Latest Reviews

Review: Behind the Candelabra
Camp as Christmas and bleaker than New Year's morning, Steven Soderbergh's last movie is a well told and expertly acted tale of love gone sour.
Review: The Last Exorcism Part II
The Last Exorcism Part II ditches the found-footage aesthetic of the first film -- and everything else that made 2010's Southern Gothic horror so effective.
Review: Blood
Although elegantly directed and finely acted, Blood is soaked in noir cliché and cannot escape the quicksand of formula.

Latest Rants

Die Hard 6 has been announced and... guess what it's called?
Die Hardest is coming and you should be very, very afraid.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 gets another baddie, so let’s talk Biology
Chris Cooper has been cast as Norman Osborn in Marc Webb's sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man, which brings the film's villain tally to three. Anyone else have a sickly Spider-Man 3 kinda feeling?
Escaping the Kitchen Sink – The Future of British Cinema
Is it possible for British cinema to survive in an increasingly globalised marketplace, especially against the unstoppable Hollywood juggernaut?

Latest Reflections

The Overwhelming Indifference of Nature: Anthropomorphism in Grizzly Man
Using Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man as a key text, I try to untangle the problems with anthropomorphic attitudes in nature documentaries.
Learning to Loathe the Bomb – Shifting Attitudes Toward Atomic Technology in Early Cold War-era American Film
A look into the unique imagery of the nuclear bomb, how the US government attempted to control that imagery during the Cold War and create an ideology, and how filmmakers rallied against that ideology with satirical films like Dr. Strangelove.
Great Power, Great Profitability — The Rise of the Cinematic Superhero
Why is the superhero so important to Hollywood, and American pop culture as a whole? Using mythological, generic, and industrial frameworks, I attempt to find out the answer.