No matter what the subject or how affecting the lessons were, humanity never learns from mistakes of the past. Sidney Lumet’s 1976 masterpiece could easily have been made in 2017. Watching Network post-Trump feels like a particularly cynical (though accurate) look ...
Read More »The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams
It’s only natural that you end up comparing a writer’s new work to what they’ve previously delivered. Given that Jen Williams’ Copper Cat series was one of the most fun I’ve read in recent years, it was always going to ...
Read More »Life: Be careful what you search for
Here is a review of Life in one sentence: an unacknowledged Alien reboot where the humans bring the alien on board deliberately. Once you know the premise of this film, you know exactly how it will play out. There is ...
Read More »What makes a good short story collection?
I’ve only recently started to appreciate collections of short stories. While I’ve always enjoyed short stories as individual entities, sitting down to read bite-sized stories never really appealed to me. Instead, I always preferred to get stuck into a novel, ...
Read More »The Flintstones: 1 man + 1 woman = 2 weird
Who would have thought that the most socially conscious comic series of recent years would be a reincarnation of a 1960s cartoon? In The Flintstones, volume 1 (collecting issues 1 through 6), Mark Russell and Steve Pugh manage to cover ...
Read More »Streaming music has us divided
How relevant is the singles chart these days? [*Note: The numbers used in this article refer to UK sales/streams only.] Now that streaming is counted along with sales (which is currently 150 streams to equal one ‘sale’), the charts have ...
Read More »I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore
‘Critically acclaimed’ and ‘wowed at Sundance’ are phrases that tend to put me on edge when going into films these days. Despite being a critic myself, I often find that films lauded for their critical success tend to either be ...
Read More »Logan: What did you do?
My enjoyment of the latest standalone Wolverine film was unexpected. None of the previous installments have been good, for one, and the hard sell marketing campaign around a big budget film like this always makes me nervous. Thankfully, the hype was ...
Read More »Jaws 2: The Making of the Hollywood Sequel
One of my favourite people on this planet, Jon Spira, also happens to be a ruthless critic – yes, far worse than me – and a mentor of mine. When he began reviewing the recent behind the scenes tell-all, Jaws 2: ...
Read More »For the love of an underdog: Sports in film
Sports show humanity at our best and worst. On the one hand, they provide an insight into what people can achieve with perseverance and dedication, and on the other, they show how competition can drive us to behave unconscionably (look ...
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