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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · 3d

Terence Stamp, photographed shirtless for the cover of his autobiography Stamp Album.

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · 3d

a man wearing a hat and a jacket is standing in the dark

ALT: a man wearing a hat and a jacket is standing in the dark

media.tenor.com

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · 13d

Cord Jefferson's terrific AMERICAN FICTION, starring a deservedly Oscar-nominated Jeffrey Wright, is on BBC2 on Sunday night. Based on Percival Everett's novel Erasure, it's bleakly ironic that it's currently unavailable either on streaming or disc in the UK, so don't miss this chance to catch it.

Jeffrey Wright, in glasses and a trim grey beard, stars in Cord Jefferson's movie AMERICAN FICTION.

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · 15d

Condraculations to @mogster.bsky.social & Emma Baggott for their ferocious, funny & frightening Dracula at @lyrichammersmith.bsky.social. Umi Myers is a captivating Mina, re-enacting her own story as a timely warning to all of us to question who's trying to scare us & why. lyric.co.uk/shows/dracula/

Umi Myers and Mei Mac, drenched in red light, in Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's Dracula at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · 15d

The tiny but mighty @camdenpt.bsky.social has supported 1000s of theatre careers, challenging every convention to create new adventures for artists & audiences. In a perilous time for artistic freedom & funding CPT needs your help! Please support them if you can: www.justgiving.com/campaign/lon...

Long Live CPT!

We're facing a funding emergency: help us raise £80,000 by December 2025 to protect the next generation of artists and audiences.

www.justgiving.com

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · 21d

MELANCHOLIA (Lars von Trier, 2011)

The Trumps and the Starmers at Chequers, gazing up into the sky.

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · 23d

Cow | Deer at the Royal Court is a powerful, beautiful work of collective attention, imagination and empathy by Katie Mitchell, Nina Segal and Melanie Wilson. I found its dual reality of sound story + live foley spellbinding. royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/cow...

Cow | Deer - Royal Court

royalcourttheatre.com

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · 27d

Darren Aronofsky's CAUGHT STEALING is a giddy, gaudy, gruesome soufflé that brings a welcome, loose-limbed new swing to his style. For me it never quite recovered from a key character death that should have landed much harder, but Austin Butler & Zoë Kravitz are a delightful screwball double-act.

Zoë Kravitz and Austin Butler lean in for a kiss against a graffiti-stained, unhygienic but nonetheless photogenic pillar in New York at night in Caught Stealing (2025)

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · 28d

Spike Lee's HIGHEST 2 LOWEST is a wildly entertaining kidnap caper that loses the heartstopping tension of Kurosawa's original but gains a spry wit, social satire and swagger that plays like a Denzel Washington greatest hits album, gorgeously shot by Matthew Libatique. In UK cinemas now.

Denzel Washington in smart suit and tie as music mogul David King, in Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest.

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Sep 6

Dance down to Southbank tonight if you can for WE SHOULD HAVE NEVER WALKED ON THE MOON, Rambert and (LA)HORDE's takeover: a playful, political, sensual carnival that feels like a much-needed act of defiance in this time of joylessly totalitarian politics. www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/we-...

Two dancers silhouetted against a bright purple backdrop

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Sep 6

If you don't know @companythree.bsky.social, have a read here, and do support them if you can. They work with young people 11-19 to create transformative theatre: a model developed and continuing in Islington that has inspired other projects all over the world. www.companythree.co.uk/about

About — Company Three

www.companythree.co.uk

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Sep 6

Still buzzing from @companythree.bsky.social's new show THIS CITY: a fresh, funny, sharply observed portrait of London in all its temporal, emotional and political seasons, beautifully co-created and performed by its young cast. Last two shows today at Park Theatre: parktheatre.co.uk/events/this-...

This City - Park Theatre

This City traces the city we live in through the eyes of our teenagers. Through intertwining, autobiographical stories, this is a play about the importance of community and belonging, and the unpredic...

parktheatre.co.uk

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Sep 4

Yes, in the UK it's not on Disney+ or streaming anywhere: even though Jack Clayton was a great British director I had to get a very old Spanish DVD to see it.
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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Sep 4

Jack Clayton's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1982) dates from Disney's brief era of kid-friendly horror, most of which proved to be far too frightening (cf. RETURN TO OZ). It's a gorgeously shot, truly unsettling film, haunted by the fear of death, with a terrifying performance by Jonathan Pryce.

