Nightborn (2026)

Known natively as Yön lapsi and now streaming on Shudder, this is a body-horror film directed by Finnish filmmaker Hanna Bergholm (Hatching) and co-written with Ilja Rautsi. The film uses ancient Nordic troll and changeling folklore as an allegory for the isolating realities of early motherhood and post-natal mental health issues.

The film stars Seidi Haarla (Compartment No. 6) as Saga and Rupert Grint as Jon. We join them as a happy couple relocating from London to her late grandmother's house in rural Finland. She is Finnish, while he is British and unable to speak the language. Throughout the film, Jon finds himself isolated from those around the couple when they slide into Finnish without considering his presence.

They are an optimistic young couple with grand plans to have three children and build a wonderful, secluded life together surrounded by deep woodland, far from the hustle and bustle of city life. However, they are gobsmacked when they see the house, which needs a lot of work to make it even habitable. There are even trees growing up through the floorboards in one room!

While exploring the surrounding ancient forest, Saga recalls her grandmother’s warning: "The forest takes its own". Driven by nostalgia and excitement, the couple have passionate sex in a clearing beneath the trees whose bark and trunks resemble distorted faces and reaching hands. Unbeknownst to them, the forest itself appears to listen and react!

Nine months later, Saga gives birth to a boy whom she unilaterally names Kuura. Immediately, Saga senses that something is drastically wrong with her baby. He is covered in thick, dark, matted hair with a small sprout-like tail. He cries incessantly in an aggressive tone and recoils violently when his abdomen is touched. While breastfeeding, Kuura bites Saga's nipples so hard that she bleeds profusely.

Despite Saga’s growing terror, everyone around her dismisses her concerns. Jon views Kuura as just a quirky 'ugly duckling' baby who needs patient parenting, constantly reassuring Saga that everything is totally normal. Medical professionals label her distress as standard post-natal depression or exhaustion. Saga's mother and sister (Pirkko Saisio and Pamela Tola) accuse her of being an unloving drama queen, noting that Saga was also a difficult baby herself. Saga notices Kuura refuses milk and normal baby food. When Jon tries to feed the baby while making aeroplane noises and fails completely, Saga slaps a chunk of raw, bloody meat on the table - which Kuura instantly devours. She soon realises the newborn requires raw meat and blood to survive!

As Saga’s body and mental state deteriorate into gaunt, dark-circled exhaustion, she stops trying to force Kuura into human norms. She realises her late grandmother wasn't crazy - the old woman had actually hoarded rusty tractors, scrap metal and wire around the property because legendary forest spirits and trolls cannot stand cold iron.

From here, the story heads straight into the supernatural, leaving the family at the mercy of the forest and its hold on the house and whoever lives there. Jon tries hard to resist this folklore claptrap, but eventually it becomes clear to him, too, that something is terribly wrong. The rest of the film dives deep into blood, gore, guts, cannibalism, death and body horror aplenty, with the creepy child at the centre sending shivers through anyone who hears his weird noises! We don't actually see the child's face until the final scene. The finale reveals all, dictating the outcome for everyone involved, in a chaotic crescendo that is great fun and quite eye-opening.

Seidi Haarla’s central performance is quite brilliant as she shifts from the happy-go-lucky, optimistic woman at the outset into a physical, animalistic wreck dealing with her baby, the spooky chaos and the grim realisation of what is happening. Rupert Grint keeps up with her admirably, continuing his impressive run in horror (Servant, Knock at the Cabin, Cabinet of Curiosities). His polite, well-meaning British sincerity serves as an ideal foil whose insistence on normality unwittingly antagonises his wife.

Director Hanna Bergholm clearly relied heavily on animatronics, dark silhouettes and puppet effects rather than full CGI to render baby Kuura, giving the body horror a tangible, tactile weight. The interior of the house - where most of the film is staged - transforms several times, ensuring the set designers had plenty of fun, too. Finally, I loved the music - a dark, brooding, cello-heavy score composed by Eicca Toppinen, founding member of the Finnish cello-metal band Apocalyptica.

There is something for everyone here, and once again Shudder has pulled out a cracking beauty of a film. Highly recommended.

Neighborhood Watch (2025)

This crime thriller by director Duncan Skiles (The Clovehitch Killer) is fairly mellow really and decidedly short on thrills! The focus is very much more about the two leads, how they got to be together, the quest for solving a mystery whilst steering clear of trouble from crooks and authorities, and how both of them manage all that while negotiating the mental health problems from which one of them suffers.

Jack Quaid (Companion, The Hunger Games) plays the latter as Simon McNally, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Walking Dead, The Postcard Killings) as his reluctant (at first) helper, Ed Deerman. Simon struggles with paranoid schizophrenia and has recently been discharged from a psychiatric institution after a decade of treatment. He often hallucinates - both visually and auditorily - mostly relating to his abusive, deceased father. Ed lives next door to Simon and is an ex-security guard from a local college campus, now unemployed. Ed lives alone, but Simon lives with his sister, DeeDee, played by Malin Akerman (Watchmen), who works hard to support them both financially while Simon tries to re-enter society.

