“I’ve been the luckiest actor who will ever be”: In conversation with Sir Derek Jacobi CBE.
Sir Derek Jacobi is acting royalty, one of the most distinguished actors of our time.
His career began as a founding member of the National Theatre...
Netflix’s Disappointing Monsters
"As the latest season of Stranger Things demonstrates... not all practical effects are made equal."
Ten years of the Dark Knight trilogy
It’s been 10 years since the trilogy that shaped my entire life came out.
Booksmart and the art of growing up
They find themselves together – still best friends, still ambitious and imperfect and stressed.
Work is hell: the brutal beauty of corporate aesthetics
Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that hell is other people, but he was wrong: hell is an office job. The stereotypical image summoned by nine-to-five drudgery...
Love Without Words: The Quiet Storytelling of Heartstopper
Rare for the teen drama genre, the show, much like its sketched source material, is taciturn like an actual shy teenager.
Oxford Student Film Review: The Pacifist
The Pacifist was put together by a team of recently graduated University College students. Matthew Hardy (2018, English) wrote the screenplay and collaborated on direction with Jack Rennie (2017, PPL).
Local Hero: a modest masterpiece
What is the first thing that springs to mind when I ask you about the connection between a red phone box in the Scottish highlands, a crackpot oil multimillionaire from Houston, and a jaded and cynical negotiator who ends up trapped between the two colliding worlds?
The Godfather and the Thrill of Cinema
A film that rests so prominently in the public’s psyche can be difficult to watch subjectively. The Godfather is nonetheless a masterpiece in its own right.
The Hegelian Dialectic of James Gunn’s Peacemaker
What links the superhero show Peacemaker with the work of 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel?
The Meaning Of Motherhood: Spencer and Parallel Mothers
Life, death, and birth are all present in Pablo LarraÃn’s Spencer and Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers. Both films address, in different ways, what the meaning of motherhood is.
The fairest of them all? Hollywood’s problem with visually represented villainy
We know that we ought to validate and cherish visible difference. Why is cinema struggling so much to catch on?
From Emperors to Crystal Skulls: The highs and lows of the sequel
It’s no wonder that sequels have a, let’s say, less than stellar reputation when films like Grown Ups 2 exist.
Eternals: A Structurally Misunderstood Masterpiece
Marvel’s Eternals, the 26th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was released to somewhat middling critical reception, despite largely positive audience scores. I think it’s a brilliant film, despite the considerable body of opinion that stands in vehement disagreement.