David Cairns
@dcairns.bsky.social
Film maker, film critic, film teacher, film lover, fool for film
Is HEAT hot? It has its points. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/08/05/m...
Mann on Fire
So, finally watched HEAT. I tend to have issues with Michael Mann films but, despite reservations about this one, I did not experience my usual issue of finding that his bold stylistic choices are …
dcairns.wordpress.com
Watching HEAT and I'm sorry but I don't believe that a cop would say "Let's violate his ass right now," without clarifying his intent.
I'm pretty bad at watching Tarkovsky but this one was somewhere between a gruelling arse marathon and a real transfiguring experience. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/08/01/l...
Long longing
I’ve been very slow at getting into Tarkovsky. I have several unwatched discs that’ve been unwatched for years. But then I have too many discs. I have liked what I’ve seen but sel…
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A Richard Matheson TV thriller that isn't Duel but IS rather good. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/07/27/d...
The makers of the 1911 L'ODDYSSEA get some cyclops things right that Nolan, with a 116 year advantage, still struggles with. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/07/26/t...
The Sunday Intertitle: Polyphemus Perversity
This 1911 L’ODYSSEA is pretty good from a spectacle viewpoint. It’s from that naive period of cinema where the intertitles tell you want you’re ABOUT to see, relieving the images …
dcairns.wordpress.com
If you only read one review of THE ODYSSEY, here is one review of THE ODYSSEY. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/07/23/t...
A piece I did about Brit director Anthony Kimmins: dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/07/22/k...
Kimmins and Goings
This is another piece written for the Locarno Film Festival’s “Great Expectations” retrospective on postwar British cinema. Anthony Kimmins began in the early 1930s – unusually – …
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This is a piece I wrote for the Locarno Film Festival on the semi-admirable, semi-deplorable Val Guest. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/07/17/f...
Foul Pest
The following was written for Locarno Film Festival’s retrospective and book Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema 1945-1960, edited by Ehsan Khoshbakht. It wasn’t called Foul Pest…
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I used to make 20-minute video essays, like a person. But now the two most recent are about 45 mins and another, yet to be announced, is an hour forty-five. But I feel it would take longer to make them shorter.
Double Indemnity... doubled! dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/07/11/d...
Double Double Indemnity
I own a book entitled The Five Great Novels of James M Cain, anthologising The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Butterfly, Serenade, Mildred Pierce, and Double Indemnity. I’d only read Serenad…
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Richard Dix, Fay Wray, and a bunch of stand-ins are the stars of IT HAPPENED IN HOLLYWOOD. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/07/09/s...
Sticks Nix Dick Dix Pix
I like Richard Dix in movies, especially his WHISTLER B pictures, and GHOST SHIP, where he fits in perfectly with Val Lewton’s fondness for understated villainy. Unfortunately some the RKO st…
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Marcello Matroianni has been at it for a full week. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/07/05/l...
La Dolce Vita, Day 7, Night 7
Another short day, another long night. We see Marcello trying to do some actual writing in an open-air cafe, then getting attracted by an actual person’s story. He’s a little flirtatiou…
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We loved BACKROOMS and @monsterfromid66.bsky.social was moved to write about it: dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/07/02/w...
Daniel Kremer's jumbo video essay gives us all something to aim for. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/07/01/z...
LA DOLCE VITA creates cinematic beauty sometimes with quite simple means. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/06/24/l...
La Dolce Vita: Day Four, Night Four
Day this time is very brief, a couple of shots long. A spectacularly elegant composition in wide, showing a priest doing last rites on the expired invalid, then a couple of reaction shots of Marcel…
dcairns.wordpress.com
Old King Cole issued a decree commanding his subjects to eat shredded cabbage with mayonnaise, and that's why we call it coleslaw.
For some reason I didn't think THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE was going to be amazing, but it is amazing. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/06/23/t...
The Dropped Lipstick
I find Tay Garnett intermittently very interesting, and his memoir makes me like him as a person, so it’s odd that I’d NEVER watched his best-known film, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.…
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LA DOLCE VITA, Day 3, night 3. Enter the Blessed Virgin Mary (not pictured). dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/06/17/l...
La Dolce Vita: 3rd Day, 3rd Night
LA DOLCE VITA may not have been intended as a movie serial but I’m quite enjoying watching it as one. It beats THE LOST CITY, anyway. Marcello and Sylvia having suddenly and unaccountably fou…
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Day 2, night 2 of LA DOLCE VITA, which means it's time to roll up our trouser legs and hit the fountain. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/06/09/l...
La Dolce Vita: Day 2, Night 2
Dawn, bleak and grey, illumines the giant brutalist pillbox-residences of this Roman suburb. The pimp is berating the sex worker for not fixing a price. She makes it plain that the clients didnR…
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The life of Galileo, in under ten minutes, without words, or facts. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/06/07/t...
The Sunday Intertitle: Galileo Magnifico
Another early from Luigi Maggi, co-directing with the euphoniously-named Arturo Ambrosio. No idea how they divided the duties or why they needed to. It’s less than ten minutes long! “Ga…
dcairns.wordpress.com
So, going to write about the seven days and nights + one morning of LA DOLCE VITA. Starting here: dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/06/05/l...
La Dolce Vita: Day 1, Night 1
It’s strange that I love EIGHT AND A HALF but was always slightly bored by LA DOLCE VITA. Now, since I’m very glad I saw the former as a teenager so I can keep seeing it two or three ti…
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If industrial hellscaping is your thing, Anrzej Munk's THE STARS MUST BURN may be very much your also-thing. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/06/04/f...
Arthur Lope Present Eunice Pottering and Bruce Whybrow in TELL ME NO THINGS With Hymie Clacker Steve Pantheon Vanessa Moat, and Jon Snavely-Vipond. Written by Owsley Porkins. Story by S. Mulberry Hurricane. Produced by Venture Thwappe. Directed by Milton Width. A Tiger-Clavicle Release.
Wardrobe Productions presents Eve Loam and Barry Trickle in WRONG DANGER With Mandom Slat Britta Praxis and Tillie Strangled. Based on the novella THE SHEEP KEY by Shaftsbury Clinch. Screenplay by Norma Hound. Produced by Red Bottom. Directed by Montague Shave. Released thru Diamond-Bean-Otter.
Boris Sleeve Presents Dick Wisp and Jobyna Trestle in OPEN OTHER END With Harry Gloat Wendy Chair Spoyd Buckle and Bart Yeasty. Written by Otto Shoulder & Myrna Highchimney. Produced by Florrison Clout. Directed by Raspy Whinge. Controlled in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland by Lard.
Basil Fiend Presents Alma Bunk and Winslow Mattock in BAD WINDOW With Hilda Penge Bristol Cuppa and V. Poole Monkey. Screenplay by Dean Chitters. Produced by Trod Milky & Barium Husk. Directed by C. Turpentine Steeple. Released Through Muck-Vestibule.
