Do the Write Thing
Unexpected Cures of Lockdown Boredom
(Mary Elizabeth Winstead in '10 Cloverfield Lane') After a hard year of loss, struggle, and isolation, we are hopefully coming to the end...
Preserving What’s Already Lost: 'Wildlife' (2018)
(Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal in 'Wildlife') “You see, people like to come in here to remember something good that’s happening in...
'The Wednesday Play' Digest: Episode One
(Blog written February, 2021) Over the next few months I am going to be writing short pieces on here covering television plays from The...
'Small Axe: Mangrove' (2020)
(A long review of 'Small Axe: Mangrove', written January 2021) (Still from 'Mangrove') Mangrove is the first of Steve McQueen’s (12 Years...
'Lady Macbeth' (2016) Review (Sight and Sound)
(A review of 'Lady Macbeth' written in the house style of Sight and Sound, written Spring 2017) Lady Macbeth United Kingdom, 2016...
Dorothy Arzner and the Hollywood System
(An essay on Dorothy Arzner’s Merrily We Go to Hell (1932) and The Bride Wore Red (1937) discussed in relation to their social, cultural...
Peeping Through the Screen: The Voyeuristic Thriller (Cinema Programme)
(A mock film season at a local cinema, written Spring 2018) (Still from 'Peeping Tom') Why do we watch film? This season of films at the...
Wilder's Wistfulness: Modern Isolation in 'The Apartment' (Eureka! Masters of Cinema)
(A mock essay accompanying a Eureka! Masters of Cinema DVD release of 'The Apartment', written Spring 2018) (Still from 'The Apartment')...
Middle-Class Youth Rebellion and Male Identity in 'Giant' (1956) and 'The Left Handed Gun' (1958)
(A chapter from my postgraduate dissertation 'Lonesome Shadows and Majestic Visions: Middle-Class Alienation in the Post-War Western')...
Discussions of Class and the Welfare State in Wartime British Cinema
(Essay written January, 2019) (Still from the opening credits of 'Waterloo Road') In the latter stages of the Second World War, when it...
Navigating the Modern World: Uncanny Spaces in the Works of Kafka, Magritte, and Antonioni
(Essay written April 2019) (L'Avventura) Throughout the history of ‘the uncanny’, in its investigation as an aesthetic category and as a...
Immersive Cinema: Affectivity and Mimicry in 'Polyester' (1981)
(Essay written January, 2019) (Still from 'Polyester') Immersive cinema, as I use the term in this essay, constitutes a type of cinematic...
The Monroe Walk: Charting Change in Late Chrysanthemums (1954)
(An excerpt from my undergraduate dissertation on post-war Japanese cinema) Late Chrysanthemums (Bangiku), another Hayashi adaptation,...
An Era of Discontent: 'Made in Britain' (1982)
(Blog written Summer, 2018) (Made in Britain) By the end of the 1970s the British economy was in severe stagnation, punk blazed in the...
Pier Paolo Pasolini: Alternative Modes of Expression
(Essay written Spring, 2018) The ‘mainstream’ as a label in the arts is partly a signifier of what is popular, and partly an insult. In...
An Analysis of 'Blind Shaft' (2003)
(Essay written Spring, 2018) (Blind Shaft) Chinese cinema’s ‘Sixth-Generation’, also known as ‘the Urban Generation’, has become China’s...
The Depths of Despair: Bill Douglas' 'My Childhood' (1972)
(Blog written Spring, 2017) (My Childhood) Upon graduating from the London Film School (BFI, 2003-14), Bill Douglas embarked upon making...
