Culture

Mila Ottevanger explores the less than triumphal return about the Oscars of fashion, and what the lackluster exhibition and red carpet say about the...

I read How to Kill Your Family while at home during the vacation and given my own parent’s unnerved curiosity as they scanned the book’s title, I can understand the necessity of the dedication to Mackie’s parents: “I promise never to kill either of you.” 

"Of all the books that explore the question of how and why we learn, I find that Frank Herbert’s Dune offers an unsettling, prescient answer to this question."

"What do Charles Dickens, Alice in Wonderland and Kilburn-bred rapper M Huncho have in common? Quite a lot, as it happens."

"These songs hugely contrasted with the dark, depressing songs produced by American grunge artists such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and were generally more upbeat, optimistic and catchy. Damon Albarn of Blur said in a 1993 interview that: “If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I’m getting rid of grunge!”."

Is the cinematic experience in danger of decline?

The device of the camera itself is one which creates an uneven power dynamic between the viewer and the camera’s subject.

“I’m a superhero,” cries Polka-Dot Man in the third act of the film. “I’m not just a superhero movie,” screams The Suicide Squad for the entire 2h12m runtime. James Gunn’s movie perfectly captures the essence of his source material, while also challenging  the conventions of Marvel/DC films. Gunn  has done this in a year that has seen Zack Snyder’s Justice League released while demands continue for #ReleaseTheAyerCut, but he has risen above these controversies and put his stamp on the project. And so, The Suicide Squad comes as an entertaining breath of fresh air.  

CW: sexual assault and rape, suicide “Every week, I go to a club, and every week, I act like I’m too drunk to stand. And...

"Simz takes the face (or rather, the voice) of British royalty and uses it to represent her own inner voice. But more importantly, it brings the exploration of womanhood and female consciousness to the forefront of the album. This is, after all, an album about women breaking out of their role and being more than one thing."

"Perhaps Tarantino will become a better novelist as time goes on, but there's a charm to how this book is a behind-the-scenes look at a story still in construction, full of blind alleys and experiments."

Melding literary mystique with a sugary, hyper-digital aesthetic, Bravo plays within a territory of cinema yet to be charted.

'Our narrator’s tone of voice sways between the revelatory and the didactic, the divine and the desperate, so that our first job is to work out whether we are watching a man or a god.'

'The university-set dating satire provides a perfect balance of authenticity, heart and nuanced observations on student sexuality.'

You don’t need to go to every library on this list. But if you’re lucky enough to carry a Bod Card, you should make a point to visit at least a few. These are special places, each with its own history and personality. Make the most of them.

'For a student work the topics discussed are close to home. It’s why the promise of a grounded and tender depiction of undeniably important years works so well. The piece made me feel like that time could be a bit more real, and so a bit more manageable.'

"Listening to 'Chinatown' and '45', the first two singles from Bleachers’ latest album Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night takes me right back to eighth week of my first term at Oxford. I spent that week wrapped up in a big grey coat and scarf (channelling Dark Academia as best I could), taking Main Character walks around the city, reading in the cafes that had finally opened again, and, most importantly, dealing with a lot of messy emotions that had been building up all term."

"Monsters takes the listener on a whirlwind tour of raw human emotion. Whether you love or hate Odell’s marmite exposition of various moods, the album clearly provides something for everyone."

Summer of Soul, which seamlessly interweaves original festival footage with contemporary interviews and news footage from the time, is truly brilliant. To say that the film merely shows the absolute talent of many of these performers would be an incredible understatement – the film positively resurrects them.

"There has been a surge in folk music’s popularity since artists like Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift released albums devoted to the much-loved genre. They have proven that, while folk music is forever attached to its past, it is not incompatible with the now."