Monday, March 3, 2025

Culture

Cherubs Grow On Trees: Atmospheric student filmmaking

Making short films is hard. You have anything between two and 20 minutes to tell a compelling story. As an audience member, they can often feel unsatisfying. However, for...

Lessons in Censorship: A Cautionary Tale against Bodleian Blacklists 

For some authors, the Bodleian Libraries have not always a safe haven for their work. Although marginalised texts are no longer demarcated with the phi symbol on their spines, with many having re-entered the undergraduate canon, Sophie Price discusses the valuable lessons we can learn from the Bodleian blacklist which remain pertinent today.

Should ‘Orbital’ have won The Booker Prize? 

Laurence Cooke reviews Samantha Harvey's 'Orbital', the winner of the 2024 Booker Prize.

Fontaines DC and the (re) rise of indie Sleaze

I recently took to my finsta to post a story claiming that the Fontaines...

The Crown’s Unspoken Words

'I think, when it comes to any biopic, "real history" has to be deprioritised. If an accurate and chronological rendering of history is what you're looking for, watch a documentary!' Maebh Howell writes on the dichotomies of the biopic, asking which is to be prioritised; accurate truth-telling or entertaining story-telling.

The Beginning of the End

Maybe we like the idea of being the protagonist of a gritty Doomsday story?

Atonement

'I rue the lost hours and days: a finite life, this one'

A Love Letter to Living With Scientists/An Apology to My Housemates

'I am not sure what broke me. I think it's a close tie between the discussion around NaCl when I asked for the salt to be passed down the table or when someone genuinely asked the group what their favourite way to measure the centre of mass was.'

Drawing Attention

'I'm making mistakes I'm crossing them out I'm making it ugly I'm making it shout'

Review: Mischief Movie Night

"Mischief Movie Night is a funny and engaging show that is sure to brighten up even the darkest lockdown night."

Reinvention: rethinking gender and race on stage

"Marginalised actors should not just be shoehorned into pre-existing plays without any respect or provision for the stories they have to tell. To do so is to package diversity into commercially successful morsels that are digestible for largely white, middle-class audiences."

Little Giveaways

"Jazz was being played over the stereo like theme music, as if they were acting in a television drama where each character had some essential trait, some crucial role."

Mother

"I waltzed in her arms down the high street"

Specks

"From a space we might call "above", an Entity watches - gargantuan, unfathomable, other."

A Quick Trip Far Away

"One summer, a summer which now seems to have passed by long ago, I slept and dreamt for the first time on the mainland."

Rules to Live By in Your New Home

"No 1. Label your collar to avoid feeling ornamental."

21st Century Midas

"‘Look, you have drunk £3.15. You fool, that’s £3.15 you’ve eaten.’ Clink, the cup on the saucer, the coins sliding down my throat."

Uneven Sideburns

"Empty time lent shape by the weekly rites Of chiselling the stubble away"

Wings and Words: why you should read Grief Is The Thing With Feathers

Recalling the first time I read Grief, on a thankfully empty train, I’m very glad no one was present to witness what must have been a harrowing and confusing parade of expressions as I progressed. It’s a few hours I will never regret.

Best Reads of 2020

Hamnet — Maggie O’Farrell The subtle majesty of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell’s eighth novel,would have been welcome in any year, but it was a particular blessing...

Four Panels and a Pen

"Find us together: tiptoeing across the fanning pages of a calendar."

A Story That Begins With Rain

"Under the bent thumb streetlight, umbrella domes burst forth, splashing rich nightfall onto their neighbours."

Cherwell’s best films of 2020

Our film team have put together a list of the years best, from the stylish and disorientating, Waves, to Charlie Kaufman's mind-bending masterpiece, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, and the slow-burning romance of A Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Revisiting Godard’s ‘Breathless’ 60 years on

'Godard gives us a film that shows the white knight as the charlatan we always knew him to be and offers us the anti-hero instead. And after decades of excessively moralistic cinema, this breath of fresh air was thoroughly needed.'

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