You never loved me. (Slight pause) You just loved how much I loved you.

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2017 (19 to 26 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

21 September

This is less a review than an angry dismissal of mother ! (2017), by Darren Aronofsky, the person responsible for the direness that is Black Swan (2010)

Welcome to Aronofsky World - the Parade of Plaster-Saints !

If only by bullish self-confidence right to the end, employing very Freudian ideas (e.g. penis envy ?), does mother ! (2017) redeems itself. pic.twitter.com/lKWoGI2t1F

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 22, 2017

The same del Toro had the affront to present us with Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010), many of whose worst faults Aronofsky doesn't avoid. https://t.co/XqRGrNz6Nn

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 22, 2017

[Accreting list of] Film-references and other references :

* Alien (1979)

* August : Osage County (2013)

* Biedermann und die Brandstifter [The Fire-Raisers] ~ Max Frisch

* Das Schloß [The Castle] ~ Franz Kafka

* Der Prozeß [The Trial] ~ Kafka

* Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010)

* Hysteria ~ Terry Johnson

* Melancholia (2011)

* On the Road (2012)

* Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

* The Baby of Mâcon (1993)

* ‘The Circular Ruins’ ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Just on the printed page, the dread that 'The Call of Cthulhu' gives rise to exceeds that of @MotherMovie by around a factor of 12... ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 26, 2017

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming@russellhobanorg uses it in Fremder

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 27, 2017

If only one could share @TakeOneCinema's enthusiasm ! :https://t.co/yt6aUB5iUI

Why didn't Aronofsky cease his labours on the 7th day... ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 22, 2017

One suspects that one would, again, benefit more by watching Hepburn and Tracy in Adam's Rib (1949) rather than doing any more than groan at Aronofsky's levering the topos into his Weltanschauung... (Yes, there was clearly - from the start - more to the relationship between Bardem and Harris than presented : it did not make for dramatic irony, but for the effect of an inept screenwriter, playing with 'big ideas'.)

Darren Aronofsky says “Mother!” is about climate change. He’s wrong: https://t.co/scn9DQtFEh pic.twitter.com/zKPQ4mOKKk

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) September 23, 2017

Luckily, almost everything can be found (without physically searching for the postcard that a friend sent), and this says more than 2h 3mins pic.twitter.com/gDgg3oKVoN

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 23, 2017

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)