While out in the neighbourhood one day, Simon witnesses an incident in which a young woman is abducted by a man in a white van, who forces her inside. The audience is, of course, encouraged throughout a lot of this to question whether or not Simon is hallucinating, and this forms much of the backdrop to the resulting incidents and adventures in this somewhat comedy/drama-turned-(kind of) Buddy Cop film. Buddy Cop because, after much persuasion, the life-embittered Ed next door is convinced that in order to keep Simon from badgering him, he'll play along and 'investigate' the claim for him.

It turns out that Simon has remembered the number plate of the van, but we see him seeing the man's face with no eyes - blurred out. At this point, I did wonder if we were heading into some alien/sci-fi story, but no - if the incident occurred, the blurred face was down to what Simon was seeing (and sharing with us). Simon heads to the police station to report the incident, but they soon find out about his background, so they politely palm him off, not believing him. It turns out that the number plate he remembered belonged to a vehicle hundreds of miles away - which didn't help Simon's cause.

So Ed picks up the cause instead, and they start a series of adventures as they try to piece together what they can from any clues they can find. Ed, still not believing Simon but with nothing better to do than play poker on his computer, tags along, becoming more interested in the potential mystery as he goes. He likes to flash his badge (which he seems to have kept from his old job) and play out a detective role, heavily implying to people that he's a cop.

We end up in a scrapyard full of cars, at Ed's old workplace office pulling in favours, and even in the company of sex workers based on Simon’s memory of the victim's clothing - resulting in Ed's car getting vandalised by a local pimp and them being warned off. It's beginning to look like there is substance to what Simon has seen and the pair of them start to uncover stuff as they go. As the film moves forward, violence is further introduced, Simon's frustration often comes out in verbal aggression (tamed by Ed) and angst galore grows as still nobody will believe the pair.

So that's the setup. Yes, it does sometimes play out like a comedy, sometimes a serious crime drama and other times a commentary on life, people's mental health issues, and how those issues impact not only how they navigate their way through life, but also how other people treat them - particularly when it comes to something that relies solely on them having been the single witness to an event that may or may not have happened. If you've read this far, you will have by now realised that there is, at least, some truth to what Simon saw, but I'll leave you to find out what that is and how it fits in.

The two leads are excellent throughout - I particularly enjoyed watching Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who reminded me somewhat of Javier Bardem in looks and style. Everyone else around them also pulled their weight, so there are no poor performances in sight, and it's an interesting bit of light entertainment really. It's sometimes slow and sometimes gets bogged down in terms of where it's going, but the director pulls it back, re-establishing the pace. Nicely shot, some action, but mostly it hangs on the mystery. A nice little film - recommended, as it's now just arriving on streaming in the UK.

PodHubUK Podcasts for the Month of July 2026

       

...a roundup of our month of podcasting. Links to the team, communities and podcast homes on the net at the foot, so scroll down!

Whatever Works

Episode 243 - The Fat Actor's Skive!
Wednesday 1st July

Aidan and I are back once more to taunt you with an hour of tomfoolery as we dabble with ponds and urinals, attack eyebrows that glow in the dark, realise that AC has gone AWOL, flap around with Pandora's dragon and loaf around in Spanish cinemas! Loads more, as always, so do join us if you have nothing better to do!

Projector Room

Episode 213 - Affection for the Vampire
Wednesday 1st July

Gareth and I are here with another look at film, cinema and TV. This time we're serving up a bloody good mix of cinematic highs and medical lows! Pour yourself a glass of something O-negative as I sink my teeth into Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, Only Lovers Left Alive and the 'modern bite' of Affection and Alpha! Because we can’t stay in the dark forever, Gareth drags us into the sterile chaos of hospital drama with a review of Article 99, triggering a wild spiral through Scrubs, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Coma and more. Whether you're a creature of the night or a fan of cinematic malpractice, hit play now. It’s alive, spectacular and available from the usual places!

The Phones Show Chat Podcast

Episode 901 - Bumper Fold Time!

Monday 6th July

Joe and I are joined this time by Dan Carter who gives us a catchup on what devices he's been trying lately for his reviews, how his health is now and we get his views on the state of the mobile phone world via various bits of news. Plenty to chat about, particularly the pending 'passport' fold influx round the corner, 3D printing, Pebble Watches and loads more. Now available from the usual places, so do jump in. Apologies if you detect any audio issues - AC units and fans were on - hoping MSTeams got rid of it!

Projector Room

Episode 214 - Hungry Hippos!
Wednesday 15th July

Gareth and I are here again to bring you our thoughts on what we've been watching lately as we look forward to the cooler weekend! When Saturday Comes, however, we shall Escape to Victory fighting off our Obsession over at Widow's Bay as we tuck into our Porridge in The Dish. Always a Normal kind of experience and great to have you with us. Coming Soon is packed and stick with to the end when Gareth has a moving tribute to, the now late, Mr Nice Guy, Sam Neill.

