sharing the dos and don’ts of comic editing. This was more than just a “how-to” session; it was a witty, energising masterclass on the alchemy between words and pictures. Whether you’re polishing your own scripts or wrangling artists and writers, Shelly’s insights landed like gold dust.

You Couldn’t Make It Up!

As evening fell, the Old Laundry Theatre became a hotbed of satire, quick-fire creativity, and belly laughs. Tim Farron MP gave a great welcome, then hosted by Bill Morrison (yes, The Simpsons’ Bill Morrison!), this live-draw extravaganza pulled in a world-class line-up: Viz icons Graham Dury and Simon Thorp, Iceland’s wonderfully dark Dagsson, Morocco’s sharp and stylish Mehdi Annassi, Finland’s satirical maestro Pertti Jarla, and more. The speed, wit, and sheer daftness of it all reminded everyone why cartooning is such a vital – and hilarious – form of protest and play.

Then came the incomparable Martin Rowson with his brand-new show Trumped. Equal parts savage satire, radical analysis, and gleeful rant, Rowson drew on four decades of frontline cartooning to give us the surreal, food-splattered spectacle we didn’t know we needed. Expect the unexpected? Absolutely. And he delivered in spades.

The night rounded off with the LICAF Awards Ceremony, complete with the prestigious Sergio Aragonés International Award for Excellence in Comic Art – a fitting celebration of talent, imagination, and the global reach of comics.

Lorenzo Mattotti was announced as the winner of the Sergio Aragonés International Award for Excellence in Comic Art and presented with the award.

The Sergio Aragonés International Award for Excellence in Comic Art, named after the world-famous cartoonist, best known for his work on MAD and as co-creator of Groo, was established in 2017 by The National Cartoonists Society, the world’s largest and most prestigious organisation of professional cartoonists, in partnership with the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, and is presented annually to an exceptional comic artist, animator, or cartoonist.

Lorenzo Mattotti is an Italian-born, Paris-based cartoonist and illustrator. He has published numerous books, including Fires (1986), Caboto (1992), and Stigmate(1998). He illustrated The Raven by Lou Reed (2011). 

His graphic novel version of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (with Jerry Kramsky) won an Eisner Award in 2003. He is also a prolific illustrator for publications such as The New Yorker, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. 

What a day…

Day one of LICAF wasn’t just a warm-up: it was a statement of intent. Sharp, funny, inspiring, and gloriously unpredictable, it reminded us all why comics matter… they entertain, they challenge, and they bring people together. I was gutted not to be able to be there for the rest of the weekend but comic creating pals fed back that it was an absolute treat.

I was also incredibly impressed with  LICAF’s “From Palestine” project, that saw the launch of three new comics by artists from Gaza, published by LICAF, following up on the previous publication of the highly acclaimed collection of cartoons, Safaa and the Tent, by Safaa Odah, translated by Nada Hodali. 

All four titles were on sale at the Festival and all profits from the sale of these works went go to the creators.

Palestinian cartoonist and caricaturist Mohammad Sabaaneh, an active member in the Cartoon Movement, will be launching his book, 30 Seconds from Gaza, in English, at a special event over the weekend that will also see the launch of the Qusasat comics anthology, Strategies of Surviving by Abod Nasser and Waiting Rituals by Khaled Jarada.

Here's to 2026!! https://www.comicartfestival.com/