It is a truth universally acknowledged that any article about Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice must begin with a naff riff on the ‘universally acknowledged’ line. It is also much acknowledged (rightly so) that Pride and Prejudice is one of the best books ever written. The BBC’s 2003 Big Read poll named it the nation’s second-favourite […]
5. Gnomeo and Juliet (2011) If I were a producer and someone came to me pitching an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet where they are all garden gnomes instead of people, with Elton John’s discography playing throughout… I’m not sure I’d have seen the vision. Despite this, Gnomeo and Juliet pulls it off in this […]
Now is a more crucial time than ever to celebrate Roald Dahl. Not only is his literature written with a wonderfully wicked turn-of-phrase, but his themes effortlessly stand the test of time: the empowerment of the kind-hearted and the rise of the underdog. In none of his works are these more obvious than in Matilda. […]
Steven Spielberg’s latest film, The Fabelmans, is an engaging and deeply personal, if occasionally uneven, work. The semi-autobiographical film follows Sammy Fabelman (Mateo Zoryan, Francis-DeFord and Gabriel LaBelle) as he discovers his love of filmmaking and navigates a chaotic family life with his parents, Mitzi (Michelle Williams) and Burt (Paul Dano), and their family friend Bennie (Seth […]
The Whale is a phenomenal film, depicting a reaction to grief that is rarely shown in cinema. It tells the story of a man aspiring to rekindle lost love as he eats himself to death in a small apartment in “Mormon Country”, Idaho. This film shows us how easy it is to lose sight of […]
Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski’s new film EO is in many ways a fairly eclectic brew of influences, but its most obvious forebearer is Robert Bresson’s 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar, of which it is a sort of spiritual remake. From Bresson, Skolimowski has taken the contours of EO, however the two films are markedly different in ways both obvious […]
In theory, M3GAN should have been a great film. A widely marketed, piercingly relevant sci-fi horror that draws on current fears over the incursion of AI into daily life, in the form of a creepy-cute killer doll who goes by the moniker Megan. And, based on recent stats that the film has so far brought in over […]
Set in a Berlin shrouded with dull hues of grey, from Lydia Tár’s industrial and cold-looking house that she shares with her partner Sharon and their adopted daughter, Petra, to the perpetually rainy streets, Todd Field’s Tár immerses us in an unsettling atmosphere. Before meeting Tár, a fictional (though this might seem otherwise through Field’s convincing narrative) […]