Christmas in Tier 3, whoop de bleedin doo. Like we needed any more excuses to roll up the drawbridge and set the minefields and robot gun emplacements and fill the moat with shark-infested acid and dig into the booze and grub stockpile and drink and eat ourselves into a hibernative food coma all the while singing SKRU U 2020, ENUF IS ENUF.
Ahem. A shorter film-heavy Cut this week as we consider our options for the ‘festive’ season. Christmas Day is next Friday, and we do intend to have a thing for you. What shape and smell it will have is yet to be confirmed. But we’ll be double-dog-damned if we’re gonna leave you hanging just when you need us the most.
Don’t just stand there, let’s get to it. Strike a pose there’s nothing to now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Greatest movie capes. Seriously, if there’s any listicle that sums up the vibe of The Cut, it’s this. SCRU U, Edna Mole. Capes are cool.
https://filmschoolrejects.com/greatest-movie-capes/
We found ourselves both entertained and informed by this post on the Curzon blog about films smearing the boundaries between drama and documentary. Sure, this is not a new thing, but we are enjoying the nods to the Italian Neo-Realist, cinema verite and New Wave movements.
https://www.curzonblog.com/all-posts/redefining-truth
We’re very much looking forward to watching David Fincher’s latest, Mank, over the Xmas break. The story of the making of Citizen Kane, its cool monochrome aesthetic is propped up with a lot of very clever and subtle VFX. Check it out, and wonder how much of the visuals of your favourite show start in a computer…
http://beforesandafters.com/2020/12/14/mank-vfx-body-and-fender-work-and-so-much-more/
There’s always a tedious discussion at this time of year about what constitutes a Christmas movie, which will end up in an argument with the words ‘die’ and ‘hard’ featured prominently. We try to stay out of it. It’s too much like hard work. Instead, we offer an overview of the first true slasher film, one that we would happily watch in place of that nonsense with Bruce Willis.
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/black-christmas-review-first-slasher-film-genre
No Beatle has a worse reputation than Paul McCartney. He’s Mr Thumbs Aloft, the Frog Chorus guy, the bugger that ruined Christmas 1977 with that godawful Mull Of Kintyre nonsense. All of which ignores the work of a restless, inventive bloke who just happened to write fat chunks of the soundtracks of our lives. Don’t pretend otherwise. McCartney is in your head somewhere. As he releases McCartney III, the latest in a series of completely self-played albums, Ian Leslie provides us with sixty-four reasons to celebrate the man and his music…
https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/64-reasons-to-celebrate-paul-mccartney
It would not be Christmas without a shot of bleakness. This extraordinary piece from Brooke Magnanti on the clearance of her family home after her father’s death is moving, forensic and unflinching in the examination of what happens to the human body after death and the work which goes into the cleanup thereafter. We’ll post a warning on this one. It’s not for the fainthearted. But we haven’t read a more affecting piece of writing in weeks.
https://belledejour.substack.com/p/beacon-acres
Kind of a side-swerve, but we were drawn to this howl of outrage over one of the biggest scams of the modern age. Unreliable machines and a desperately over-priced consumable? The argument for completely binning your printer gets stronger by the day.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/06/horrible-products/#inkwars
And finally. We couldn’t resist this story of love triumphing over the inability to pilot a jet ski. The last line makes it for us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/world/europe/jet-ski-isle-of-man-dale-mclaughlan.html
We promised fewer sad female singer-songwriters in the lead up to X-Day. Allow us, then, to present Aimee Mann with her joyful festive classic I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas. We swear, it’s just like we can’t help ourselves at this point…
Ah, screw it, have this one as an early gift from us. Tis the season, right?
See you in seven, angels.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 
Keep it up Rob you are doing great! Have a happy Xmas!!!