Borderline

A so-called black comedy about a star coming to the attention of a misguided fan who tries to strong-arm her into his world, Borderline sounds a bit like Cecil B. Demented, but unlike John Waters' feel bad film, this one is a bit hit and miss, mostly miss. 

Paul (Ray Nicholson) has his sights set on marrying pop star Sophia and assembles his A team of lunatics to kidnap her from her house and get her to the altar on time. Nicholson's one-note performance, a cheesy manic grin firmly in place, grows irritating over time and the frequent acts of violence take the edge off finding the situation funny. Stabbings, shootings, immolation--writer-director Jimmy Warden seems intent on finding new ways to torment his cast. 

 Samara Weaving does her best as Sophia, an entitled princess entertaining her basketball player date (Jimmie Fails, far too small to be convincing as a baller) sometime in the 90s (shades of Madonna and Dennis Rodman?), but the script does not give her much to do other than pout and wear a bunch of skimpy outfits.  

One bright spark is Alba Baptista (Ava from Warrior Nun!) who arrives far too late to save the film, but whose cheerfully malevolent presence offers its one genuine note of comedy (did I mention it is billed as a comedy thriller? No? Well, there is a reason.). Her duet with Sophia in ridiculous circumstances is an absurdist delight.  

Special mention to Eric Dane whose security guard gets stabbed and shot but maintains a granitey presence, and Jimmie Fails, who looks fetching in a wedding dress. They deserve better material. 

Borderline will be available on Digital Download from 8th September 

Trailer 

 

Noseeums

 When you watch a horror film, you often get a sense of who is going to die. And watching the first act of Noseeums (dir Raven Carter), I had a very definite sense of "Yup. These b__es are going down." 

Ember is a student living somewhere up north who goes on a road trip down to Florida with three fellow students, her roomie Tessa and two party girls, Abby and Lexie. The four seem companionable enough in the car journey, although Abby makes some iffy comments about Ember's changing accent and Lexie and Tessa back her up. 

As the film progresses Abby and Lexie show more and more passive aggressiveness toward Ember and Tessa often does not back her up. Meanwhile Ember has discovered something in the forest and then she starts having disturbing visions... 

The premise is intriguing, a mix of swamp horror, mean girls, a student road trip and.... land rights. The first few spell fun and the last definitely not. 

To be fair, there is very little fun in Noseeums. The acting is pretty poor, the script full of holes and the special effects laughable. There are a few plus points, though. It aims high, asking questions about accountability in the 21st century for evils inflicted in the previous two, in this case African Americans being driven from their land by white folks. 

But there are very few scares, and the titular noseeums, or midges, are not very effective as attackers. Really, the horror is in the entitlement of white people who don't understand accumulated privilege. But the script has the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the most interesting characters, Ember's mother and best friend Jas, get very little screen time. These noseeums are not nearly biting enough. 

In Transit

 Rarely has a film made me as cross on finishing as In Transit (dir Jaclyn Bethany). Billed as a tender queer drama, this quiet indie narrowly focussed on three people starts as a slow burn and builds to.... a slow burn out. 

Lucy (Alex Sarrigeorgiou) and Tom (François Arnaud) live in a small town in Maine, where she is a bartender and he does some kind of work he doesn't like. Ilse (Jennifer Ehle), a midlife-crisis afflicted artist, wanders into Lucy's bar and does a sketch of her. This leads to Lucy modelling for her, unbeknownst to Tom.

So far, so High Art, Carol and many, many other films in which an older woman comes in contact with a younger woman to greater or lesser effect. In Transit spends a lot of time on the sittings Lucy does with Ilse, and Ehle delivers a twitchy, nervy performance, wittering on about her practice while saying very little. Hers is potentially the most interesting character, caught in a crossroads as her marriage is crumbling and her child (only heard in a crackly telephone call) seems uninterested in her. What does she want? And what does she want from Lucy?

Unfortunately, the script (by Sarrigeorgiou, who also produces) does not really do character development. Lucy remains frustratingly blank and passive, while Tom gets one explosive monologue which at least gives us some indication of his wants and needs. The two women, supposedly the film's interest, get nothing of this. The film feels neither queer nor tender. Such a disappointment. 

In Transit has its world premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival on 17 August.  

 

40 Acres

 This low fi Canadian thriller is an unlikely vehicle for Oscar nomine Danielle Deadwyler, who also produces, but here we are. Deadwyler's Hailey Freeman is the matriarch of a family fighting for survival in post-apocalyptic rural Canada where her farm is besieged by aggressive cannibals (yes) who want the family's crops and, uh, spices, and are quite happy to kill for them. 

The cannibal angle really never comes into focus, but for most of the film, the Freemans, a blended family of Hailey, her indigenous husband and four kids, live a martial existence of surveillance, supply runs and a lot of shooting. She also maintains radio contact with a woman called Augusta, who turns out to have a family connection. Eldest son Manny calls Hailey Ma'am and follows orders, until he doesn't.... 

The action sequences are fine, there is definite feel of threat and jeopardy but the family dynamics are poorly sketched. Deadwyler, a fine actress, spends most of the film gritting her teeth and clenching her weapons. One never feels engaged with the characters, to the point where I realised I was not even sure of most of their names. This is partly due to a sound mix that renders most dialogue a vague mumble. 

The themes of family, trust and letting go are clear enough but it is astounding that this is the type of fare being offered to Deadwyler.  

Trailer

 40 Acres will be in UK Cinemas from 1st August and Digital Download from 4th August 

Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller

 This exhibit with the unwieldy title at the Granary Gallery in Berwick Upon Tweed caught my attention on a recent visit up north. I was not familiar with Morris's work and wondered if he were a relation to Walthamstow's own William Morris. Not the case, but Cedric Morris was a vibrant character whose life spanned most of the 20th century and a bit of the 19th. Living for many decades in Suffolk with his partner, fellow artist Arthur Lett Haines, he painted, ran a painting and drawing school and amassed an outstanding collection of plants. So, quite intriguing to me on many levels. 

