A truly astonishing piece of Cinerama that can only ever be described in over-enthusiastic superlatives and even then I would fear of doing it a disservice. It's (literal) sweeping majesty and glorious conceit makes me weep sweet tears of cinephiliac joy

Very much a back to basics lo-fi sci-fi (defiantly low-budget, low-key and teeny-weeny cast) and also it really does feel like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone. But I do mean this in the nicest possible way - the best episodes of the classic series knocks spots off most of what passes for sci-fi nowadays (Lucas/Bay/Emmerich can go suck a fuck as far as I'm concerned). A straight forward story with a simple premise is undercut with all the big themes of the best kind of sci-fi story - loneliness, identity, empathy, life & death and our own sense of mortality - what it means to be human of course. And Sam Rockwell does it all on his own, bless him - well with a bit of prompting from a 'post-it note'-faced computer that, despite feeling like as much fun as a mobile micro-wave oven, still manages to illicit a fair amount of the films humour (although voiced dead-pan by Kevin Spacey, you still here the smirk in his dulcet delivery). Rockwell has to carry the film of course but he does so with a performance invested with real warmth and vulnerability that is very involving and extremely moving.

Probably my absolute favourite Queer classic. Wonderful George Macready at his most sinister and insinuating, Glenn Ford at his most boyishly handsome and Rita Hayworth burning up the celluloid in her most glamorous (and filthiest!) role. It does lose some of it's vitality when Macready disappears from the proceedings - and, inevitably, it's gay subtext dims a little, but this is only a minor flaw to be endured.

Hitchcock is the reason I love cinema and Vertigo is why I call myself a cinephile. Since seeing it on the big screen in the 80s, when it was 'rediscovered' it has become my biggest obsession and THE benchmark for all film since.