Mike McCahill

United Kingdom

Film and TV Critic at Freelance

Greetings once again to concerned young people all over Northern Europe. Film/TV bylines: Guardian, Telegraph, Little White Lies, Variety, Reader's Digest UK.

Articles

Four Mothers review - canny crowd-pleaser

3 weeks ago | lwlies.com | Mike McCahill

About Little White Lies Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.
Screamboat review - rodent IP horror sends Mickey Mouse on a ferry rampage

4 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Mike McCahill

Here’s another draining bout of horror opportunism, spawned in this instance by the copyright expiring on Disney’s Steamboat Willie, the 1928 landmark animation that launched Mickey Mouse into the world. Scurrying on to screens months behind the similarly motivated The Mouse Trap, Steven LaMorte’s bloody pastiche opens with a quote coyly ascribed to “Walt D” before plodding mirthlessly in the pawprints of those recent Winnie-the-Pooh carve-ups, demonstrating no greater brio, invention or wit.
The Woman in the Yard review – pared-back horror is Grandma’s Footsteps: The Movie

1 month ago | msn.com | Mike McCahill

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The Woman in the Yard review - pared-back horror is Grandma’s Footsteps: The Movie

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Mike McCahill

Sometimes a single image is enough to carry a film so far. This pared-down Blumhouse chiller opens with a brisk, detailed overview of the disarray that a remote rural fixer-upper has fallen into since the death of a paterfamilias. No power; no food in the cupboards; a bereft, incapacitated mother (Danielle Deadwyler) leaving two children to fend for themselves; cracks in the plasterwork offering their own doleful commentary.
On demand: "No Bears"

Jan 18, 2025 | cinesthesiac.blogspot.com | Mike McCahill

Good news for those of us keeping an eye on these developments: Jafar Panahi is on the move again (sort of). 2022's No Bears, Panahi's most recent dispatch on life inside Iran and on the conditions to which he himself has been made subject, serves as an unpacking of how this director's films now have to be made following his censure by the authorities: on the hoof, under cover, most of all remotely.
Uptight downtown: "Babygirl"

Jan 12, 2025 | cinesthesiac.blogspot.com | Mike McCahill

Before she turned writer-director, Halina Reijn acted in films by Paul Verhoeven (2006's Black Book) and Peter Greenaway (2012's Goltzius and the Pelican Company), making her a prime candidate to try and revive the Nineties-style erotic entertainment Stateside.
Chill factor: "Nosferatu"

Jan 8, 2025 | cinesthesiac.blogspot.com | Mike McCahill

Latter-day genre archaeologist Robert Eggers remains a restless soul; so restless, indeed, that even his most ardent online devotees haven't reached a consensus as to what his best film might be. I found Eggers' 2015 breakout The Witch as effective as anybody else did; but 2019's The Lighthouse struck me as far too self-conscious (in places, too self-satisfied) to be as funny as others claimed, while 2022's guttural Nordic growl The Northman proved arduous in the extreme.
The killer: "Se7en" at 30

Jan 6, 2025 | cinesthesiac.blogspot.com | Mike McCahill

January: the most miserable of months, a time to seek out colour, light and general bonhomie, any small flicker of joy that might sustain us until spring. Anyway, some wag in high office has decided this is the ideal occasion for a David Fincher retrospective, beginning this weekend with a 30th anniversary reissue of the director's breakout hit.
Shyam Benegal obituary

Jan 1, 2025 | theguardian.com | Mike McCahill

The Indian film-maker Shyam Benegal, who has died aged 90, was a pillar of the “parallel cinema” movement, the informal grouping of independently minded and funded creatives whose work stood in stark, socially committed contrast to the song-and-dance escapism of Bollywood. Responding to real events and centred on marginalised characters (often women), Benegal’s breakthrough films of the 1970s rejected the cosmetic, crowd-pleasing approach of the Hindi mainstream.
Dog mom: "Nightbitch"

Dec 1, 2024 | cinesthesiac.blogspot.com | Mike McCahill

Marielle Heller's adaptation of the Rachel Yoder novel Nightbitch alights upon a bold opening gambit: an apparently straightforward scene of supermarket conversation wherein, told by a friend how wonderful it must be to be spending so much time at home with her son, an artist played by a newly mumsy Amy Adams launches into an increasingly fraught monologue revealing her worst thoughts and fears. An eruption in an everyday setting; ordinary interaction pushed into the realms of mania.