The exhibit, which shows an array of both Morris's and Lett Haines' work, is fairly small, with paintings in low light facing each other, alongside some extended captions. I found Morris' self portrait, in three quarters view, to be quite arresting. There is a hint of melancholia in the shadowing of the eye closer to the viewer. A range of trees frames his head like a nebula or a tiara. Much of the rest of his work is landscapes, but the other one that caught my eye was La Rotonde, which owes a debt to the post-Impressionists in its subject and style, a cafe in Paris. 

What struck me was how many different styles the artists worked in. Lett Haines shows clear European influence with his paintings of train stations and abstract work. But their styles changed a great deal over time. 

Curiosity piqued, I picked up a bio of Morris which explains how the two met, their backgrounds and partnership. There is a lot of name-dropping of other painters, such as Freud and Hambling, as well. I also learned that Morris stopped doing portraits, in part because the sitters hated the finished works so much! 

Although he loved gardening and collecting plants, Morris did not like to be described as a plantsman. He reserved that term for others. But he and Lett Haines spent 60 years together, their interests at least complimentary if not matching. Two extraordinary lives. 

After years of neglect, the garden of their home, Benton End, is being restored with a view to reopening in 2026. Here is a tour of it. 

 Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller continues at the Granary Gallery, Berwick Upon Tweed, through 12 October 2025. 

 

94114 to E17

 It's rare I get to go out in my locality, tucked as it is on the end of the Victoria line. The number of times I have had people ask, "Where's that?" 

The Times designation as the best place to live in London notwithstanding, Walthamstow is still an under-appreciated neighbourhood.  

So, last night was a rarity, a visit to the new Soho Theatre in Walthamstow. Formerly the EMD cinema and a hotly debated planning morass, the theatre has finally opened, offering live performance to Stowies and non-Stowies alike. On stage was Justin Vivian Bond performing Sex With Strangers, a tribute to the music of the late Marianne Faithfull. 

I confess I never got to see Ms Faithfull live, though I have seen DVDs of her live performance, and I found the ups and downs of her life fascinating. Joining Mx Bond onstage was a five-piece band, bringing the torch and roll of MF to life. 

The last time I saw JVB was way back in 2002 when the headliner of Ladyfest London had cancelled, necessitating a last minute replacement and Kiki and Herb graciously stepped in, doing fabulous covers of female rockers such as Peaches and Alanis. It was brilliant. 

But I go a bit further back with the performer as both of us lived in SF back in the early 90s and I well remember JVB holding court at A Different Light Books in the Castro, offering candid opinions on the written fare on offer. 

How odd it was to sit 10 feet away in the gloriously Baroque grotto of the SHW while Bond worked the stage and told rambling anecdotes about friends, family and Faithfull in amongst the Faithfull song book. I actually felt some of the songs did not suit Bond's voice. Broken English is one of my favourite songs but I didn't feel they did its bassy griminess justice. 

On the other hand, I loved what Bond did with "Why'd Ya Do It", coming toward the end of the 2-hour set. I think the whole band needed to warm up, as did the chanteuse. One person said at the intermission, "I don't know most of the songs, but I'm having the best time." 

The surroundings helped, as well, with many attendees craning their necks to look up at the vaulted ceiling. I recognised a few faces I usually see at Flare, but not in my neck of the woods. Everyone is welcome in E17. I hope they come back and see us some time. 

For Bond's part, they said there are plans to do a show at St Anne's church in September and they hope to use a Roger Waters song. Interesting bedfellows! Marianne would probably have a deep throaty filthy voiced chuckle. 

 Here is Marianne Faithfull's collaboration with Derek Jarman. 

Sex With Strangers continues at Soho Theatre Walthamstow on 12 July.  

Unearthed: the power of gardening

 Not 100% sure how to render the punctuation in this exhibit at the British Library but since today is the start of a two-day conference on gardens and empires, it seems timely to recount my visit to Unearthed. 

I was quite keen to see what might be included, as I have been staying away from indoor spaces since 2020, I have been starved of visual stimulation and gardening has become quite the focus for my attention since then. I attended a relaxed viewing and was indeed the first to arrive for my slot, so had the space to myself for quite some time. 

Alas, relaxed meant no open sounds, so I was unable to fully appreciate some of the installation work on show. I actually prefer sounds to pictures, so that was a shame. But there were some videos that had both captions and headphone-type devices to use so there is some good choice. 

 The selection of items puzzled me. It was so farflung, everything from Gertrude Jekyll's boots to pamphlets and some historical explanations. Presentation included the usual glass cases, plus a confusing spinning globe, some attempts at sheds and a digital screen allowing one to design one's own garden. Alas for me, you can only take away the result with a smartphone that reads QR codes. Oh, well. 

The most interesting bits to me were the mentions of guerrilla groups and squat communities connected to gardening--gardening activism, if you will. That seems to best illustrate the notion of claiming power, as opposed to being the recipient of it.

I felt coming away from the exhibit curiously underwhelmed, as if having so many gardening topics actually lessened the impact of the whole. 

What I thought might be fascinating would be to explore more fully topics like gardening and community or gardening and empire, hence my interest in the above conference, which I have only just found and so will not be attending. 

 But I am intrigued to look more into some of the groups I discovered by visiting, such as  Coco Collective, as well as learning more about land enclosures and The Diggers. 

 Unearthed: the power of gardening is at the British Library in London until 10 August. 

Various local libraries have related exhibits, such as this one at Warwickshire Library.