Films I Watched in May 2026

The Truman Show (1998) ★★★★⯪

Another classic that I have somehow never watched. Obviously, I knew all about this film before sitting down to actually watch it, and of course I loved it. Jim Carrey was fantastic at playing a character who is slowly loosing his mind, as he always is. I watched this with my little brother and he really enjoyed it too. It was a little weird to try to explain to a kid that the town Truman is living in is fake and pointing out where all the hidden cameras are. I don't think it hits as hard as it did in 1998, cause... there are cameras everywhere now and everyone is always being recorded nowadays.

Project Hail Mary (2026) ★★★★★

A film I will forever wish I got to see in theatres. The visuals are amazing and so are the characters. I like how limited the cast is. I know we spend most of the film with just Rocky and Grace, but even in the Earth flashbacks, there is only a handful of characters we meet in Grace's memories. It makes each of them feel more impactful to the plot and how Grace remembers himself and his mission. I also think it adds to the isolation Grace feel throughout, not only is he alone, but he's so disconnected that he only has this little capsule of memories that are themselves separate from the rest of Earth's population. The people he does remember are all either dead or living on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Insolation upon isolation.

Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D (2026) ★★★★★

Watching this was like experiencing the concert all over again. I find any live music very moving so I was crying all throughout watching this. I shouldn't be surprised really, when I saw Billie on tour in Manchester last year, the song that got me to start crying was Lunch, not even a sad song! I once cried at a performance of The Four Seasons, so I guess anything can set me off. I will say, I didn't think the 3D element was going to be necessary, but all the wide shots of the audience behind Billie on stage did make it feel more immersive, so I don't think it went completely unutilised.

Green Vinyl (2004) ★★★★☆

I saw this short film in the MUBI tent at The Hay Festival, along with the next two films as well. I love the format of this film, the sort of stop motion look, along with the disjointed audio, really added to the eerie feel. This kind of reminded me of a childhood bedtime story, a little tale that wasn't intended to be scary, but your childish imagination twists it until it becomes something so horrifying, you have to stop yourself from thinking about it at night. It's a very simple narrative, bare bones, but is very evocative.

Incoherence (1994) ★★★★⯪

This is a vignette, four section short film, by Bong Joon Ho. I liked it a lot, but one of my friends did not like it at all, which I found interesting. I think my favourite section was the second, where an old man is on a morning run in a residential area, and on his way past a house, he steals some milk that had just been delivered, and then a newspaper straight from the paperboy by lying and saying he's the resident of the house behind him. He then spends the rest of his screen time running from said paperboy after he gets in trouble for supposedly stealing the milk from the house he was delivering the paper to. I liked the sped up shots of them running and then the slow panning shots to the alley where they then appear next. You can watch it here on YouTube with English subtitles.

Zama (2017) ★★★⯪☆

I couldn't weigh in on the historical accuracies of this film, but I can say it was one of the most immersive films I've ever watched. Every single thing, from the costumes to the sets to the scenery, felt like it was pulled straight out of the 18th century. Another layer to this immersion is that I watched this during the first heat wave we had in the UK this year, so it felt as though I had been pulled into the inescapable heat that is depicted on screen. It's a very slow film, but the main character, Zama, spends the whole film waiting for one thing or another, which would allow him to finally leave Argentina, so I do think that's the point.

Backrooms (2026) ★★★★★

I have been a massive fan of Kane Pixels' Backrooms since about October of 2022, when I first discovered his YouTube series about the Backrooms. This was one of the first things that really got me into horror as a genre. I was obsessed with the found footage medium at the time, as I then went on to watch Marble Hornets, Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, and it's three progressively worse prequels. I loved the YouTube series dearly and was very excited when I first heard about the film deal Kane made with A24. I saw the film two days after release with absolutely no spoilers ahead of time, which I'm honestly surprised I pulled off. I loved the film, I think it was a great expansion of what the YouTube series set up, with a more fleshed out and resolute vision that works for the film format. I loved all the characters. This is another film with a very small cast, which I think works well against the infinite, sprawling architecture of the Backrooms. It makes it feel even more massive, as well as making you feel even smaller in your singularity as you watch. I liked the loose references to the YouTube series in the film. There were certain scenes where, from watching the YouTube videos, I had a good idea of the direction the scene was gonna go, but was still surprised by the eventual outcome. It felt more like a nudge nudge in joke, instead of a shot for shot scene taken straight from the YouTube series, which would have stood out from the rest of the film. I like the idea of the Still Lifes that we see at the end, but they did sort of feel like an excuse to have a Big Bad and a chase scene. Like, it's a really cool idea, but I can see how they already had the starting point of The Lifeform from the YouTube series, and had to sort of work backwards to come up with Captain Clark. I feel the same way about including Async now that I think about it. Of course, I do want the sciencey/ research element to be included, but with how the first 80% of the film is formed with Clark at the forefront, it felt like Async was only included because it was already there and they thought people would be pissed if it wasn't in the film. Overall though, I absolutely loved this film and can't wait to see what Kane does next.

Mystery Film Clippings and Family Photos

One of my most favouritest things to do is collect old things. Anything weird or niche, I will snatch up immediately. Especially any type of vintage print and photography media.