The Phones Show Chat Podcast

Episode 902 - PSC Drop-In V - Developer Delight

Monday 20th July

Malcolm Bryant joins Joe and I for the latest drop-in show and we natter for an hour about all things mobile phone including a heart-warming tale about a developer (or two), a generous group member here (or two), we Watch development for the wrist(!), get the initial low-down on the new SidePhone, catch up with some news - including a Gboard cracker from Google for Accessibility - and oodles more.

Whatever Works

Episode 244 - Wet Snap Rat Trap!
Tuesday 21st July

Aidan and I are back again for one of our hugely anticipated round-ups of all things dull and meaningless. Today, we find out what it's like to eat chips with a toothpick, why driving instructors have one sunburned arm, what the smallest book in the world is, how to get cheese into a Grandfather Clock and who holds the world record for the stupidest bottom burp! Loads more, as always, so do join us for some heated fun via the usual routes. Toodle snips for now!

PSC Photography

Episode 24 - Two Pods for the Price of One

Thursday 23rd July

Yes - 2 ways to consume - the 'usual' way, via your podcatcher or our website (follow along in the Google Photos Shared Album), or now on YouTube as a video in which we try to show you what we’re talking about on-the-fly! Talking of which, we take a look at the photos Joe, Ian, Chris and Chad Dixon have been taking recently (and on the Video Pod version, how they got some of them), some news of upcoming cameras and lenses and our PSC Photo of the Month Winner, shamelessly turning up to record to collect his trophy! All the links you need will be on our website at phonesshowchat.uk - Let us know what you think please and final kudos to Ian for getting this whole video thing going!

The Phones Show Chat Podcast

Episode 903 - Sammy's Wide Sound Flow!

Wednesday 29th July

Joe and I are back with a catchup show to natter largely about the recent Samsung event and resulting new devices, including, primarily, 'the wide one'! Aside from that, Joe's been reviewing the Honor 600 Pro at Wingfest(!) and I've been putting a pair of Moto Sound Flow speakers throught their paces. Plenty more, as always, so do join us for an hour, now available in the usual places.

Projector Room

Episode 215 - A Star Cituy Odyssey
Wednesday 27th July

Gareth and I bring you our thoughts about another bunch of stuff we've been watching. Isolation and Seclusion brings us The Martian Inside a Cast Away - Right at Your Door. True Grit gives us Blindness while Robin and Marian hang out at the Little House on the Prairie! There's a Devil in Ohio and an Odyssey in Star City along with plenty of Adult TV Animation. Coming Soon and the Final Curtain round things up and it's all available via your usual routes now, so do join us!

The Podcasts

Phones Show Chat (PSC) - Whatever Works - Projector Room - Tech Addicts - PSC Photography

The MeWe Community Groups (follow the links to join up)

Phones Show Chat (PSC) - Whatever Works - Projector Room - PSC Photos - PSC Camera Creations - Tech Addicts

The Team
Ted Salmon - Aidan Bell - Gareth Myles - Joe Hickey - Chris Clayton - Ian Bundey - Charlie Winston

The Call (2013) - A Guest Review by Chad Dixon

This is a compact thriller from 2013 which is now available to watch on Netflix UK. Set in a contemporary Los Angeles, Jordan Turner (Halle Berry), is a confident 911 dispatcher working at LAPD's main call centre. One night a call comes in on a landline from what sounds like a teenage girl who's says she's home alone and is reporting a prowler breaking into her house. Turner advises her to hide behind any locked door but the best the frantic teen can find is under her bed. 

The intruder initially does not find her, but the call suddenly disconnects and without thinking, Turner rings back and the sound of the incoming call alerts the male Prowler in the house. There is a shrill scream and the last thing heard at the call centre is a man's voice saying "It's already done"! Jordan is stunned and removes herself from her desk. Soon, her Supervisor advises her to go home to decompress. The next day, when Turner is back on shift, she sees on the big TV, the worst possible news that a blonde teenage girl's dead body is found in a shallow grave outside the city.

It's now Six Months Later. We see a couple of blonde high school age girls enjoying a fun day at the mall. Even though they both have smartphones, one girl suddenly takes a call on a burner style phone that she says her boyfriend got her so that they can talk privately, as it's deliberately hard to trace. Meanwhile we see Jordan taking an inductee class of potential new recruits at the same 911 call centre.

She begins a tour of the facility with them as she's now designated as a teacher there. Later at the mall's food court, the taller girl gets a text on her main device and says to her friend that she has to leave immediately and rushes away with her shopping, without finishing her meal. Annoyed, the shorter girl eats up and starts clearing away their food cartons and discovers that her friend has left her burner phone behind. She pockets it and making her way home through the mall's multi-story car park, she's nearly run down, and then grabbed, by a white male in a baseball cap and sunglasses as he smashes her smartphone and uses morphine to render her unconscious. 

