I had a movie day

Watched four of the buggers in 16 hours. They went from educational to light-hearted to crazy fun to deeply creepy. From artist biopic to kids' flick to scifi sequel to the hundredth (200th? 300th?) possible explanation for the Jack The Ripper murders.

Incredible US street photographer whose enormous body of work - in B&W, colour and on 8mm film - from the 1940s-80s serves as a portrait of a country striving to find itself, sometimes painfully. The doco features perceptive observations from his contemporaries and discussion of key influences, galleries, exhibitions and photobooks, as well as noting arguably problematic aspects of the man himself. 

Hard to resist the cast, splendid sets, deliberate silliness and jungle adventure. Impossible to resist, in fact. The level of background detail is dazzling - you can tell the animators/model makers/set designers, etc. still put their best efforts into items that only appear on screen for seconds, e.g. a joke newspaper. On that note, the CGI is smoothly integrated, rather than trying to wow the audience on its own.

Outdoing the fab original, "Megan 2.0" ramps up the chaos, conspiracy, comedy (that Kate Bush cover was gold!), killbots and - by extension - justified technofear about our modern world. It literally goes to places you do not expect. The soundtrack is a blast and also deserves praise for incorporating the "Knight Rider" theme. Oh, and actors Ivanna Sakhno and Jemaine Clement are especially good.

This C-grade poster is laughably misleading for a fillum consisting mostly of (well-written) seated conversations. Which is not to say "Ripper Untold" lacks disturbing bits. The makers use their low budget to show just enough gore to horrify in the same way they show just enough period trappings for believability...which is a word I wouldn't necessarily apply to the big reveal. On the movie poster again, given that "Ripper Untold" is both sympathetic to the social inequalities of the time and attempts to humanise the victims, the sensationalised image and tag lines do it a real disservice.