What I’ve Watched This Week

Malfunctioning machines, colluding cats and defensive dogs

I’m back in Brisbane now from a week with family in Gippsland – it was literally double the temperature of where I came from when I landed – and I’m already missing that clean country air. We hiked through mountain ash forests, across old trestle bridges and to serene waterfalls. I watched a dozen wild king parrots feed in the birdhouse as the sun came up. A friend even gave us a ride in a 1965 Cadillac with the top down under the stars. Perhaps best of all, I met some interesting people with unbelievable stories who showed me around and made me feel at home. And, of course, we watched some movies.

Virus (1999) - Universal Pictures

Virus (1999)

Directed by John Bruno

Written by Dennis Feldman and Chuck Pfarrer

It’s telling that this forgotten star-studded sci-fi horror came out at the turn of the century, well after The Terminator and before iRobot, but no friends are made here. An American tugboat stumbles upon an abandoned Russian research vessel á la Mary Celeste and decides to salvage it for parts. However, the crew are more concerned with the money than all the blood and bullet holes when the ship mysteriously begins to control itself… and make them part of it. The film is adapted from a Dark Horse comic of the same name and understandably directed by the visual effects artist behind Terminator 2 and The Abyss.

It twists the tried-and-true man vs. machine trope into man becoming machine, blurring the line with homicidal cyborgs of flesh and metal. This is what you get when you combine aliens and robots with a bit of practical body horror thrown in for good measure, and I’m all for it. Of course, it’s still got that ’90s cringe factor, but the dumb and pithy one-liners are actually pretty funny. Donald Sutherland plays the bull-headed Captain Everton and scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis plays the righteous Kit Foster as a mutiny leads to casualties on both sides. All that’s missing is a cameo from Ice Cube or Busta Rhymes.

The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) - Paramount Pictures

The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

Directed by Stephen Hopkins

Written by William Goldman

This is one of mine and my dad’s favourite movies to watch together, so I’m stoked that we got to show it to my stepmum this week. It’s astoundingly based on the true story of two rogue male lions in the Kenyan province of Tsavo that were believed to have killed around one hundred people during the construction of a railroad bridge in 1898. The late great Val Kilmer plays the (apparently) Irish engineer Colonel Patterson, who teams up with legendary hunter Charles Remington, brilliantly played by Michael Douglas, to track the pair of man-eaters down as the body count goes up.

I love the Jaws approach of only showing glimpses of the lions in the buildup and hinting at their whereabouts with unsettling wide shots of long grass in the wind. In fact, it’s not until the midway point that there’s revealed to be more than one. The dissolves from day to night and characters’ watchful eyes to those of the lions keep you constantly alert. As multiple attempts at trapping the killer cats fail, Patterson and Remington are forced to confront their fears by literally coming face to face with them in an incredible climax – and rightly so, given that it’s based on the former’s personal account. It also has one of the coolest movie posters that I’ve ever seen.

North by Northwest (1959) - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

North by Northwest (1959)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Written by Ernest Lehman

Another Hitchcock classic (I’m sorry, he’s just so good), this spy thriller has some of the best dialogue of those that I’ve seen so far. It’s clever, seductive and downright hilarious at times. Advertising executive Roger Thornhill, played by the silky smooth Cary Grant, finds himself caught up in a dangerous case of mistaken identity that leads to him having to hide in a train overhead compartment, disrupt an auction, outrun an aerial gunner and scale the face of Mount Rushmore. The film never felt like it was dragging despite its two-hour-and-fifteen-minute runtime; I was actually struggling to keep up!

There’s some great foreshadowing and symbolism throughout and the absence of music in the tense plane scene is genius. My only complaint is that I had no idea why Thornhill was being pursued until my dad explained it to me – a mix-up with the MacGuffin of some hidden microfilm containing government secrets – but that’s most likely due to my bad habit of talking during crucial moments. I love that, unlike Rope and The Man Who Knew Too Much, the audience only knows as much as the protagonist as he discovers it for himself. Hell, even Thornhill gets the jump on us at one point before a splendid reveal.

One Battle After Another (2025) - Warner Bros. Pictures

One Battle After Another (2025)

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

This has been getting rave reviews, so I figured that I’d better catch it at the cinema while it’s still hot – and I’m very thankful that I did. It’s a taut family drama wrapped up in a stylish action comedy that never slips in its near-three-hour runtime. The story is surprisingly simple and incisively topical, not too dissimilar from Ari Aster’s Eddington, while the characters are quite complex and very believable. All of the performances are daringly committed, especially those from Leonardo DiCaprio as the deadbeat dad with a heavy heart (and multiple fake names) and Sean Penn as the despicable Colonel Lockjaw.

The technique of the film is just as impressive and considered as the script, which has some absolute zingers in the dialogue department. I do wonder how many of Leo’s F-bombs were improvised. It has some A-grade match cuts that also skilfully serve as time jumps to keep the pace steady – the lead character is on the run, after all – and a janky score that never seems to resolve itself until the final scene, as well as plenty of immersive one-shots. I’ll definitely be doing a deep dive into PTA’s earlier work after this; I’ve heard especially good things about Magnolia and There Will Be Blood.

Good Boy (2025) - Shudder/Independent Film Company

Good Boy (2025)

Directed by Ben Leonberg

Written by Ben Leonberg and Alex Cannon

I loved the 2025 supernatural drama Presence, which is shown from the ghost’s point of view. So when I heard that there was a horror film set in a haunted house from the dog’s perspective, I was sold. Unfortunately, I think that this pales in comparison. It does, however, have some fantastic lighting and excellent use of negative space to build tension, often playing with the depth of field and leaving the threat unfocused in the background. I especially liked this in a certain scene near the end when the dog’s owner Todd, played by Shane Jensen, realises that something very strange is going on. But it’s got some problems.

There are some wooden lines of expositional dialogue at the start of the film that I think would have been better shown through the mise en scène or the characters’ actions instead. There are also a lot of low angles, which is understandable, yet you almost never see Todd’s face until a moment of clarity in the final act. Perhaps that’s the point, but I didn’t trust him from the beginning because of it. It’s inventive, I’ll give it that; I just wish that the writing was a bit stronger and the scares a little less predictable. The self-contained story means that it relies heavily on the performances, although the best actor here is Indy the dog.

(I hope that this doesn’t become an overused trend in the genre, like found footage or long one-shots for the sake of it, but at least it’s something new.)