Back at the call centre complex, the induction tour has reached the shop floor where Jordan is describing to the group the process of an incoming call with one of the newer dispatchers. Cut to the dark interior of the boot of a moving car where the shorter girl begins to wake. She remembers the little burner phone in her jeans pocket and calls 911. That call comes into the very dispatcher Jordan is standing next to and soon it becomes very clear there are similarities to the traumatic call she herself took six months previous. As the totally frantic screaming audio of the young girl's voice continues, the rookie dispatcher quickly seems out of her depth and Jordan takes over the desk and call. Suppressing her own latent PTSD, she quickly calms the caller down and establishes the teenager's name is Casey.

This concise, claustrophobic thriller keeps you on the edge of your seat as the quickly-unfolding events become progressively frenetic. The (15) rating is justified as the graphic violence, from the get go, starts ramping up. There are very strong performances from both Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin as Casey - and I felt that the growing connection between dispatcher and abductee genuine, as the epic 911 call plays out. The fact that the burner phone is hard to trace is key to the plot here as the dramatic situation plays out across the City.

One other notable character is LAPD Officer, Paul Phillips played by Morris Chestnut - who is Turner's Boyfriend - together with his cop partner, are part of the police contingent following the continuing trail of the ruthless and determined kidnapper. At just over 90 minutes, this should easily be a gripping one-hit watch on the sofa with your favourite snacks!

Calibre (2018)

Directed and written by Matt Palmer, this is a Brit thriller somewhat in the style and tone of Shallow Grave (1994). It's a story about a couple of young men in Edinburgh who decide to drop everything for the weekend and head off to the Highlands for a spot of deer-stalking. During the trip, something goes horribly wrong and the pair have to face the consequences!

But first, the setup. Vaughn, played by Jack Lowden (Dunkirk, Slow Horses), is the more passive of the two men. He has a pregnant fiancée at home, who has agreed to this trip away with his old friend Marcus, played by Martin McCann (The Survivalist). Marcus is single and more inclined towards a hedonistic lifestyle: drinking, picking up women and impulsively seeking a good time. Vaughn plays along and tries to keep up, but it's clear that Marcus is frequently pushing him beyond his comfort zone.

The pair arrive at the hotel where they're booked in; all is going well and they head down to the local village pub for drinks in the evening. It's clearly a pub mostly frequented by locals, mainly farmers, most of whom appear suspicious of incomers - especially at this time, as there doesn't appear to be anyone else around doing what our pair are doing - the town is struggling with falling tourism and investment. So it's a bit of a Slaughtered Lamb moment (ref: An American Werewolf in London), but during the course of the evening, some of the locals turn out to be welcoming.

They both get very drunk and Marcus ends up sleeping with one of the local girls, who has been flirting with him all evening and with whom he shares drugs. Some of the locals had warned him away from her, but he ignored them. Vaughn chats with the girl's friend and, although they leave the pub together as well, he tells her about his fiancée and they spend the rest of the evening just talking, rather than leaping into bed!

The next morning, then - the pair of them are horribly hungover, but drive off deep into the woods to hunt. Vaughn realises when they get to their parking spot that he has forgotten his ammunition, so Marcus lends him a high-calibre rifle - thus violating strict gun safety laws. Marcus is the experienced hunter, so he takes the lead and coaches Vaughn as they go. When they spot a deer, Marcus encourages the hesitant Vaughn to take the shot. Just as Vaughn pulls the trigger, the deer moves - and this is the point at which the film takes a dark and nasty turn, which I won't spoil for you!

We then enter a stage of the film where the two men, given the nature of what has happened, have differing opinions on what they should do about the incident. Marcus overpowers Vaughn in terms of decision-making and ultimately, by his actions, makes matters worse. It all gets very dark from here on in as the pair return to the hotel and are even invited to dinner with a couple of the local men as they talk about what they do for a living and their hunting backgrounds. However, later in the night, they incur the wrath of the locals - partly because it is discovered that Marcus had given drugs to and slept with one of their sisters, but more so because the details of the event come out, leaving them to deal with the fallout on multiple fronts! It's very difficult to say any more here without giving away spoilers, so I'll leave it there!

The film ends up being a story about escalating events, moral dilemmas, survival, self-preservation and people faced with unthinkable choices. It shows how fear can transform an ordinary, decent, passive person into someone who acts completely out of character in order to make the best of an impossible situation. The film turns violent, ruthless and brutal as the tale unfolds while everyone tries to find their own way out.

It's very nicely shot - a lot of it is dark, menacing, rainy and under the cover of night. The atmosphere uses that to build tension as we're right alongside the two friends, sharing their plight. The pair act their parts superbly well, and the rest of the cast are not far behind. It's a really good little thriller - fairly low-budget in terms of feel, but they have made the most of it, focusing on taut, claustrophobic chills. It's currently available via various streaming services. Recommended.

Colony (2026)

Directed by Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan, Hellbound), Colony (Korean title: Gunche, meaning "Hive" or "Colony") twists the traditional zombie genre by introducing a fungal hive-mind network rather than standard isolated monsters. I have to admit that the Koreans do love to do this disaster/zombie thing - and tend to do it interestingly well! The plotline feels somewhat complicated to me, maybe because 'the infected' in Colony don’t follow standard zombie rules.

