Radio & TV presenter, film critic, podcast host, diarist, author of 6 monographs, journalist on BFI-funded TV series, Honorary Reader at University of Kent.
On this week’s programme I was joined by Olivia Carter, a student in English Language & Linguistics at the University of Kent, to talk about some of her all-time favourite films. From the…
There are clear links here with ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’, the first of Steven Spielberg’s great alien films, and with the conspiracy-driven sensibility that continued through ‘E.T.’ Yet…
‘Tuner’ is a sharply edited, highly polished crime drama that feels like a throwback to the kind of intelligent adult thrillers Hollywood used to make in the 1970s. What elevates it beyond a straig…
What happens when the boy who never grew up ends up doing exactly that? ‘Hook’ takes the familiar Peter Pan story and asks a surprisingly interesting question: what if Peter has become the very thi…
There is something slightly flimsy about ‘Catch Me If You Can’, though I mean that less as a criticism than as a reflection of its breezy, old-fashioned quality. With its caper-style score by John …
‘Finding Emily’ comes from the same sort of stable – at least in terms of its Working Title Films pedigree – that gave us films like ‘Notting Hill’ and ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’. It operates in that …
‘Romería’ is an intriguing film because it draws on diaries, fragments and half-truths – the kinds of stories and omissions that many families construct around themselves. At its centre is Marina (…
‘Normal’ is very much in the vein of ‘Nobody’, again starring Bob Odenkirk, and follows that familiar one-man-against-the-world template. Odenkirk plays an unassuming temporary sheriff who seems al…
‘Obsession’ reminded me a little of ‘Flatliners’ in the sense that it explores characters trying to seize control over emotional outcomes rather than allowing life – or fate – to unfold naturally. …
This is a terrific role for Ian McKellen in a film that frankly doesn’t feel like typical multiplex fare. I saw it on a Friday night at the cinema with only a couple of other people in the audience…
‘Misery’ is a mesmerizing psychological thriller with a great deal to say about the writing process itself – about the superstitions and anxieties that surround creativity, the fear of writer’s blo…
Highlights from Afternoons on Cabin on 12 May 2026.
‘All the President’s Men’ is a hugely intelligent drama that tells us a great deal about the labyrinthine corridors of power. It’s gripping from start to finish, though also so dense with secret na…
Based on the trailer, I thought this was going to be insipid – a disappointing attempt to rekindle a formula that worked perfectly well as a one-off 20 years ago. But ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ actu…
‘Million Dollar Baby’ is an outstanding film – beautifully textured and one that almost wrong-foots you on a first viewing, because for much of its running time it feels like a layered, character-d…
Chris Deacy talking to Kristin Hawthorne at KMTV about biopics ahead of the release of the new Michael Jackson movie. And find out Chris’s favourite biopic and what works and doesn’t work with film…
This is a film that certainly lives up to its title. At times ‘The Drama’ is almost excruciating to watch. We follow an engaged couple who, just days before their wedding, are thrown into crisis by…
Highlights from Afternoons on Cabin on 31 March 2026 when I was joined in the studio by new presenter at Cabin FM Michael Dunne. There’s community and film news, birthdays, On This Day In His…
I was joined by James Looseley for this week’s programme. James has chosen a striking range of films, including The Shawshank Redemption (a first-time pick for the show), Unforgiven, Jaws (a …