Film

The lost art of the intermission, and why the film industry needs to bring it back 

Last month, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist was one of the most-discussed films at the Oscars, with its award-winning cinematography, score, and direction rightfully generating great critical acclaim. Equally, though,...

Something is rotten in the state of San Andreas: Grand Theft Hamlet in Hertford

‘Hamlet: “O’, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw…” ’ Don’t quite remember...

German Expressionist film: A beginner’s guide

With Robert Eggers’ remake of the classic vampire horror Nosferatu taking the world by...

Cherubs Grow On Trees: Atmospheric student filmmaking

Making short films is hard. You have anything between two and 20 minutes to...

‘The time to change is now’: Women behind the camera

We need to make a career as a female filmmaker seem possible, and to put pressure on the industry to give more women a chance

Musicals in movies: The interplay between reality and fantasy

Musical movies, juxtaposed with and exposed by realism, make me feel more. They make everything hurt more when you watch them fall apart, but they make the highs even higher.

Comfort Films: Catching Fire

The end of Hilary term was chaotic – just a few days ago I’d been worrying about essays and pre-ing with friends, fully immersed...

Fresh old stuff that hurts in the right places

New period drama forces us to rethink what we want from history.

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...

Mastering the group-watch with cheap horror flicks

The credits start to roll once the house is completely overwhelmed by fire. The monster is somewhere inside, and it’s already been defeated. This...

The Star Wars Prequels: Too Easily Dismissed?

These days, with nowhere to go and no-one to see, movie-watching is as good a way as any to pass the time: suddenly a...