Connor Lightbody 
Italian director Yuri Ancarani declares in his Venice Film Festival statement that “Atlantide is a film that began without a screenplay.” It could very well be said that it still hasn’t got one. There are, perhaps, 15 lines of dialogue in Ancarani’s ridiculous and amateurish film about Daniele, (Daniele Barison) …
Edgar Wright, acclaimed cult director of Baby Driver and Hot Fuzz fame, directs Last Night In Soho with a breezy smoothness, but this vibrant, pulpy horror is disappointingly toothless. In contemporary Cornwall, naive and fresh faced 18 year old Eloise ‘Ellie’ Turner (Thomasin McKenzie) is standing in her room. Fashion …
In 1970, Judy Blume’s eponymous novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was published. The book, a grounded curtail pull on teenage sexuality, was met with indignation by certain literary factions of the USA, going as far as banning the book in certain states over its discussion of menstruation …
At this year’s iteration of the Edinburgh Film Festival, I sat down with director Will Seefried to discuss his debut feature Lilies Not For Me. The film explores the relationship between old school friends Owen (Fionn O’Shea) and Phillip (Robert Aramayo) as they begin a homosexual relationship in the quiet …
If there’s one person you want to cast in your movie about a man waging war against local thugs, who slowly but surely has a mental collapse, it’s the ever-eccentric Nicolas Cage. Pair Cage with Lorcan Finnegan, director of bizarre suburban horror Vivarium, and you have a match made in …
The AppleTV+ show Severance is an extraordinary feat of imaginative filmmaking. Over the course of a critically acclaimed first season, and three episodes of funky mystery-box plotting, and a crazy cliffhanger which saw Outie Mark begin to be psychologically recalibrated with his Innie, the show has consistently agitated and cajoled …
The title of episode three of Severance season two, Who Is Alive?, is a question. In a show that is constantly asking questions, this is only the second instance of the title itself existing as a question. The first was in season one, with the episode What’s For Dinner? which …
Winning an award is always an achievement worthy of noting. The first season of Severance, the superb Apple TV+ thriller where characters sever their brains to become two people (an Innie for work life, and an Outie for home life) earned several but the one that feels most salient to …
There will be no chicanery in this review about what Companion is about, even if the film spends a minor chunk of time attempting to shroud the obvious in double entendres. This obviousness, shall it not be devised from the opening few minutes, the revealing trailer – or from the …
When Apple announced their appearance on the streaming market, there was palpable excitement amongst media fans. Allowing filmmakers and creatives to play with big budgets to create vibrant, energetic stories nearly totally liberated from network executives was a concept unfamiliar within the media zeitgeist. That excitement soon deflated after AppleTV+ …
When Doctor Who Christmas specials first began with the 2005 revival, they often existed lateral to main storylines bar the occasional outlier (such as The Time of the Doctor). With The Church on Ruby Road last year, though, Ncuti Gatwa’s tenure as The Doctor began with an episode that sparked …
There is a long history of verite cinema within the documentary format. Within conversations that surround the ethics of this more observational form, we discern a conflict: on the necessity of intervention. This is a contentious topic, particularly within the filming of nature documentaries, where the observer must not intervene …
Unlike the rest of my reviews for this season of Doctor Who, this review will contain spoilers for the episode. What marks this change is that Empire of Death is one of the worst finales of Doctor Who, and to efficiently discuss and critique the episode in a manner that …
Well, it seems that we need to say happy holidays to Netflix. Black Doves is the Christmas present you never knew you needed. Think…socks. An expensive, robust pair of socks that doesn’t have holes in them by March. They might not be what you asked for, might not have been …
On the 26th September 2021, screenwriter Russell Hainline posted on Twitter: “Just had the best idea for a Hallmark Christmas movie holy sh-t holy sh-t holy sh-t.” On the 13th November 2024, Netflix released the end result of this tweet: Hot Frosty. Mr. Hainline’s tweet made allusions to Hot Frosty …
In 2019, author Holly Jackson released the YA fiction novel A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder to critical acclaim. It went on to win 2020’s British Book Awards Children’s Fiction Book Winner of the Year and, as with most award-winning novels, it was soon picked up for a television adaption. …
There are few institutions in this world that are more heavily regarded and reviled in equal measure than the Catholic church. From the sects of religious devotees that populate social pockets of the world to their portrayal in modern media that places them in the spotlight for heinous acts of …
The manic pixie dream girl trope, where an eccentric young woman exists solely to expand and incite growth in a male protagonist, is criticised widely for lacking dimensional fortitude. Yet it continues to be utilised as a narrative framework, and too often without insight into the girl at the heart …
Genre within art is a funny thing. They are arbitrary bindings that place films in little boxes, more often than not segregating the ideas within on aesthetic merits. Their necessity is up for debate, but sometimes the argument finds itself presented on screen. Director Cooper Roberts’ charming and energetic debut …
Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice screened out of competition at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on August 28, 2024. There are few directors in which can truly be accredited with the title of ‘auteur’, but Tim Burton, with his affinity for the macabre, can be called just that. Over a …