I'm starting a thread of all the films I've watched during lockdown. I've a massive stack of DVD's beside my bed and a backlog of films I've wanted to catch on streaming services so I'm using the time to whittle it down.

I'll be talking Jennifer Jason Leigh on my podcast soon so rewatched Existenz on DVD. It sees David Cronenberg predicting what video games will become to mixed results. Still the gross fleshy weirdly erotic body horror looks incredible. Plus Leigh and Jude Law are a lot of fun.

I also saw Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral on Shudder for a list on virus movies I worked on. Starring Caleb Landry Jones, it follows a company who buy celeb diseases because fans will pay to be infected with the same pathogens. Brilliant, bonkers, it's a neo-noir with some horror

I had weirdly never seen Rushmore, despite loving other Wes Anderson movies like The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Darjeeling Limited. Watching on DVD, I get what all the hype is about. It's a very quirky funny comedy-drama shot like it exists in its own fantasy world.

I loved Jack Reynor's short Bainne which played on Sky Arts on St Patrick's Day. Inspired by Japanese folklore, it's a ghost story set in the famine's last year. What starts as bleak and tense builds to an audacious, allegorical and incredibly emotionally rewarding finale.

I love Citizen Kane and Magnificent Ambersons. Yet I prefer Orson Welles' more genre movies. Mr Arkadin is a great one, a convoluted globetrotting noir starring the filmmaker as a shady rich man who hires a lowlife blackmailer to see if he can dig up his sordid past. Seen on DVD.

As someone who likes Jojo Rabbit, loves Thor 3 and quotes What We Do in the Shadows often, It's high praise when I say Hunt for the Wilderpeople (DVD) is Taika Waititi's best. It is hilarious, has a genuinely touching central relationship and looks great. The soundtrack slaps too

Another DVD watch was Dead End, William Wyler's crime drama about a NY street where the rich and poor live in uneasy harmony. Humphrey Bogart plays a mobster from the slums back to visit his mother and an old flame. Though dated in parts, it's very well-made and acted.

Bacurau (on Mubi) must be Brazil's first arty horror-sci-fi-western. I loved its observational first half and its commentary on what a Brazilian country village 'a few years from now' will be like. I'm less into the Most Dangerous Game scenario it becomes. Still, worth a look.

Also a side-note on Bacurau: genuinely confused by the plot synopsis I keep seeing everywhere which is not what the movie is about.

The Lure is The Little Mermaid remixed as a Polish horror musical set in an 80's strip club. I liked its period setting, mermaid effects, gothy musical numbers and feminist undertones. Yet its main story feels a tad thin. I watched it on my first Criterion blu-ray which was cool.

Truth or Dare (on Netflix) is It Follows for teens, lacking that movie's atmosphere, production value or identifiable characters. Still its premise, a haunted version of the popular game, is compelling enough. Plus, everytime someone does the face below it's kinda creepy.

One of my faves of 2020, Leigh Whannell's timely feminist twist on The Invisible Man recalls Get Out in how exciting and fiercely relevant it feels. Like that movie, its always two steps ahead of viewers. It's getting boring to say but Elizabeth Moss gives a tour-de-force turn.

I'd never seen Ocean's 12 (on Netflix) because I heard it's the bad one. It's great in that Soderbergh used the first's success to bankroll a Hollywood budgeted French new wave film full of weird cameos, non sequiturs and logic testing twists. David Holmes' dynamic score is

Other good things about Ocean's 12
- Vincent Cassel's laser dance
- Vincent Cassel plays a guy called The Night Fox
- Pitt and Catherine Zeta's relationship that has echoes of J-Lo and Clooney in Out of Sight
- Cherry Jones
- They rob a mansion by raising the building itself.

I'm continuing this thread on @letterboxd. If you've enjoyed it, follow me there where I log and write a few sentences on pretty much any movie I watch.