Weekly Roundup #20, 2026

We finally hit doubled digits!

Hello and welcome back another issue of bbblog, the newsletter that’s old enough to vote (and I hope all of you did!). Alas, it seems the incipient fascism that’s spread all over the world has finally come to roost here in the UK. (If you’re gritting your teeth and muttering it’s been here for ten years already: perhaps you have a point!)
So let us retreat to the darkness of the cinema, where we can dream of a better future and scheme how to enact it. This week is really mired in the murk; we have banned films, bawdy films and films made by people to get their council house stairwells swept. Now that’s praxis!

Movies

A orange-and-white cat chilling on a wall.

Monday 4ᵗʰ May - To Catch a Thief (1955)

I had rather a slow start to the week, and only managed to get to the actual cinema on Wednesday; so, to satisfy my cravings (and because I knew I was going to see North by Northwest on Sunday), I thought I’d revisit a film that to me is the cinematic equivalent of candyfloss.
Actually, I noticed quite a few similarities between the two: an identity you can’t escape, an ambient hum of criminality, and fucking amazing tailoring. I’m not rating it as it’s not part of the 4-a-week challenge (I watched it at home), but rest assured that I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Wednesday 6ᵗʰ May - The Story of British Video Activism (2026) & Sexworld (1978, ★★★★★)

I’m also not rating this as it was a talk to introduce a forthcoming book, but there was a screening of clips from the very cool London Community Video Archive which I think everyone reading this blog should check out. A great selection of leftwing organising, queer history and plain oddities, like a tape where everyone was invited to admit to a crime they had committed and then just fell about laughing.
There were also a few choice quotes from the book, like how cameras with mics gave people “the pose but not the pomp” of an actual journalist, and a reminder that “once you realise you’re a content provider for a non-taxpaying multinational, the activism empties out [of video making]”. Preach! That’s why this blog is proudly independent. The author ended with a call to fill the theatres of London, “take up public space and bring bodies together”. A message we wholeheartedly endorse here at bbblog Towers!

I then kept it retro with a visit to the Nickel for Sexworld, a film that had my attention from the first few stings of the opening theme song. I really loved this movie, an ersatz parody of the Westworld series where the androids have come to fuck. The raison d'être of this pleasure park is to investigate the fantasies of its patrons, which happens through a series of flashbacks and scenarios. Two things really stand out about this movie: foremost is its prescience about everyone living in a hypertargeted surveillance state, where desire becomes a product of the algorithm. The second thing is that it’s really fucking sexy. I mean the phone sex in particular is probably the best I’ve seen outside of Layer Cake (2004), and one star in particular merited further, ahem, research.
Also of interest is how the film treats queer desire; we do get a (brief description of) homosexual desire, and the first lesbian scene is presented in a very classy slo-mo effect. I’m not going to say it’s a queer movie, because the lesbianism doesn’t escape the male gaze, but some of the threesomes do centre female pleasure (often to comic effect).
Of more interest is the film’s approach to anti-racism: one of the plotlines that binds the whole film together (the threads of the plot intertwine with really quite good editing) is a racist guy who is overpowered by the beauty and grace of a black woman. However, this black woman is less than just a cliché; she’s an android clone of one of the guests, tuned up to be the perfect mix between fuckable and headstrong. This is all weird enough, but another vignette features a silent African-American mandroid who exists to fulfil the physical needs of a desperate recluse who can’t fulfil her own emotional needs. The flattening of Black people into objects of fantasy–and servitude–would be almost unforgivable, except that the role of the android clone is played with such depth by Desiree West. When you see her human doppelgänger board the bus with a smile at the end, you feel like she’s gotten away with something. This film, which is strong throughout, is worth watching for her performance alone.

A grave with a cross and three-cornered leeks growing out of it.

Thursday 7ᵗʰ May - Platform (2000, ★★★)

I saw this mainly because of its positioning (it’s on as part of the Jia Zhangke retrospective at The Garden) and its pedigree (it’s “banned” in China; actually it was just never released, but it does feature pointed criticisms of Maoism and the one-child policy). Given this, I was surprised to find myself largely bored with it. One of my notes just says “nothing has happened for 45’”.
Reader, I have nothing against slow films, but this one seems determined to shift against cinema’s greatest ability – a universal humanity – in showing the very specific life style of a troupe of players in rural poverty. However, the film doesn’t do anything to make you care about its troupe. This is very narrowly avoiding getting ★ because fundamentally I think anything that pisses off the censors is worth seeing, but I don’t think I’d recommend it, so maybe ★★★-♥.

