Film
‘The Godfather: Part II’ at 50
The Godfather: Part II is a film about gangsters. It is also a film about corruption, power, betrayal, succession, revenge, religion, marriage, generational change, filial duty, sibling rivalry, the...
All Of Us Strangers Review – A Haunting Exploration of Love in all its Forms
"In All Of Us Strangers, writer-director Andrew Haigh leads us by the hand into a dreamlike, introspective world. "
‘Bittersweet, immersive and profoundly moving’ – Perfect Days Review
"I don’t think I’ve ever felt so ‘in the moment’ while watching a film as I did with Perfect Days"
Hollywood vs. AI – Is this the end?
"the question on everyone’s lips is: is this the end? The end of special effects teams? The end of video creation? The end of filmmaking?"
Poor Things – Review
Includes some spoilers
Poor Things takes place in a world only Yorgos Lanthimos could create....
Comfort Films: A Good Year
A charming British Rom-Com set in the idyllic Provence countryside, what more could you want? Sign me up, sign yourself up, sign everyone up....
‘Normal People’ of Oxford
Those who have not yet seen the BBC Three series Normal People might be forgiven for wondering what the fuss is about. The 12-part...
The Muse in Film: Winona Ryder and Tim Burton
When Winona Ryder first met Tim Burton, they talked like old friends about movies and music for over half an hour before realising that...
Possessed by Muses
“There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring...
The fourth wall: Looking beyond the lens
Beautiful, sprightly music plays as the two protagonists of Pierrot Le Fou (1965), Ferdinand and Marianne, cruise around in the countryside in a stolen...
Comfort Films: The Secret Garden
It is fascinating to me that nostalgia, coined in the 17th century, was originally treated as a physical disease. Nostalgia was used to describe...
Finality in film: The sense of an ending
For me, it is always endings, not beginnings, which leave the most lasting impression: the ends of novels, films, historical epochs – even lives....
Percy Jackson and The Failed Adaptation
If you think you received scathing feedback in your tutorials, you should check out Rick Riordan’s emails to Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The...
Comfort Films: How to Train Your Dragon
I was not expecting to be on a plane, flying back to Australia. Libraries closed, online teaching, “unprecedented times” (etc. etc. etc.) — I...
Indie cinema’s uncertain future
If nothing else, the chaos provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic has been indiscriminate. Very few industries have been spared by its impact, whether that...
Cleverly Captured Vulnerability in ‘Normal People’
When I first read Normal People, it was the unwavering emotional rigour of the prose that got to me. Rooney has this matter-of-fact way...
Eyes Wide Open: How Stanley Kubrick saw humanity
Deep in idyllic Hertfordshire, in the last quarter of the last century, there lived an uncompromising genius. The director Stanley Kubrick was a recluse...
A Phenomenology of Lost Cinemas
Every time I frantically peruse my notes, I find the keystone unlocking the bliss of unbridled writing flow by way of recalling. I remind...
Cinema: The venue transcending the visual
Maybe if I had known, I’d have stopped to take a picture. I’d have kept that ticket. Maybe if I'd known, I would have...
