Review: American Sniper
What makes a sniper American exactly? Being on the right side of a fight? Stencilling “The Punisher” logo on your equipment like a real life Frank Castle? Wearing a baseball cap backwards whilst...
Category: Themes
Review: Selma
One of the most compelling scenes in Selma takes place towards the end of the movie. Martin Luther King Jr. is standing on a bridge surrounded by religious leaders of every denomination. They all...
To Be Or Not To Be Charlie, That Is The Question
On Wednesday 7th of January, Paris made headlines worldwide when two armed men burst into the headquarters of the anarchist satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo to kill the cartoonists they deemed...
Forget Transparent, Transgender Progress is Elsewhere
At Sunday’s Golden Globes ceremony, Amazon series Transparent took two awards: best comedy or musical series, and best actor in a comedy series (Jeffrey Tambor). The world promptly took to the...
Review: Foxcatcher
Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Five Good Emperors, commented that “the art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.” What is more tragic than the forlorn shadow of a fallen athlete...
Is Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken Racist?
Nobody can say that Angelina Jolie doesn't love her subjects. Watching Jolie's Unbroken, a WW2 drama about US soldier Louis Zamperini’s imprisonment in a Japanese labor camp, it was impossible not...
Review: Syfy’s 12 Monkeys
Terry Gilliam is famous for his bizarre, fractal, mysterious approach to filmmaking, whether he’s adapting from texts like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or developing original content. No matter...
Review: Birdman
What is it with back-stories? Every self-respecting superhero seems to need one and preferably the darker the better. The origin of this and the origin of that, why can’t they just be? Who said we...
The view from the “Islamic State” Magazine
Northeast of Syria's largest city Aleppo sits the small town of Dabiq. Before the war which continues to ravage Syria began in 2011 its population was below 4,000. It is noteworthy for the simple...
Review: Black Mirror
The US is in an ecstasy of delight: At precisely the moment when everyone is done with their families, desperate for a reason to retreat into their bunkholes, and starting to weary of vacation, the...