José Arroyo
@josearroyo.bsky.social
Teacher, critic; interested in all things film.
A note on Michael Douglas' ONE HELLUVA RIDE: notesonfilm1.com/2026/10/10/o...
ONE HELLUVA RIDE by MICHAEL DOUGLAS
I don’t have a particular fondness for Michael Douglas. Yet, he’s been in my life as far as I can remember, beginning with THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO on TV. He was a key star in my formative earl…
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A note on Roddy McDowall's biography: notesonfilm1.com/2026/10/09/r...
RODDY McDOWALL: AN ACTOR’S LIFE FROM HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY TO LASSIE TO PLANET OF THE APES BY SAMUEL GAZA BERNSTEIIN
I very much enjoyed reading Samuel Garza Bernstein’s biography of Roddy McDowall (for which many thanks to Nicky Smith) whilst also ending up feeling a bit disappointed and sad. McDowall is one of …
notesonfilm1.com
A note on HOPE (Na Hong-jin, 2026) notesonfilm1.com/2026/10/08/h...
HOPE (Na Hong-jin, 2026)
There are so few foreign films shown in Birmingham that I grab every opportunity. That was my only reason to see HOPE (Na Hong-jin, 2026), even though I didn’t know the director or cast, and in spi…
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A note on Eric de Kuyper's marvellous PINK ULYSSES (1990): notesonfilm1.com/2026/10/07/p...
PINK ULYSSES (Eric de Kuyper, 1990)
How could I have missed PINK ULYSSES (Eric de Kuyper, 1990)? A clear descendent of PINK NARCISSUS (James Bidgood, 1971) , a contrast, and perhaps to some antidote, to Christopher Nolan’s THE ODYSS…
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A note on @the-rsc.bsky.social's wonderful production of AS YOU LIKE IT: notesonfilm1.com/2026/10/07/a...
A note on As You Like It (RSC Stratford-upon-Avon) Monday 5th of October
I’d given up on seeing Jonathan Groff in the all-male production of AS YOU LIKE IT at Stratford as I thought it was sold out. But a friend recommended it, saying there were tickets, and ther…
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In praise of Guy Delisle's MUYBRIDGE: notesonfilm1.com/2026/10/03/m...
MUYBRIDGE by Guy Delisle (
Just a few words to praise Guy Delisle’s brilliant graphic novel MUYBRIDGE. It’s beautifully told, surprising, suspenseful, entertaining; and I learned so much about early photography and time-moti…
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A note on Alice Friedman’s brilliant QUEER MODERNS: MAX EWING’S JAZZ AGE NEW YORK: notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/29/a...
Alice Friedman’s QUEER MODERNS: MAX EWING’S JAZZ AGE NEW YORK
One of the finds at Pulp bookshop in Montreal on my last visit was Alice Friedman’s QUEER MODERNS: MAX EWING’S JAZZ AGE NEW YORK. Max Ewing (1903-34) was a writer/photographer/ man-about-town from …
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A note on TWENTY THOUSAND STARS UNDER THE SKY notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/28/t...
TWENTY THOUSAND STREETS UNDER THE SKY.
It was a sadness to see the Southwark Playhouse half-empty for Simon Reade’s adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s TWENTY THOUSAND STREETS UNDER THE SKY. Hamilton wrote the books on which GASLIGHT, ROPE…
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A note on THE ROARING TWENTIES (Raoul Walsh, 1939). #BFI #Southbank notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/28/a...
A Note on the Roaring Twenties (RAoul Walsh, 1939)
Aside from one of the greatest endings in all film history, two things stood out in my latest viewing of THE ROARING TWENTIES (Raoul Walsh, 1939), in a gorgeous 4K Digital Restoration at the BFI. O…
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On A Fistfull of Dollars, seen at the Cinéma Moderne, last night: notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/14/a...
A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (SERGIO LEONE, 1964)
I left my nephew and his kids and braved a thunderstorm to see A FISTFULL OF DOLLARS (Sergio Leone, 1964) at the Cinema Moderne last night. It was a sold-out screening. I was put on a waiting list …
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A total delight at the Cinéma Moderne, Montreal: notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/13/t...
THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (George Cukor, 1940)
Magical experience watching THE PHILDALPHIA STORY in the 4K restoration with Chris and my sister amidst a goof size audience at the Cinema Moderne yesterday. Everybody laughed in all the right plac…
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Are the same people who decry 'handouts' through welfare and medicare willing to sell their vote for $5000? Some people lose their lives for Democracy; others are willing to sell it for $5000. A new low in American history.
I enjoyed it much more than I thought and was surprised to be so moved. notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/10/p...
Pressure (Anthony Maras, 2026)
The biggest surprise at my screening of PRESSURE (Anthony Maras, 2026) at Cineworld was the elderly woman in a wheelchair vaping huge clouds of smoke and a smell I initially thought was some kind o…
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9/9/89: Gus Van Sant's astonishing Drugstore Cowboy w/Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, Heather Graham, WS Burroughs More: @scotttobias.bsky.social: www.theguardian.com/film/2019/oc... @jakecole.bsky.social: www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/drugstor... Ebert: www.rogerebert.com/reviews/drug...
Drugstore Cowboy movie review
"Drugstore Cowboy" is one of the best films in the long tradition of American outlaw road movies - a tradition that includes "Bonnie and Clyde," "Easy Rider,"
rogerebert.com
A note on ONE NIGHT ONLY, a very misjudged film: notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/09/o...
