iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Last week I was lucky enough to talk to master stuntman/choreographer/director/visionary Yuen Woo-ping! His new film BLADES OF THE GUARDIANS is showing in US/Canadian theatres (thanks @wellgousa.bsky.social) so please let our conversation to get you excited about it screenanarchy.com/2026/02/blad...

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

Part One of takes both celebratory and scabrous as I round up the wild cinematic year that was 2025. Sub to that Substack if you like what you see here 👉 open.substack.com/pub/simonram...

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

FRANKENSTEIN: del Toro’s itch is finally scratched! Extravagantly silly and sentimental, packed with fleshy cadavers and jaw-ripping grue. Elordi follows in the footsteps of Doug Jones as a pretty, lanky, pale beastie among del Toro’s finest. Isaac does a Ruffalo in Poor Things voice. #LFF

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

the wake of an event that nearly wiped us out, that should have shown us how to cope with the worst and cherish what we have left. When one threat has vanished, how do we deal with the suspicions that another isn’t just around the corner? 6/7

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

The toxic codes of yesteryear kept by its sects of uninfected and the permanent states of rage found in everyone else are going to be the real terrors going forward, as isn’t our post-pandemic reality just that? Big ideas and entitled powers vying for dominance still, even in 5/7

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

All this leads me to think DaCosta and Garland are going to serve up a second instalment where the trouble isn’t the virus any longer, but the calcified cultural codes that have turned stale and gaudy in the three decades since the world froze. 4/7

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

The “magic of the placenta” seemed too convenient to me; surely the flesh and blood of two infected people would be more than enough to make their offspring as such too. If babies can be born in our world with addictions and viruses, it stands to reason they should here too. 3/7

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

We see plenty of near-misses: Spike splattering his mother’s forehead with blood and quickly wiping it off; Isla linking hands with the infected woman in labour; Kelson being nearly smothered by Samson’s huge hands; the baby born without the virus at all. 2/7

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

#28YEARSLATER spoilers . . . . . . . . . Not wanting to stoke any irl conspiracies here, but I left questioning if the virus was actually infectious anymore. In fact, this is a film where the only transmission of the virus happens in the initial outbreak in the prologue. 1/7

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Friendship first half vs Friendship second half

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

The Irishman has been officially renamed ‘I Heard You Paint Houses’.

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

I was intrigued, moved, alarmed and provoked by @joshuaoppenheimer.bsky.social’s #TheEnd, which is, for my money, the most interesting thing currently playing in theatres. Here’s why 👉 thegeekshow.co.uk/the-end-2024...

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

The man who liberated my sense of what art could be more than any other, a pitch-dark sunbeam straight to the psyche, is no longer sharing the planet with us. I feel privileged to have existed when he did, and to experience his art in real time is a treasure I cannot relive. Rest in peace, Director.

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

I’m somewhat craving the dark and thorny return of #Andor, but as trifles go, Skeleton Crew is a good one of intricate structure and unexpected flavour. 17/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Resourcefully priced at $136 million, it’s great to see the money on the screen like this too, spent on cracking sets, dynamic CGI and even a Phil Tippett-esque stop motion crab from hell. Vitally, the balance of spectacle and heart frequently makes it more than the sum of its parts. 16/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

By its inevitable pew-pew, lever-pulling finale, the whole adventure mapped out by Skeleton Crew is a nice, well-earned indulgence in the world outside Star Wars, while remaining true to the style and craft of its own brand. 15/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Add to that the most endearing cute little guy in the entire Star Wars canon (Robert Timothy Smith’s kind-hearted blue elephant Neel), and you’ve got some strong emotional anchors for this pirate ship escapade to use to great effect along the way. 14/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

While the status quo remains mostly intact, the show otherwise breaks new ground with organic diversity, particularly around disabled character KB and her vulnerable turn in episode 6, finding strength in her condition and communicating clearly how she can be helped by others in a tough spot. 13/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

AKA that’s a very Disney way of looking at the distribution of wealth; Star Wars daren’t get counter-cultural again after vitriol provoked by The Last Jedi’s view of the money war machine and the rebels fighting to undermine it, and this is another example of them playing their cards safe. 12/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

In its final stretch, it tries to deal with the idea of limitless wealth, supervised and controlled by pencil-pushing bureaucrats and lusted after by misfit outlaws, and never really reckons with the consequences of coding its downtrodden ‘villains’ as anything other than greedy scumbags. 11/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

It does get there in the end, thank goodness, effectively utilising the pleasant but sanitised home planet as a diving board into Mos Eisleys of many shapes and sizes, from junky spaceports to corrupt pleasure planets that guard dark, lucrative secrets beneath their gentrified exteriors. 10/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

‘The Goonies in Space’ is a great logline for a Star Wars show, even if the familiarity of At Attin as a planet (with its manicured lawns, bike-riding pre-teens and boring high schools) feels like a step too close to mass appeal, when the franchise’s greatest assets are forever its weirdest. 9/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

With that hardwired connection to ripping adventure yarns of old comes more nods to other beloved texts drawing from the same well, particularly in the show’s concerning opening episode that sees our heroes’ planet bear a crazy resemblance to the Spielbergian suburbs of E.T. and The Goonies. 8/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Also in the mix is malfunctioning pirate droid SM-33, voiced with full-throated sea dog growling from Nick Frost, whose unreliable memory and mood swings feel directly drawn from Treasure PLANET and Martin Short’s scatty robot B.E.N. 7/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

