Category: Uncategorized

These are ten of my favourite watches from the year (although one comes out this January and there are many more I could have swapped in). Read more

This is Watching Films Closely. Read more

One could be forgiven for thinking the election of a new Pope wouldn’t make for the most interesting film. After all, the last time it happened over a decade ago the world was subjected to unrelenting footage of one God-forsaken chimney. Even on the inside, a bunch of largely old, largely white men furtively writing… Read more

There is no doubting the audacity of Jaques Audiard’s new film in terms of form and content. Emilia Pérez follows a disillusioned lawyer, Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña), as she is kidnapped and then recruited by Mexican drug lord Manitas Del Monte to assist with their gender confirmation surgery. Rita is tasked with finding a… Read more

Blitz, Steve McQueen’s latest directorial venture set during the height of German bombing raids over London, is a visceral and never-shattering cinematic experience. The film perfectly blends McQueen’s early career as a visual artist- who has created commissioned works on the Iraq War– into the popular framework of a mainstream movie. It opens with searing… Read more

In the stuffy mists of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, our protagonist and architect Caesar Catalina (Adam Driver) asks his soon-to-be love interest Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel) why she came to see him if not for laughs. Watching, I couldn’t help but ask myself the same thing. Had I come to see the film out of… Read more

Let the \’Demissance\’ begin! In Coralie Fargeat\’s bonkers new body horror which, ironically, lacks substance. Producing a great satire is a true highwire act.  It needs to be somehow both bold, direct, and meaningful but without feeling obvious, smug, or preachy. At the same time, it still needs to be enjoyable on its own terms and… Read more

Read more

This is a re-edited essay I wrote as part of my UCL Film Studies Masters\’. It\’s a long one but well worth a read to anyone interested in Nolan\’s unique style, and the film of course is where my blog takes it\’s design inspiration. Full Spoilers Ahead!!! The Prestige (2006) stands as one of Christopher Nolan’s… Read more

This is a re-edited essay I wrote as part of my UCL Film Studies Masters\’. The action film has always proven a key site in articulating contemporary understandings of masculinity for, as Mark Gallagher writes, ‘The contemporary action film…respond[s] to cultural crises about masculinity and male social roles’ (Gallagher,2006:45). John Woo’s unique status as an… Read more