One Night Only (Will Gluck, 2026)
It’s interesting what the worlds of romantic comedy tell us. In the great Doris Day/ Rock Hudson hits of the late 50’s/ early 60s, we were shown a rich, sophisticated, vibrantly coloured world with…
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A quick note on THE DOG STARS, which I liked very much: notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/08/t...
THE DOG STARS (Ridley Scott, 2026)
Reviews of THE DOG STARS were so muted that I was surprised I liked it as much as I did and now suspect it will be one of those Ridley Scott films (like, recently, THE COUNSELOR and THE LAST DUEL) …
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My husband Jad continues to chronicle what is happening in Lebanon to his family and his friends and his home town of Tyre. Latest self-explanatory title: "Shia Need Not Apply." Please consider subscribing. (photos ID'd in alt text) jadnehme.substack.com/p/shia-need-...
A film that engaged my head more than my heart: notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/06/b...
Bitter Christmas/ Amarga Navidad (Pedro Almodóvar, 2026)
BITTER CHRISTMAS is about an aging director who’s having trouble finding an original idea, keeps cannibalising his old work, can’t let go of the death of his mother, and it turns out the movie you’…
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A note on A CHORUS LINE at the Putney Arts Theatre AND PRIDE at the National: notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/06/a...
A CHORUS LINE AT THE PUTNEY ART THEATRE & PRIDE AT THE NATIONAL
We saw two musicals yesterday, both wonderful experiences. The matinee was an am dram production of A CHORUS LINE at the Putney Arts Theatre. I saw the last professional production at the Palladium…
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A note on Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss in Benedict Andrews' Electra/ Persona at the National: notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/05/e...
Electra/ Persona by Benedict Andrews after Sophocles and Ingmar Bergman
In PERSONA (Ingmar Bergman, 1966) , an actress has a nervous breakdown while performing ELECTRA and stops speaking. The basic conceit in Benedict Andrews’ play is to combine the two; the first part…
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Friends were very enthusiastic but we found it didn't live up to expectations. eavesdroppingatthemovies.com/2026/09/03/4...
482 – Coyote vs. Acme
Listen on the players above, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Spotify, or YouTube Music. In 2023, Warner Bros. announced the completion of Coyote vs. Acme, a family film in which Looney Tunes’ Wile E…
eavesdroppingatthemovies.com
On DODES’KA-DEN (Akira Kurosawa, 1970), a transitional, flawed but essential Kurosawa: notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/02/d...
DODES’KA-DEN (Akira Kurosawa, 1970).
DODES’KA-DEN (Akira Kurosawa, 1970). The title is onomatopoeia, the equivalent in English of ‘clackety-clack.’ It begins with a young boy and his mother. She prays as he gets ready to ‘go to work’…
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RED BEARD views like the equivalent of reading a 19th-century novel, with sweep, detail, and a moral centre. The mise-en-scene is as precise, economical and evocative as good writing. It’s a film that can seem old-fashioned but which I prefer to call classic. notesonfilm1.com/2026/09/01/r...
RED BEARD (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)
Kurosawa saw RED BEARD (1965) as a turning point in his filmmaking, acknowledging that his subsequent films would be different. The film shows no traces of all the experiments with sound, ed…
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So it seems that wanting affordable housing, a good education, a living wage and health care is now deemed 'Communistic'. in the US. Is there better proof of the failure of the current system? Fifty years ago that was the goal of every Republican, a social given.
Gillian Annderson and Hannah Einbinder ending up as a couple must be wet dream for several generations of lesbians. I love each and I love them in this 'last-gir' queer satire. But I didn't like the film and I'm not sure it's the film's fault. notesonfilm1.com/2026/08/31/e...
Eavesdropping at the Movies: 481 – Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Horror is surely the most deconstructed genre in film, the slasher the most deconstructed subgenre therein, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma may be the most deconstructy of all such cinemat…
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A Kurosawa film whose visuals made me gape AND gasp. From the great @criterion.bsky.social disc: notesonfilm1.com/2026/08/30/k...
Kagemusha (Akira Kurosawa, 1980)
Kagemusha (1985) The legends around this are many. Even after Kurosawa won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film for DESU UZALA (the film he’d made in 1975 in the Soviet Union) he could not get fin…
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8/28/69: John Frankenheimer curio The Gypsy Moths w/Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Gene Hackman + Sheree North More: @josearroyo.bsky.social: notesonfilm1.com/2020/05/10/t... @peterapeel.bsky.social: mrpeelsardineliqueur.blogspot.com/2016/08/not-... Illeana Douglas: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgrv...
Seeing Ikiru at @thegardencinema.bsky.social and The Hidden Fortress @princecharlescinema.com earlier in the year is what started the ongoing Kurosawa Odyssey: notesonfilm1.com/2026/08/27/i...
IKIRU (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)
Inspired by Tolstoy’s THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH, is a simple story of a bureaucrat (the great Takashi Shimura, in his first starring role for Kurosawa) who’s spent all his life in a boring administr…
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Some Notes on Kurosawa's I LIVE IN FEAR: Not good but with wonderful moments, a great subject of its time, an illuminating performance from Mifune, ssome tour-de-force filming from Kurosawa and co, and thus worth watching. notesonfilm1.com/2026/08/28/i...
I Live in Fear (Akira Kurosawa, 1955)
In between SEVEN SAMURAI (1954) and THRONE OF BLOOD (1957), Kurosawa directed I LIVE IN FEAR, a critical and box office failure that brings up the old adage, was it by Sarris (?), that went somethi…
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