They operate on biological and computing principles. I had to look this one up! The outbreak is caused by a bio-engineered strain of slime mould designed for cell regeneration. The infected connect via microscopic airborne fungal networks and chemical pheromones. Sensory data (vision, sound, scent) is shared in real time across the entire horde—so if one zombie learns how a door latch works or sees a survivor, the entire group instantly knows too. A bit like Plur1bus (2026), I guess! As more people are infected, the "network" gains more processing power, allowing the horde to perform complex tasks like typing on keyboards, mimicking voices, and executing group tactics. Strong chemical scents (like perfume or antifreeze) mask human presence. Water disrupts the airborne network, temporarily stunning or paralysing the horde, and the network relies on a central host/controller strain. If the core controller is killed, the biological signal snaps, causing all connected infected to instantly freeze into a catatonic state. Confused? So was I, which is why I needed help to unpick all that. But then, no doubt, I'm thick! (Gemma.)

To the storyline then, rather than the science - we join a rogue scientist, Seo Young-chul (Koo Kyo-hwan), who tips off the police about an impending bio-terror attack before injecting himself with what he claims is a vaccine to his mutated slime mould bioweapon. Inside the high-rise Dongwoo-ri Building, Chains Bio CEO Kang Woo-chul is demonstrating the revolutionary cell regeneration capabilities of the mould. Kwon Se-jeong (Jun Ji-hyun), a disgraced and unemployed biotechnology PhD, attends the event hoping to secure employment. Young-chul confronts the CEO, accusing him of stealing and plagiarising his life's work. Young-chul forcefully injects Woo-chul with the active mould, triggering a violent mutation. The virus rapidly spreads through the executive floor, prompting automated security lockdown procedures. Counter-terrorism squad leader Lee Bong-seok (Ji Chang-wook) and his team respond but end up trapped inside with the civilians.

So now we get alongside a small group of survivors and the nub of the human interest element of the film - including Se-jeong, Bong-seok, and civilians - who retreat to the building's central shopping centre area. Using her background in cellular biology, Se-jeong deduces how the infected communicate through mycelial sensory links. To move through infected zones, they douse themselves in perfume and antifreeze to blind the horde's chemical tracking and trigger fire sprinklers to saturate the air, disrupting the fungal signals and temporarily freezing the infected!

Learning that Young-chul carries the cure/vaccine in his blood, the group makes a push for the upper floors to capture him. However, because Young-chul injected himself with the original control strain, he possesses a direct neural link to the horde - he can literally see through the eyes of any infected individual. He uses this link to ambush the survivors on their way to the evacuation helipad, resulting in severe casualties.

Outside the locked-down building, researcher Gong Seol-hee (Shin Hyun-been) raids Young-chul’s hidden off-site lab. Her team is ambushed by a horde of infected experimental monkeys. When a soldier shoots the alpha monkey labelled #1, the entire monkey horde instantly stops moving and turns completely rigid. Aha! This discovery proves knowledge of the biological mechanism - the infected cannot function independently if the primary host/node dies.

So that's pretty much the complicated backdrop as to what's going on, and the rest of the film is very much a chaotic chase against the now-controlled zombies - who, as I say, can learn quickly, unlike most zombies out there! As the core team of survivors tries to apprehend Young-chul, with the eventual help of the authorities and a SWAT team, being the antidote, they need him alive. Or so they think. Lots of fighting, killing, maiming, heroics, lateral thinking, adventure and puzzle-breaking ensues as we head towards the, as you might expect, even more chaotic and bonkers finale!

It's all great fun - and funny often - with tension blathered on in bucketfuls as we leap from perilous scene to nail-biting evasion tactics in makeshift hiding places while our survivors try to find a way out of the now locked-down building, avoiding ever-smarter zombies with the authorities doing what they can to not let the "virus" escape into the general public. It's pretty well acted by the leads, no question - and the rest of the extras are clearly having a right old laugh doing the comic and chaotic zombie thing. It really is fun and worth a watch, even if it's a bit too complicated for its own good! A great romp!

The Smartwatch Cable Chaos: Why Is It Time for a Universal Standard?

In late 2024, the European Union implemented a landmark directive mandating USB Type-C as the universal charging standard for portable electronic devices. Designed to curb electronic waste and spare consumers the financial burden of proprietary accessories, the legislation successfully streamlined mobile phones, tablets, e-readers, and digital cameras under a single cable standard. Yet, if you look at your bedside table or travel bag, one glaring exception remains: smartwatches.

Anyone who has owned a succession of wearables—or even multiple devices from a single brand like Motorola, Fitbit, or Samsung—will be familiar with the frustration. A drawer filled with ten visually similar yet functionally incompatible magnetic pucks, multi-pin cradles, and proprietary docks is an all-too-common reality. Even within the same manufacturer’s portfolio, successive generations often abandon previous charging designs. Why, then, were smartwatches excluded from the EU’s universal charging mandate, and isn't it high time regulatory frameworks addressed this oversight?

