I bought myself a new camera recently.
It's obviously a children's camera, although it wasn't marketed as such when I came across it. The thing I love about it is that you get an instant paper printout of your photograph. The quality is terrible, but that lo-fi aesthetic is part of what I love about it.
Chapter Eight of Le Grande Mystérieux — Dot-and-Carry
‘Stay close to me at all times,’ Mystérieux said, and descended a set of short, wooden steps that led to a tiny beach on the Thames.
Although I could not hear the water lapping, or see it through the thick fog, I felt the presence of the river close by. A lifebuoy made of cork was attached to a post, just visible in the grey.
‘Oh!’
I took Miss Fenwick’s hand. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Look over there.’
I followed where she pointed and saw a noose hanging in the fog.
Le Grande Mystérieux is a serialised story for paying members.
You can read a preview of Chapter One here:
What watching 365 Movies in a Year Might be Doing to my Brain.
On Monday night I watched my 135th movie of 2026. Rolling Thunder, made in 1977 and starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones, and directed by John Flynn. This is a film that has been on my to watch list for decades, mainly because of William Devane. I loved him in Marathon Man and Family Plot, and always thought he should have had a better career than he did.
If you’ve been following this newsletter for a while now you will know that I am aiming to watch 365 movies in 2026. And if you are halfway decent at maths, then you will also realise I am behind by 17 films.
It’s a ridiculous challenge. I’m a full-time author and creative writing workshop leader for crying out loud. I have a family and a dog, and I have commitments and a social life. What am I even thinking?
To be honest, it’s hard for me to come up with an answer.
I suppose I just wanted to watch more movies.
I’m mixing it up pretty good, too. For example, on Sunday I managed to get in a double bill. First up was This Night I’ll Possess your Corpse, a Brazilian horror movie from 1967, and then I watched Married to the Mob, Jonathan Demme’s 1988 comedy with Michelle Pfieffer and Matthew Modine.
I’ve watched films from the USA, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, and more. According to Letterboxd, my most watched genre is Drama, with Fantasy my least. My most watched Theme is Intense Violence and Sexual Transgression, closely followed by Moving Relationship Stories, and I’m totally not sure what that says about me, and my least watched Theme is Gags, Jokes, and Slapstick Humour.
I’ve watched modern movies, classics, world cinema, and films I’ve never heard of but taken a chance on.
And I’ve got to the stage recently where I have begun to wonder, what the heck am I actually doing to my brain watching this many movies? Is there a danger I am rewiring it in some way? What might it do to my writing? After all, the language of cinema is vastly different to the language of the novel and the short story.
The first thing I’ve noticed is that I’m not bored of watching films. In fact, I’m loving it, and when I have a couple of days where I haven’t had the chance to watch something, I’m itching to get down in my cellar and put a film on. Like, my skin is almost literally itching.
And yet, my desire to make a film or even just write a screenplay, hasn’t increased. I’d love to make a film, I really would, but that’s been the case for most of my life. And that feeling isn’t any stronger now, which is kind of a relief in a way. I would hate to feel that my true calling was making films, and that I’d been following the wrong path all these years.
When I watch a great movie, or read an amazing novel or gaze at a wonderful painting or photograph, I think what happens is that I simply want to create. Like the line from All That Jazz, when Roy Scheider playing Bob Fosse’s alter ego Joe Gideon, says, ‘Now, when I see a rose, that's perfect. I mean, that's perfect. I want to look up to God and say “How the hell did you do that? And why the hell can't I do that?”’
That’s it. I want to create. I need to create.
Right now, as I write this letter to you, I wish you could feel the bubbling need inside of me to create, to write that novel that has the momentum of Goodfellas, or take a photograph that has the beauty and mystery of Mulholland Drive, write a short story that has the crazy insanity of mother!, a thriller with the intensity of Sorcerer, or the formality of Hidden, or just create anything that has the total cool of Bande a Part.
I want to scream. I know I will never achieve these heights of cinema in any other art form.
And then I take a breath.
And I remember the phrase that Emma Darwin left with me.
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.
And I remember, the doing is what matters, the process, the creating.
Watching 365 films in a year may well be rewiring my brain.
But it can only be a good thing.
Currently Reading
Reading this as research for my next novel.
Movies Watched This Week
Watching 365 movies in 2026
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129
I feel like I need to write a dissertation on this to understand it.
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130
Charlie Kaufman writes a script about Charlie Kaufman writing the script for the film he is in, in which he is writing a script about Charlie Kaufman… oh hell, I don’t know!
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131
Very bizarre film with Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor, part drama, part Giallo, part Lynchian weirdness.
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133
When Coffin Joe is dragged to Hell, the film switches from black and white to colour. Pretty wild in places.
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134
Matthew Modine and Dean Stockwell are both very cool in this.
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135
Pretty good 70s revenge thriller.
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