I want to talk to you about role-playing games. No, not the kinky kind, the ones where a bunch of people get together and pretend to be someone else for an evening, going off having adventures. Not online – though that can be fun – but face to face, in […]
Editorial
Agatha Christie: Nice Mysteries, Shame About the Prejudice
Agatha Christie has a certain reputation. If you’ve never read her books, you might associate her with twee, cozy, country mysteries featuring genteel and civilised murderers who delicately despatch their victims, perhaps a body in a library, the kind of coffee-table read favoured by older ladies as they sip their […]
Don’t play that, play this: alternatives to classic board games
Why Modern Hollywood Hates Plot Twists
[WARNING: this article contains spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, all three Iron Man films, most of the Christopher Nolan Batman films, and, y’know, everything else.] Sitting down to watch Park Chan-Wook’s The Handmaiden recently, I experienced a pleasure I’d almost forgotten about; […]
Hollywood’s Greatest Underdog
The French film Elle, recently selected for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination, is soon to be released next month in America, bringing the name Verhoeven back into the limelight — although, perhaps not in the way that we might expect. Paul Verhoeven elicits controversy. His films are rarely without contention, […]