Friday 8ᵗʰ May - Small Gods (2025, ★★★)

This was a very late addition to the schedule; I actually had tickets to a gig when a friend of the blog offered me the chance to visit the director’s apartment (!) and then see the film at Genesis (one of London‘s great independent cinemas). So obviously, I said yes; but this very bohemian setting proved to be fatal for the film, as it really highlighted the question of “why the fuck is a bougie white guy writing about the crushing poverty of the Batwa people?”. This point was highlighted by all of the festival staff being black… the vibes were rancid.

To judge the film on its own merits: it’s well shot, and the scripting is very tight. It kept me engaged almost to the very height of its misery, but I kept wondering about the politics of it; everybody is ultracapitalist and individualistic, forever chasing the next hit in the style of the Safdies. This makes for a depressing film, where no-one can rely on the solidarity of their fellow man, and the baubles that are dangled in front of the protagonists are illusory. The more I write about this film the worse I feel, so I’m going to stop writing about it now.

Saturday 9ᵗʰ May - Viridiana (1961, ★★★)

Don’t get me wrong, this is an amazing movie—and certain scenes, like the table being smashed up, are terrifyingly beautiful. I think the only reason I’m rating it ★★★ is because I didn’t have all the context going in to fully appreciate all of the allusions (even though I saw it with an intro...). Also crazy that the censors thought adding another woman at the end would nullify the sexual connotation, instead of suggesting an obvious threesome. Between this and the fireworks scene in To Catch a Thief, it seems that the censors are more often flat-footed idiots.

Honourable shout out to this Letterboxd review (I don’t agree with it, but it’s very well written:

The beggars are heart of this film. They aren't good, they aren't bad, they just are. Humans doing as humans do. If they need something, they take it. If they want something, they probably take that too. Survival and desperation affects us all similarly depending on the depths in which we sink. Thinking beyond today is a form of insanity that we all suffer from, the workers in purgatory, the God-fearing have it the worst,but the homeless live only for today. Your 10,000 peso silk linen mean nothing to the woman who can't feed her child. Something pretty to spill custard on. Good and bad are as interchangeable as the likelihood of shelter that night. There is no difference between Viridiana and the servant Ramona, or the old man and the bratty little girl who jumps rope with the cord in which he hung himself. You can help someone, or don't - it doesn't change them. And it doesn't change you either. You can set a dog free but he will run after his abuser anyway, we are hardwired to do what makes the most sense for our survival. Viridiana is the virus that comes in and spoils the cream with her bacterial piety. For me, the ending is happy. When in doubt, resign yourself to your surroundings. That's an idea that has fascinated me much in the past year. Resignment. It can be dangerous, but it can also save you from a cruel mental torment.

Sunday 10ᵗʰ May - North by Northwest (1959, ★★★★★★)

What a way to spend a week, to bookend it with two fantastic Hitchcock films. And even though I knew every beat, having a live audience along for the ride really does elevate it to the next level.
This is an amazing film, certainly deserving of the six-star rating; and the new 70mm print at the Prince Charles is beautiful: crisp and vibrant. Seek it out and see the best of the master of suspense yourself!

Musings

A statue with its hands clasped in prayer.

The astute reader may have realised that all the photos are of graveyards (bar the cat, who was on the way to the graveyard). Don’t worry, I haven’t been listening to The Smiths again; I just happened to be on a walk and these made good subjects. I actually shot a really cool event yesterday in the St. Pancras Clocktower; hopefully I’ll have that ready for next week, or something even cooler!

Meetups

The Conformist – Close-Up, Saturday 16th at 15:00

This was actually a member’s pick at The Garden Cinema last week, and is screening there again this week; but like George Osborne, I feel the pull to go East for this one. If you haven’t been to Close-Up before, it’s an amazing repository of material (films and books on film), so definitely worth visiting!

Music

Last week I highlighted two songs from the same artist, and this week I have two new releases (but I’m wary of this section becoming bloated, so we’ll be back to one next week. Briefly: this is the latest project from Tim Darcy’s band, which is not named after pop but after the acronym Cost Of Living Adjustment—also the name of the new album. Great bony post-punk.