The exclusion of smartwatches from early regulatory drafts stems largely from physical and technological constraints. Under EU Directive 2022/2380, devices were required to incorporate a physical USB-C female port if their dimensions permitted. Given the compact chassis of a typical wrist-worn device, embedding a standard USB-C port presents significant design challenges. It compromises ingress protection against water and dust, demands precious internal space that would otherwise house battery capacity or health sensors, and introduces ergonomic issues on a surface meant to sit flush against human skin.

However, exempting wearables from a physical USB-C port should not mean granting tech manufacturers carte blanche to proliferate proprietary cables indefinitely. The core philosophy of the EU’s mandate was environmental sustainability and consumer convenience. By allowing every smartwatch generation to ship with a bespoke charging cradle, the industry continues to generate thousands of tonnes of redundant plastic and copper wire—defeating the very spirit of anti-e-waste legislation.

A sensible solution exists, and it does not require forcing a bulky USB-C port onto delicate watch cases. Regulators ought to turn their attention towards standardising the wireless or magnetic interface itself. Qi wireless charging is already an open, international standard used widely across smartphones and earbud cases. While traditional Qi coils can be large, refined micro-Qi standards or unified magnetic alignment protocols could easily be mandated for wrist-worn tech. Alternatively, enforcing cross-brand compatibility for the charger-to-watch interface would mark a massive step forward.

As wearable technology matures from a novelty into an essential daily utility, the current status quo is simply unacceptable. Consumers should not be forced to buy a new proprietary cable every time they upgrade their watch, nor should the environment pay the price for corporate stubbornness. It is undeniably time for lawmakers to extend universal charging regulations to smartwatches, ending the cable chaos once and for all.

Autumn Sonata (1978)

Director Ingmar Bergman was 60 years old when this film arrived at the Box Office in 1978, and it also marked the last film role for Ingrid Bergman, then 63. Despite them both being from Sweden and sharing a surname, they were not related and, surprisingly, this was the only film in which he directed and she acted. However, it seems that Ingmar actually wrote this story/film in order to get her to feature alongside Liv Ullmann. And what a treat it turned out to be.

Eva (Liv Ullmann), a quiet, deeply repressed parson's wife living in their isolated Norwegian parsonage, invites her estranged mother, Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman), for a visit. Charlotte is a world-renowned, glamorous concert pianist who has been mostly absent from Eva’s life. They haven't seen each other in seven years.

Charlotte arrives, outwardly radiant but secretly reeling from the recent death of her long-time companion, Leonardo. The reunion starts with a somewhat performed affection on both sides, but Charlotte is immediately thrown off balance when she learns that Eva’s disabled, severely paralysed sister, Helena (Lena Nyman), is living in their home. Eva didn't tell her as she feared, rightly, that Charlotte would not have come if she'd known. Charlotte had previously institutionalised Helena to avoid dealing with her illness. Her reunion with Helena feels equally like a performance, exposing Charlotte's self-absorbed discomfort under her performed warmth.

That evening, tension begins to bubble up as they both settle around the piano. Eva tries to play a Chopin piece for her mother. Charlotte listens, offering polite praise, but then immediately sits down to play the exact same piece, demonstrating her superior technique, criticising Eva's attempt and instructing her on how it should be played with emotional depth. It is a subtle, devastating act of motherly dominance that cuts Eva to the core.

After more pretence between the pair, late-night drinking and sleeping pill-popping, Charlotte wakes up noisily from a nightmare and wanders downstairs, where Eva joins her to see that she is alright. What follows is a brutal, night-long verbal duel where years of buried resentment explode. Eva reveals the deep psychological trauma caused by Charlotte’s selfishness, need for attention, admiration and lack of care for anyone other than herself. She recounts how Charlotte ignored her as a child to pursue her career, then over-controlled her when she was around - forcing her to dress a certain way and cutting her hair against her will. Eva blames her mother's emotional neglect for her own inability to love, the failure of her marriage and even her sister Helena's deteriorating physical condition (which Eva sees as a manifestation of unexpressed rage). Eva also speaks of her own profound grief over the drowning death of her young son, Erik, a loss Charlotte barely acknowledged. A cornered Charlotte breaks down. She confesses her own deep-seated terror of intimacy, admitting she was afraid of her children and how she felt utterly inadequate as a mother. She explains that music was the only place she felt safe and begs Eva to forgive her and love her. The confrontation offers no solution, however. The scars are deep.

Helena is left traumatised by the shouting match, writhing on the floor calling for her mother, which is ignored. By morning, Charlotte is shaken and flees the house, taking a train back to her glamorous life, removed from reality. Eva reflectively walks to her deceased son’s grave, holding onto hope that the night's events have not closed the door completely to future reconciliation. Eva holds onto hope, but it's clear that Charlotte remains unable to change.

Much like, for example, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) in which Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton go hammer and tongs at each other, Marriage Story (2019) with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson - and Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage (1974) - also featuring Liv Ullmann alongside Erland Josephson, the emphasis here is on raw, human emotion and how well the two actresses can perform. Bergman shoots it in a way that brings out the absolute best from the pair. And he, and they, do it chillingly well. It's an acting masterclass from the two women in a stripped-down, intense, claustrophobic eye-opener.

