Tag: Jacob Elordi

Oh, Canada

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 January 2026
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Director – Paul Schrader – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 94m

From the novel by Russell Banks

***

A documentary filmmaker dying of cancer consents to a filmed interview about his life and work to air his dirty laundry – on UK and Ireland digital platforms on Monday, January 12th

“Remind me why I agreed to do this,” says the ageing Leonard Fife, aka Leo (Richard Gere, from Schrader’s earlier American Gigolo, 1980) setting up for a filmed interview, about his life and work as a documentary filmmaker, at which he has insisted his wife Emma (Uma Thurman), a former student of his, be present. His interviewer Malcolm (Michael Imperioli from Song Sung Blue, Craig Brewer, 2025; The White Lotus, TV series, Mike White, 2021; The Sopranos, TV series, 1999–2007) is another former student, as is Malcolm’s producer Diana (Victoria Hill from First Reformed, 2017; Master Gardener, 2022, both Paul Schrader), another former student conquest of Leo’s; Malcolm’s production assistant is 24-year old Sloan (Penelope Mitchell from Sting, Kiah Roache-Turner, 2024; Hellboy, Neil Marshall, 2019; The Vampire Diaries, TV series, 2014-15; Hemlock Grove, TV series, 2013).

What lies behind Leonard’s acceptance of the gig swiftly becomes clear when he hijacks the first question, framing it with a date in 1968 of great significance in his personal life.… Read the rest

Tags 1968, 24-year old, abandoning relationships, adaptation, adultery, ageing, artist, bad decisions, Calvinist upbringing, Canada, Caroline Dhavernas, CEO, Christian, Christianity, close to death, confession, conservative values, death, dirty laundry, disloyal, documentary, documentary films, draft dodger, dream sequence, dreams and reality, dying of cancer, exposing, extra-marital affair, family business, family home, family priest, father-in-law, fathers and sons, filmed interview, first novel, first wife, flashback, former student, frame device, frame story, good offer, high places, humanist, husbands and wives, imagined memory, in-laws, infidelities, investigative, Jacob Elordi, Jake Weary, Kristine Froseth, life and work, life decisions, loyalty, male heir, marital infidelities, Megan MacKenzie, memory, Michael Imperioli, miscarriage, morality, mortality, mother-in-law, novel, novelist, nurse, Paul Schrader, Penelope Mitchell, producer, production assistant, property, prosperity, relationships, religion, retrospective, Richard Gere, rite of Confession, Russell Banks, sex, sexism, Southern US, student conquest, talk things through, Uma Thurman, US, Vermont, Victoria Hill, Vietnam War, voice-over, wives, writer, wrongdoing, younger self, Zach Shaffer

Features Live Action Movies

On Swift Horses

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 5 September 2025
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Director – Daniel Minahan – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 119m

*****

A husband’s dreams are undermined in 1950s America by the separate lives and desires of his secretly racetrack-gambling wife and his reappearing, disappearing drifter-gambler brother – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 5th

Lee Walker (Will Poulter from Warfare, Alex Garland, 2025; Detroit, Kathryn Bigelow, 2017; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Michael Apted, 2010; Son of Rambow, Garth Jennings, 2007) returns home to the US from the Korean War to his adored wife Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones from Twisters, Lee Isaac Chung, 2024; Where the Crawdads Sing, Olivia Newman, 2022) who lives in the isolated house she inherited from her mother in the calm prairie lands up North. Their relationship is deeply carnal. And yet, something changes in that relationship dynamic the night Lee’s brother Julius (Jacob Elordi from Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro, 2025; Priscilla, Sofia Coppola, 2023; Saltburn, Emerald Fennell, 2023) turns up, and she is instantly attracted to him. Of course, that can’t be, because she is with Lee.

Part of the attraction is that Julius, a drifter who turns up unannounced, is also an inveterate card sharp and gambler.… Read the rest

Tags 1950s, A-bomb test, America, American dream, attic, behind his back, betting on horses, book club, brother-in-law, brothers, Bryce Cass, buy property, California, card sharp, carnal, casino, character flaws, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Daniel Minahan, day job, desire, Diego Calva, dream, drifter, estate, exploit the system, fringe, gambling, gambling floor, gambling tips, gay hubs, gay relationship, home, housing estate, husbands and wives, illicit, inheritance, Jacob Elordi, Korean War, Las Vegas, LGBTQ, listens, making a killing, message board, motel room, mugged. Patrol, On Swift Horses, one-way mirrors, part-time, phone calls, poor judge of character, prairie, professional gamblers, prostitution, punters, racetrack, rent boy, San Diego, Sasha Calle, secret, security, selling the house, sex, Shannon Pufahl, single homeowner, underground gay scene, US, vanished, waitressing, Will Poulter

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The Sweet East

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 29 March 2024
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Director – Sean Price Williams – 2023 – US – Cert. 18 – 104m

****

Dumping her boyfriend, a South Carolina high school student skips a class trip to Washington, DC and falls in with a series of outsiders living in their own isolated visions of America – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 29th

Although this starts off with heroine Lilian (Talia Ryder from West Side Story, Stephen Spielberg, 2021) in bed with her boyfriend Troy (Jack Irv), and a lot of visible flesh, it’s not so much a sex scene as a scene in which two people talk about the ending of the movie they watched last night. Soon after, the pair and their classmates are piled into a coach, complete with tour guide, driving them to Washington, DC. When Troy and others lark around in hotel corridors, she doesn’t really feel part of what’s going on.

At a restaurant, she meets activist and body-piercing enthusiast Caleb (Earl Cave from True History of the Kelly Gang, Justin Kurzel, 2019, Days of the Bagnold Summer, Simon Bird, 2019), who without sexual intent shows her the piercings and metal studs encrusting his penis. Going with him and his fellow commune members to an activists’ event, she finds herself at an outdoor radicals’ fair where she meets Laurence (Simon Rex from Red Rocket, Sean Baker, 2021) to whom she gives her name as Annabelle and who kindly offers her a place to stay – his place in Delaware, no strings attached.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Deep Water
(2022)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 17 March 2022
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(2022)
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Director – Adrian Lyne – 2022 – US – Cert. US-R – 115m

****

A man is jealous of the lovers of his beautiful but promiscuous wife who start mysteriously dying one by one – out on Prime Video in the UK on Friday, March 18th

Vic (Ben Affleck) is devoted to his wife Melinda (Ana de Armas from No Time To Die, 2021, Cary Joji Fukunaga) for whom he would do anything, including give her her freedom. Since she doesn’t like being tied down to just one man, this means the freedom to sleep with any man she wants. She drinks a lot too and often stays out all night, refusing to tell Vic where she’s been in the morning. The trouble is, some time ago she slept with a man named MacRae and he vanished. Disappeared. No-one knows what happened to him.

Then one night, at a party he’s hosting, Vic scares Melinda’s current lover Joel (Brendan C. Miller) by confessing to the crime, by way of a joke. Or is it? Joel is inclined to think Vic the murderer. After a job offer causes Joel to leave the area, Melinda starts meeting a piano teacher Charles (Jacob Elordi).… Read the rest