It should come as no surprise that his Captain Silvo is as unreliable a crewmate as Long John Silver himself, and Law’s mercurial charisma is more than enough to make up for the obvious backsliding into bastardry he undergoes along the way. 6/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Robert Louis Stevenson and the shadow of Treasure Island loom long over this venture, not only in its digressions to booby-trapped lairs and twists around double-crossing pirates, but even in character names; plucky protagonist Wim is so close to Jim Hawkins it hurts, and as for Jude Law? 5/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Which is why the level of intertextuality in Jon Watts and Christopher Ford’s Skeleton Crew feels at first derivative, then joyous, before making you realise the places it’s taken you on its spirited adventure can exist as a cheeky nod towards a classic text, while being its own heartful thing. 4/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

George Lucas was also highly reverential to Akira Kurosawa, particularly The Hidden Fortress, yet his original chapter stands fully by itself; one doesn’t need to know what he’s winking at to appreciate what he’s going for on his own terms. 3/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

We caught a whiff of it at the end of #Ahsoka with its bafflingly-titled finale: The Jedi, The Witch and The Warlord. I remember my brain blowing a fuse when the high-stakes ending of Dave Filoni’s first solo live-action show tipped its hat to C.S. Lewis with a contrived, underdeveloped pun. 2/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Would’ve been the last person to call this, but I’d say Star Wars’ latest universe expansion #SkeletonCrew is exactly what the writhing beast needed, that also finally gave in to something rarely seen in any strand of its world: active references to stories outside of its own. 1/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

In short, let it entertain you. 17/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

I would just urge people to take a deep breath and entertain the idea of risking an evening of their time. After all, one can learn just as much from a bad film as you can a good one, and one will almost certainly find a better film than they expect, especially when one has no expectations. 16/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Regardless, art need not exist for anything other than art's sake, even if that art involves Liam Gallagher throwing C-bombs at a cutting edge WETA creation that acts like the most charming chav you've never met. 15/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Maybe it won't matter in the long run. Plenty have had their fun. Gracey took his big blank cheque and made something special. That matters too. Robbie seems happier, kinder than before. Whatever demons he had, whatever he fought within, maybe the making of this film helped vanquish them. 14/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Perhaps it was always destined to be a box office bomb if its successes were only measured with the US market's final say on whether a film lives or dies. The rest of the world may be already drawn to Williams' cheesy showmanship and stadium-filling anthems, but America remains his Fort Knox. 13/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

There are flaws; the novelty of seeing a chimpanzee rail line after line of cocaine across years of story does wear thin, and the emotional climax of the film rings very pat in its efforts to redeem everyone who ever made a mistake in Williams' life. And yet, that fresh vision sticks. 12/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Keyly, the film is not exploitative precisely because it's coming from the heart of Robbie Williams himself. Built around anecdotes told from Williams to Gracey, featuring painstakingly reconstructed live performances (spiced up with reality-bending magical realism), it delivers rare insight. 11/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

I'm now thinking about Barnum again; not Hugh Jackman's version with perfectly coiffed hair and gleaming white chompers, but the real man, the exploitative pedaller of sights from the unseen world, who brought crowds from near and far to gaze upon things akin to a superstar performing monkey. 10/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Suffice to say, when the feverish Knebworth performance in Better Man rolls around, the film then showed me something so insanely, irresponsibly bold that it still makes me aghast and in awe in equal measure, taking Gracey's vision into the mad sideshow spectacle this was destined to be. 9/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

This PSA likely won't change any minds, but Better Man is just that thing that will not only show many a story they didn’t know, but in a way that is fresh, new, raw and honest, alongside all of the comfortable tropes that make music biopics a rather comfortable "warm blanket of fucking shit". 8/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Isn't that why we watch films? To learn? Gain insight into a world we’re unfamiliar with? I’m recalling a line muttered by Keanu Reeves in Destination Wedding: “I’m very comfortable and warm in my fucking warm blanket of fucking shit.” 7/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

True, apathy can spring from a lack of familiarity with a subject, yet I've seen plenty comments that are rather disgusted with the idea of A) a biopic featuring its character as an unsubtle metaphor, and B) watching a film about someone they don’t know about. 6/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Yet I knew that was some FLAVOUR, a rare spectacle in the form of a weird swing that could be very good or very bad. The reception from people (particularly in the US) that have not yet seen the film seems to be quite militant instead of just apathetic. 5/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

So the sophomore effort from the man behind it was something I dreaded, even when I heard it featured the actively risk-TAKING move of casting Robbie Williams (a familiar and even nostalgic person in my life) as a CGI monkey. 4/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

It added gloss and glitz to the story of P.T. Barnum and made it into a grotesquely populist and risk-averse earworm machine that hasn’t become less annoying with time. 3/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Were no one's alarm bells ringing when you heard it was from the guy who brought us The Greatest Showman? To me, that film remains one of the most dubious beloved films of the current era: it is garish-looking and sounding, morally questionable, virtue-signalling and pre-emptively anti-critic. 2/17

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

A 🧵on the ‘I don’t know who Robbie Williams is, so I don’t care who Robbie Williams is, and of course Better Man is bombing and it deserves to’ discourse… I’ll admit to a reservation I had before seeing the film, but one I haven’t really seen others acknowledge... 1/

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Den of Thieves 2 looking great and all, but what’s with all Panera Bread product placement??

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Simon Ramshaw @simonramshaw.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Quietly fell in love with #ARealPain, a fine-tuned dramedy that features its two leads abroad, but still on home territory. A gentle reminder of Eisenberg’s complicated likeability and Culkin’s brash wit, both doing what they do best with a script laying out its wares in a careful, considered way. 🧵

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