Three Films Make A Post: They're all alone in this together.

The Holdovers (2023): It’s not generally a great sign to someone of my tastes when basically every single review about a film describes it as “heart-warming”, but then not too many movies manage to be heart-warming without becoming kitsch, so this isn’t completely my failing. Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers the kitsch by an insistence on all that’s crappy in life existing for its characters as well; its uplifting quality lies in saying “all this is true, but still…” and finding the positive in the small yet life-changing things. All the while, the humour runs a perfect line of sarcasm of the kind that’s quotable and will still be funny after you’ve quoted it a hundred times. The performances of the core trio of actors – Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa – are point perfect, and Payne directs like someone putting himself completely in the service of the story he is trying to tell (which is a difficult thing if you’re also going to tell it well).

Lot No. 249 (2023): For 2023’s Ghost Story for Christmas, Mark Gatiss went to the Arthur Conan Doyle well. This is probably one of the Gatiss era’s lesser offerings, but I say that rather regularly about these things and then find myself returning to them with great joy later on, so ask me again about its greatness or lesserness in a couple of years.

What’s definitely fine here is a surprising performance by Kit Harington, a cameo by not-Sherlock Holmes quite a few people not me apparently found annoying, and subtext about gayness, (self-)repression and the arrogance of Empire that has lost all of the sub.

The Childe aka Sad Tropics aka 귀공자 (2022): This South Korean action film by Park Hoon-jung concerns the misadventures of a young man looking for his father who learns that some fathers are better not found. A violent three-way-tugging match about with him as the rope ensues. The film features some fun, sometimes – the climax! - brilliant, action set pieces and a handful of performances so cartoonish, one will either find them very fun or very annoying, and very little else worth talking about. Enjoyable, the film certainly is, and I’m not against cartoons in any way, shape or form.