As tradition dictates, the following is a round-up of all the year’s viewing, reading and working. 2025 has been a somewhat tricky year and I’ve decided to not be quite so exhaustive in writing up the detail of my viewing in particular, not least because the quality of films has been somewhat lower than previous years. Juggling the requirements of my work with a few … Continue reading 2025 Review
Welcome to this year’s End of Year review; my usual, long-winded run-down of my excessive viewing and reading habits. It’s been an exhausting but rewarding year of films, television and books, and the sheer length of this post should evidence that. One interesting thing to note is how much happier I feel having virtually ignored the majority of post-2010s culture. Such a decision was not … Continue reading 2024 Review
It’s that time of year once again when I look back on everything I’ve watched and read (and wonder whether I should really get out more). While my interests have become a kind of prison, I couldn’t hope for a more entertaining one. So, here’s my review of 2023. Thank you for reading my work throughout the year, wherever you may have seen it. Cinema … Continue reading 2023 Review
This article was originally commissioned as part of an ongoing series for Little White Lies. As the photograph was damaged by rain, and not wanting to revisit to re-do the photograph, the article is published here. Further installments of the column are ongoing and can be read here. One of the great screen presences of cinema’s Golden Age, Jean Simmons forged a strong career on … Continue reading Beginnings: Jean Simmons
In what has undoubtedly been a cursed year, I have been thankfully kept sane by a number of things, namely films and books but also a few other outlets of frustration. Suffice to say, when you’re taking solace from a hobby for which the tagline is ‘In the grim darkness of far future, there is only war’, you can bet it has been a pretty … Continue reading 2020 Review
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo (1970) has rightly earned a place in the pantheon of cult cinema. Watch any number of documentaries or interviews with the man himself and the film will often stand proud as the pioneer of the “Midnight Movie”; a film obviously shown late due to its content but also exuding free reign over all of its creative aspects. Researching further into the … Continue reading El Topo and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (Jodorowsky and Gabriel).
This article contains spoilers. For a film named after a jazz standard, Abbas Kiarostami’s Like Someone In Love (2012) plays very little with the notion or question of music and sound. Recalling the film only brings to mind one scene where music is used as a narrative ploy while the rest of it is more occupied with something more visually typical. This perhaps begs a … Continue reading Like Someone In Love (2013) – Visual and Emotional Reflections.
Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville (1965) was one of the first pieces of non-Anglo American cinema that I watched. It may have been diving in toward the deep end in some regards but something became very striking about the film as its running time trickled by. It said more than other dystopias, noirs or sci-fi but this “more” wasn’t to do with anything that could be described … Continue reading Alphaville (1965) and the Absurdities of Cinema – Jean-Luc Godard.
Part 1. Part 2. Metaphorical Music and British New Wave Film. “But who could describe the delicious sensation produced in me by the delicate harmony and angelic singing of that song which finally did! What an awakening, what bliss, what ecstasy when I opened my ears and my eyes together!” (Rousseau, 1781, p.294). British New Wave Film. The British New Wave movement, like so many … Continue reading The Use of Sound & Music in British Working Class Film – Part 3 (British New Wave Cinema).
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Asia Extreme and the Westernisation of South Korean Film Music. The most popular avenue for South Korean cinema to enter the West, outside of the art-house festival circuit, is in the form that has loosely been dubbed “Asia Extreme”. This isn’t just South Korean film but also Japanese cinema as well as a number of others. The sub-genre is … Continue reading South Korean Film Scores and Ease of Distribution – Part 4 (Asia Extreme and Westernisation)
Celluloid Wicker Man 