Jonathan Pryce as Mr Dark in Something Wicked This Way Comes: a tall, terrifying white man with a neat beard, a black suit and a top hat. He's holding up his hands, each with the portrait of a young boy drawn on the palm.

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Sep 3

This sounds WONDERFUL! Done. (also: congratulations, very excited to read it)

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Aug 30

I just finished reading Joanna Howard’s new novel Porthole and loved it. After a fatal accident on a film set, a celebrated director finds herself in a mysterious clinic where she must face up to her past loves and choices. It’s a gorgeously strange, funny, menacing novel, published by McSweeney’s.

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Reposted by Jonathan Wakeham

Ghoul-jin Rondo @gaijinrando.bsky.social · Aug 28

Images from films shot by cinematographer James Wong Howe - BOTD in 1899

Mantrap (1926)
Mark of the Vampire (1935)
The Baron of Arizona (1950)
Seconds (1966)

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Aug 25

Love Doc Hollywood! Such a great example of what the right star brings to a movie: we love Michael J Fox and believe he’ll redeem himself, so the script can make him an asshole until the very last possible moment.

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Aug 25

WEAPONS (Zach Cregger, 2025) is a film of two halves. I was much more on board for the first, with its echoes of TWIN PEAKS and THE LEFTOVERS, but the whole film is confident, characterful film-making, and I hope Julia Garner & [redacted] get nominations, as acting awards so rarely recognise horror.

Julia Garner in WEAPONS: a young white woman alone in a long, dark school hallway, with a hunted, haunted expression.

Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Aug 24

Yes! It’s sad that, partly due to streaming subscriptions, so many people have decided that “big screen is only for spectacle” when cinema enhances a movie like India Donaldson’s wonderful, intimate Good One (2025) just as meaningfully (if differently) as it does a Mission: Impossible film.

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Aug 24

Yes! Striking that the ratio of remakes / sequels to originals is almost reversed compared with 2025. Hopefully the success of F1 / Sinners / Elio / Weapons will encourage more investment in originals (while recognising that F1 is giant IP!).

Summer box office 2025, including Lilo & Stitch, Superman, Jurassic World: Rebirth, How To Train Your Dragon, F4: First Steps, M:I The Final Reckoning, Thunderbolts*, F1, Final Destination: Bloodlines and Sinners.

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Aug 24

2025 has been a good summer for Hollywood, with a string of popular hits and more to come. But look what THE ROCKETEER was competing with in summer 1991!

The top 15 movies in Summer 1991, inc. Terminator 2, Prince of Thieves, City Slickers, Naked Gun 2 1/2, Backdraft, Boyz n The Hood, Thelma and Louise, Point Break, Doc Hollywood & Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Aug 24

A treat to revisit Joe Johnston's THE ROCKETEER (1991), a funny, fast-paced WW2-era adventure that prefigures his CAPTAIN AMERICA. Billy Campbell is a perfect, pure-hearted comic book hero, but Timothy Dalton is its MVP as dastardly movie star Neville Sinclair, and James Horner's score is a joy.

Timothy Dalton, in fetching hat and twirly moustache, threatens a mutinous Jennifer Connelly with a pistol in THE ROCKETEER (1991)

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Jonathan Wakeham @jonathanwakeham.bsky.social · Aug 21

Hostage was written by Matt Charman and directed by Isabelle Sieb and Amy Neil. Full cast and crew credits at www.imdb.com/title/tt3180...

Reposted by Jonathan Wakeham

Hope Dickson Leach @hopedickle.bsky.social · Aug 21

Happy birthday to one of the best directors ever. I hope he's enjoying his retirement.

Tom Reagan’s Hat @rufustsuperfly.bsky.social · Aug 21

Peter Weir is 81.
What a track record:
The Cars That Ate Paris
Picnic at Hanging Rock
The Last Wave
Gallipoli
The Year of Living Dangerously
Witness
The Mosquito Coast
Dead Poets Society
Green Card
Fearless (watch this!)
The Truman Show
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
The Way Back

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