About 5 years ago, I had the opportunity to develop my own film photographs, and since then I have been obsessed with any vintage photo negatives I can get my hands on. Last year, I visited Cornwall around Christmas and went to Penzance Antiques and Collectables Emporium, one of my favourite shops there, and found a box full of black and white 35mm half-frame photos, which I only just got round to photographing on my light box. Though they are all black and white, the acetate of the film rolls are multi-coloured, which is why some of them are tinted. There are 235 in total! Luckily, there was also a half frame magnifier in the box, which is how I took these photos.

My amateur guess is that these are from film sets from somewhere in the 1920s. Whenever there is text in the photos, it's in German but I don't know if that necessarily means these films were produced in Germany? If anyone knows more than me about where/when these are from, please tell me!

There are some very kooky ones in here that I absolutely love, which I have posted as large individuals so you can really see them up close, as well as just some of my favourites.

235 individual black and white 35mm half-frame film photos

Another place that I go to find lovely vintage things, is Bournville Antiques in Birmingham Redbrick Market. I have bought many a weird thing from this vendor. One of my most recent ones is a slide box of full colour, family holiday photos. From what I can tell, this family went to France and New York. Based off the films on the cinema marquees in one of the photos (The Chapman Report and Manchurian Candidate), I think these photos are from around 1962, but I could be wrong. These are so lovely and I can't believe I own them, they are so beautiful. Again, I've posted my favourites as large individuals. ♡

54 individual colour 35mm film photos

Films I Watched in April 2026

Bruce Almighty (2003) ★★★☆☆

I had somehow never seen this film until now. Even though I have seen it's much less culturally significant sequel, Evan Almighty (2007) many times. I don't often enjoy comedies, but I do like the fact that this whole thing is just to make fun of religion. And I liked the wacky ways in which they depict God and his holy abilities. The everything-is-perfectly-white-and-empty depiction of holy places always works for me.

Sinners (2025) ★★★★⯪

I will always love a vampire film, weather the vampires are the protagonists or the villains, it doesn't matter to me.  All the characters felt real, in general this film felt very real compared to other vampire films. Aside from the fantasy of vampires and magic music that is. I also love how much personality all the characters have, all their decisions and morals feel grounded in what we know about each of them.

Marmalade (2024) ★★★★☆

This layout of film is always a delight. The format of plot recap via an in-story character, as well as the overall campness of the film, reminds me of films like A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), and Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). I love how the whole first half of the film is a recap from Baron, and as he's narrating it, it's from the POV of Otis' imagination, where the details change as Baron describes all of them, like Marmalade's hair changing from bright red to pink. The only thing that took me out of the film is the terrible wig they had Joe Keery wear for almost the whole film. You're telling me he couldn't grow his hair out 5 inches between filming stranger things?

The Drama (2026) ★★★★⯪

This is one of the first films in a long time where I went in having seen absolutely no spoilers. I had hardly even seen the trailer for this before I went to see it at the cinema. I saw it in a small theatre, which actually worked really well for this film, as I got to hear everyone's reactions throughout, there are a lot of reveals in this film so it was really cool to hear everyone have the same reactions as me. All the actors did a great job, especially in the awkward and very emotionally erratic scenes. Even though this is more of a Robert Pattinson focused film, Zendaya steals the spotlight of every scene she's in, her character, Emma is the most striking character of the film. I like how they show Charlie's many spiralling thoughts as the film goes on, with his imagination spilling into the real world, making us unsure what is real and what is in his head. 

Things I Made in May - June 2026

Digital Drawing of the Hand

Like many artists, I have been cursed with carpel tunnel, as well as generalised hand pain, for going on 5 years now, on and off. It got so bad that I even got it officially diagnosed by a doctor and everything! Luckily (?) I only get it in my non dominant (right) hand.

Because of all of this, I have been looking at various diagrams of hands recently. This lead me to drawing my own, with all the overlapping layers. This was originally going to turn into a paper diagram but with how tiny all the elements are, as well as the aforementioned hand pain, I don't think that's going to happen. 

Swallows, 7.4x7.8cm, 09/06/26

This is another hand drawn design that was made for a birthday card. This time I went even smaller, with each of the pixels being 1mm by 1mm, whereas my previous designs were 2.5mm by 2.5mm.

I have fallen in love with drawing these swallows, I first used them in a Mother's Day card in March, and have been using them in everything since. They are very simple but very pretty, and I like that they're not quite symmetrical.

A Pink and Purple Lighter

I had to buy these lighters for another craft I was making and ended up covering them in my sticker collection. The animal crossing characters and Gogo's, I made myself by printing them on sticker paper and the rest are from Sticker Magic, which is a website I would spend all my money at if I could. 

17 Sea Creature Fabric Patches

These fish prints were originally on the back of an H&M shirt that I ended up cutting up. It was a white t-shirt that I was just never going to wear, but I couldn't bring myself to part with these beautiful fish. So over about 4 days, I cut them out, sewed them onto felt backing, and then stitched around the edges. Initially, I was just going to do a blanket stitch around the edge, but the t-shirt material is quite thin, and would have frayed if I left any of the edges exposed. I think it looks better like this anyway. My plan is to either make them felt pins, or sew them onto other stuff, like a hat or a bag.

I also made some more stuff on my jewellery course but included within the cost of the course, we get the opportunity to get stuff hallmarked, so I've sent off all my precious creations and I will get them back by the end of this week! ♡