In centuries past, wealthy eccentrics would sometimes entertain, shock, and astound dinner-guests by showing them collections of intriguing, and frequently downright bizarre, items known as “Cabinet(s) of Curiosities”; these could contain anything from fragmentary relics of dead civilizations to some crude taxidermied chimera constructed by sewing the torso of a […]
Pop Culture
One Last Trip Inside No 9 (2024) Final Series Roundup
Binge-watching Inside No. 9 last summer is one of the best viewing decisions I’ve ever made. Within just a few days, I was three series in and the show had become one of my all-time favourites and, though some episodes are weaker than others and some of their experiments feel […]
Doctor Who (2024) The Legend of Ruby Sunday & Empire of Death (Review) – It’s Certainly A Finale (SPOILERS)
So, it seems that the Doctor Who fanbase has never been unanimously happy with any Doctor Who finale since the show’s return in 2005. For every really solid finale (Parting Of The Ways, Journey’s End, and The Doctor Falls) fans still complain about deus ex machinas, plot contrivances and nonsensical […]
I Saw The TV Glow (2024) An urgent personal plea that could change the world (Review)
I Saw The TV Glow should come with a warning. It’s a film you can’t prepare for, with no easy answers other than the ones you may not want to face, a film you can’t unsee. There are few adjectives more thudding when critiquing a film than ‘important’, but it’s […]
Doctor Who (2024) Rogue – Extremely Fun Period Piece Romp Misses A Few Opportunities (Review)
Rogue is the closest thing we’ve had to a ‘normal’ Doctor Who episode all series. I’m not criticising there – I’ve loved the experimentation and the changes in format – but at the same time, a classic period romp with a big camp monster and star-studded supporting cast isn’t going […]
Doctor Who (2024) Dot & Bubble (SPOILER REVIEW) An Unexpectedly Bleak and Brilliant Treat
Even though it’s been out for less than a day at the time of writing this, I feel like the ending of Dot & Bubble will get talked about much more than the rest of the episode. The final five minutes are fantastic, and I will get to them, but […]
Godzilla, Godzilla 1985, and Piracy vs. Preservation
The film industry flourished out of piracy. From the moment a score of upstart studios and East Coast hucksters absconded from the New York backyard of Edison and his patent trolls to set-up their operations in the balmy, perennially filmable (and, via the Mexican border fewer than 100 miles away, […]
Doctor Who (2024) 73 Yards – A Genre-Bending and Potentially Era-Defining Episode (Review)
If you’re a Doctor Who fan, you’ve heard of the phrase “Doctor-lite story” and know what it refers to. It’s an episode that features minimal appearances from the Doctor (and in most cases the main companion as well), instead focusing on another group of characters battling a monster or some […]
The Sympathizer (2024) Drama with a sharp, piercing gaze and political purpose (Preview)
‘Start at the cinema’, commands our protagonist’s interrogator at the open of The Sympathizer, the new HBO miniseries from Park Chan-wook. It’s a statement of intent. When literature is adapted to screen, there’s a tendency for that origin to be overly reflected in the form. For intertitles, verbosity, and establishing […]
Doctor Who (2024) Boom: An Adrenaline-Fuelled Comeback For Steven Moffat (Review)
Much like how I never thought we’d see the return of Russell T. Davies to Doctor Who in any capacity, nevermind showrunner, I never thought we’d see Steven Moffat returning to pen an episode. Back in Russell’s first stint in the showrunner chair, Moffat was the show’s most revered guest writer, […]