Cinematographer Sven Nykvist suffocates the actresses' faces, turning their skin, eyes and expressions into a reflection of the focus of the film and the characters' relationship - past and present. Smart use of lighting and shadows makes the house feel more like an interrogation suite than a welcoming home. It really is a delight to watch the two go at it. Liv Ullmann is clearly incredibly talented and Bergman matches her at every turn. It's not an easy watch, but a rewarding one.

My thoughts drifted to Woody Allen at this point as I saw so many ways in which, being an Allen film fan, he has clearly idolised Ingmar Bergman's filmmaking style, storytelling and character-building. A few examples that come to mind include Interiors (1978), which was released the same year as Autumn Sonata and is basically Allen making his own Bergman film (complete with heavy family trauma, muted colour palettes and intense room-bound drama). Films like Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and Another Woman (1988) copy Bergman’s pacing, dream sequences, and themes. And to top it all off, Play It Again, Sam (1972) totally highlights Allen's obsession with Casablanca (1942), bringing us full-circle back to Ingrid, the star of that, with Ingmar behind the camera.

Furthermore, Woody Allen also made up Mia Farrow to look just like Liv Ullmann’s Eva in Autumn Sonata - that severe, mousy look across a couple of key films in the 1980s. September (1987) was the direct Autumn Sonata clone where Mia Farrow plays Lane, styled almost identically to Eva - large, round wire-rimmed glasses, plain oversized clothes and her hair pulled tightly back. The plot is also, essentially, Allen’s American re-imagining of Autumn Sonata. Farrow plays a fragile, deeply depressed woman recovering in a secluded country house who gets visited by her glamorous, narcissistic, larger-than-life mother (played by Elaine Stritch), leading to an explosive, late-night confrontation over childhood neglect and emotional trauma. In Zelig (1983), the round glasses and strict, pinned-back hair featured again in stark black-and-white in the shape of Dr Eudora Fletcher - Mia Farrow again in wire-rimmed round glasses, a severe centre-parting and tightly bound hair. And in the aforementioned Interiors (1978) - while Mia Farrow wasn't in this one (she hadn't started working with Allen yet), Mary Beth Hurt played Joey, a tortured, plain-looking daughter dealing with an overbearing mother. She was styled with a similarly muted, rigid aesthetic - severe hair and drab clothing - to evoke Bergman’s dramas such as Cries and Whispers (1972) and Autumn Sonata.

Once you start watching Bergman’s 1970s work back-to-back, you realise Woody Allen essentially built half his career on rewriting the aforementioned Scenes from a Marriage with neurotic New York quips! Scenes from a Marriage is a virtual blueprint for modern "relationship" cinema and Allen, by his own admission, pillaged it endlessly. Husbands and Wives (1992) is basically Allen's American adaptation of that. Bergman starts Scenes from a Marriage with Johan and Marianne having dinner with another couple (Peter and Katarina) whose marriage is exploding in public - forcing Johan and Marianne to confront their own hidden cracks. Allen starts Husbands and Wives with Woody and Mia Farrow having dinner with Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis, who announce their divorce on the spot.

Bergman shot Scenes from a Marriage originally for Swedish TV on 16mm film, using relentless close-ups and an intimate, direct style. In Husbands and Wives Allen copied this aesthetic wholesale, using jagged jump-cuts and handheld cameras to make it feel uncomfortably raw. In Scenes from a Marriage, Johan (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullmann) discover a strange, tragic paradox - they actually communicate better, understand each other more deeply and have better physical chemistry after they divorce and start cheating on their new partners with each other. Yes, Husbands and Wives is Scenes from a Marriage all over.

There's more! Allen recycles this same bittersweet irony in Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979) - the idea that formal commitments ruin the bond between two intellectuals, who only find warmth once the pressure of marriage is removed. In the opening episode of Scenes from a Marriage, the couple is interviewed for a women's magazine, sitting side-by-side putting on a pristine front for the camera while subtly undercutting each other. Allen stole this interview format outright for Annie Hall, Husbands and Wives and To Rome with Love (2012).

Anyway, I'm meandering off into other territory here, related as it may be - perhaps a project for another day! I'll leave you with my thoughts of admiration for Autumn Sonata and recommend very much that you track it down for all of the above, but mostly the powerful performances of the two leads. We'll leave Woody Allen’s massive debt to Ingmar Bergman for another day!

The Odyssey (2026) - A Guest Review by Adrian Brain

After the 2023 megahit “Oppenheimer”, director Christopher Nolan is back with his latest epic. This is based on Homer’s ancient poem about King Odysseus’s prolonged return from the Trojan wars. And EPIC spelt large it is, but sometimes bigger isn’t necessarily better.

The film moves from set piece to set piece, some better executed than others, as Odysseus and his men encounter monsters and fickle gods, with his men being culled in numbers after each encounter. Meanwhile, back home his (very) long suffering wife and son have to deal with his absence and uncertain succession, all whilst under threat from sea raiders (and some curious neologisms).

