Alex O’Reilly

How do they feel about fox images on our currency?

2/ Elements of magic realism evolve into a touching story on grief and memory and connection. We were all young once.

📽️ #filmsky

Petite Maman (2021) France

After the death of her grandmother, Nelly helps her mother clear the family home. Out playing one day she meets another girl building a tree house.
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excellent metaphor on the “troubles”.

2/ It's a story of mentorship, empathy, growth and finding dignity through food. Blending social commentary on migrant struggles with a charmingly moving culinary narrative.

📽️ #filmsky

The Kitchen Brigade (2025) France

A talented but frustrated sous-chef quits her high-pressure restaurant job and ends up running the kitchen at a youth hostel for unaccompanied migrant minors. Based on a true back story.
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Aren’t they reading the papers?

2/ They need the help of their community building's flat owners. A mixture of heist, tension and comedy. What follows becomes an interesting debate on how common people are exploited by systems such that neither Communism nor Capitalism cares for them and favours the elite.

📽️ #filmsky

Two to One (2025) Germany

The Berlin Wall falls and 3 East Germans discover a vault of soon-to-be worthless East German Marks and decide to steal them as they have a 2:1 rate for for their new unified currency. But time is of the essence.
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A young American girl we met in a theatre thought Diana was the “Princess of Whales’.

2/Wide-ranging programming, which included classics, arthouse, grindhouse, porn (soft, like Russ Meyer, or not so much, like the legendary Thundercrack), science fiction, horror and even plenty of mainstream films (like Alien and Predator). A truly powerful argument against solipsism and for theatre

📽️ #filmsky

Scala!!! (2023 Documentary)

From 1978-93 the extraordinary cinema showcased all nighters of every genre and I mean every. Check out @otdscalacinema.bsky.social. Great documentary about the ethos and punters. Sadly missed.
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2/ Mitchum by dint of physical size and line delivery is the number one choice for the role. To my mind he should have played it in his “noir” years and eclipsed all others.

📽️ #filmsky

Farewell My Lovely (1975)

Robert Mitchum as Marlowe. Employed by a giant, Moose Malloy, who on his release from prison is looking for his true love, Velma. And yep it goes pear shaped and the body count mounts. Also starring Charlotte Rampling.
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You fill up my senses.
Like a kick in the bollocks.

2/ Just like Marlowe, at every turn someone tries to beat him up or kill him. “It’s LA , man. “ A gem and I just love this kind of stuff.

📽️ #filmsky

Harper (1966)

Ross MacDonald’s Lew Harper is the natural successor to Phillip Marlowe. Here he is played by Paul Newman . He is hired to find a kidnapped husband. You know it’s not going to be that simple.
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2/ Robert Aldrich directs and Ralph Meeker is tough and uncompromising. The outcome is truly surprising.

📽️ #filmsky

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer PI stops to pick up.a desperate woman. He escapes her eventual killers and decides to investigate against all advice to the contrary.
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You just know that privately they hate each other. Hell is other Reform MP's

2/ Translated from the stage to screen where the camera is intimate. The two leads are worthy and open up to us the world of acting in both environs.

📽️ #filmsky

The Dresser (1983)

Norman is devoted as dresser to ageing Shakespearean star “Sir”’ It’s the time of the London Blitz and the performance is Lear neatly paralleling their on and off stage roles and mirroring Sir’s decline.
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The British are jingoistic. Only they are allowed to criticise themselves. This statement of his will not go down well even with the right.

Presumably US papers lambasting the lack of support from its own citizens.

2/ Saw this in its theatrical form first. Great script with Bates on form as a truly unlikeable character so something to relish.

📽️ #filmsky

Butley (1974)

Harold Pinter directs Alan Bates in the film version of the play. An alcoholic professor who bullies his students and is now his wife is off with someone he despises. His nihilism is isolating. Will or should, he survive?
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On the side of international law seems ok to me.

2/ It’s boys own stuff and does sensitively touch on issues about the British Raj including the conflicted portrayal of the Muslim ‘villain’ here played by Herbert Lom. Shot on location

📽️ #filmsky

North West Frontier (1959)

It’s 1905 colonial India. A British Serviceman must rescue a 5 year old prince and his governess and take a perilous journey on a train trough Moslem territory. An enjoyable adventure which touches on the tensions that later will split the sub-continent.
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As if he knows what “work’ is.