Matt Damon as Odysseus leads the stellar cast, but I’m not sure was the right person for the job, whilst Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland do a bit better as his wife and son. Robert Pattinson, John Leguizamo, Logan Marshall Green, Charlize Theron, Elliot Page, Jon Bernthal, Lupita Nyong’o and a memorable Samantha Morton all pop up in support, but this array of celebrity thesps actually becomes distracting after a while.

I quite enjoyed the film, and Nolan didn’t try to mold the story to fit a modern narrative: the story of good and bad leadership, the horror of war and the consequential loss of humanity is still as relevant today as ever. However, the film simply isn’t in the same league as Oppenheimer, Dunkirk, Interstellar or Inception, and as such can only be considered something of a disappointment.

Blindness (2008)

Directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardener), this is an unsettling apocalyptic psychological thriller adapted from the Nobel Prize-winning novel by José Saramago. It strips away the comforting structures of modern civilization to examine what remains of human morality when our primary way of interacting with the world is suddenly taken away. Sight.

We start the story in a very busy, unnamed city, where a Japanese man driving his car is sitting at a red light, six lanes wide, like hundreds of others. The light goes green and everyone else drives forward except him. Everyone behind him is blaring their horns, as he is clearly holding everyone up. Eventually, passers-by go to investigate and he tells them that he suddenly can't see anything. The crowd get him into the passenger seat and one of them offers to drive him home. On the journey, he explains to this man that it's not a 'black' blindness, but white. Everything's white, and he describes the experience as being like swimming in milk. The man takes him home, drops him off, and then steals his car! He'll get his comeuppance later for that, mind you, as one by one the whole human population is struck down with the same condition. The authorities eventually dub it The White Sickness.

The Japanese man's wife arrives home and he explains what has happened, so she takes him in a taxi to a local ophthalmologist, played by Mark Ruffalo. The doctor can find nothing wrong with him, but there are a few people in his waiting room who look like they might have similar symptoms, anxious to be seen. He sends our Japanese friend to the hospital.

By the next morning, the ophthalmologist himself wakes up beside his wife, played by Julianne Moore, blind. Realising that the condition is highly contagious and rapidly spreading, they call an ambulance. The crew turn up in hazmat suits, ushering him into the vehicle. Although his wife can still see, she scams her way into the ambulance with him, not wanting to leave his side. So far, then, we have seen the chain of contagion pass from the Japanese man to the car thief (who we eventually see abandoning the Japanese man's car as he, too, goes blind), the doctor, and the other patients at the clinic.

Our core group of half a dozen or so are shuffled into a militarised quarantine building - a decaying, abandoned mental asylum - as the authorities round up more of the infected and throw them inside too. Don't forget that everyone inside this place is blind except for the doctor's wife - and she, for now, is not letting on to the others that she can see. It would seem that by now, she is immune. However, inside this building, conditions quickly deteriorate as hundreds of newly blind people are crammed in, with no instructions and minimal food supplies dropped in. They are left to fend for themselves, Lord of the Flies style, creating their own rules and order, resulting in utter chaos.

Filth, faeces and garbage pile up as people cannot find the toilets. The armed guards outside grow increasingly paranoid, shooting dead anyone who steps too close to the perimeter. Things go from bad to worse as a hierarchy establishes itself. The 'rules' heavily favour the most aggressive and male inmates, resulting in tragic and catastrophic abuses of power, starvation and terror. To make matters worse, the person running the show is the only one with a gun, even though he can't see to shoot straight!

This situation goes on for a large portion of the film's two-hour runtime, until the doctor's wife suddenly discovers that the gates are unlocked and the guards are gone. We then get a view of the wasteland outside; the world is in utter chaos as it seems everyone but her has gone blind. The rest of the film follows her out in the world, leading a handful of survivors from their little group to try and find some sort of safe situation with at least shelter, food and water.

It's a neat little thriller which makes us think about sight, how fragile society is and what the world would look like if we suddenly lost our vision overnight. Interestingly, none of the characters have names - they are only referred to by titles: The Doctor, The Doctor's Wife, The King of Ward Three, The Girl with Dark Glasses, etc. There is definitely something being said here about stripping away meaningless names and shallow social status. The doctor's wife is the only one to witness the absolute worst of humanity with her own eyes. As the only person who can see, she becomes the responsible guardian of the others, carrying the weight of everyone else's survival until she is left mentally and physically exhausted.

Julianne Moore is terrific as always, as is Mark Ruffalo. Danny Glover is in the mix as a wise, pragmatic old chap and Don McKellar is annoyingly excellent as the ruthless thief. It's nicely shot, claustrophobic, intelligent and thoughtful. The sets are beautifully done, highlighting the filth inside the asylum and, latterly, the cityscape of chaos and lost people wandering around fighting for survival. It's often dark (in more ways than one), sad, moving and certainly eye-opening. It's nicely pulled together at the end, which I won't spoil for you. Recommended.