Movies

In the intervening 20 years between The Devil Wears Prada and its sequel, the fashion and publishing industries have revolutionised. The former has leant more readily into fast fashion and mass consumption, while the latter has been almost entirely decimated – magazines like the fictional ​‘Runway’ (a ​‘Vogue’ analogue) now exist almost exclusively in an online sphere…

Coachella recently wrapped up its 25th edition, and the main takeaway was that women ruled. Superstars such as Sabrina Carpenter and Addison Rae reaffirmed their global dominance, offering energetic sets highlighted by expert choreography, arresting songs, and a compelling sense of scale and drama. Very cinematic, too. Pop music is the culture’s soundtrack, and while…

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that some literary projects are simply not meant to be reimagined as feature films or television series. Or, at least, it used to be. Now, with successful adaptations of previously deemed “unfilmable” classics like Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and Frank Herbert’s “Dune” finding their way to screens both large…

O’Malley’s videos feature the wild plot twists and whiplash juxtapositions of a short-attention-span culture; watching them can be as abrasive as sitting next to a person on the bus flicking through Reels without earbuds in. What I’ve described above is only the pre-credit sequence of Coreys (which is, incredibly, only 12 minutes long). It soon descends into a frankly Lynchian…

A recent assumption about modern cinema – challenged by Caitlin Quinlan – is that if a film makes you cry, it must be good. I believe in horror a similar argument is often upheld: if it makes you jump, it must be good. The problem is, just as there are many dramas that evoke tears without becoming memorable, there…

This month, the very last EbertFest took place in downtown Champaign, Illinois, in the magnificent Virginia Theater, a 1000-seat venue that’s over a century old. Originally known as The Overlooked Film Festival, EbertFest ran for 25 years, starting in 2001. It was founded by Roger Ebert and his wife and partner Chaz Ebert (who also founded…

Cosy crime gets a CGI spit-shine in Kyle Balda’s likable screen adaptation of Leonie Swann’s 2005 novel ​‘Three Bags Full’. First we’ll address a couple of little FAQs: No, it’s not a film about detectives searching for missing or murdered sheep; Yes, it is a film about sheep who attempt to work out who murdered the shepherd that loved…

Trailers for director David Lowery’s “Mother Mary” have cheekily referred to it as “Not a ghost story,” likely a reference to the director’s 2017 film of the same name. Make no mistake, though: this is very much an exorcism story, one that also focuses on a spirit that refuses to leave its chosen place of…

In 2021, Housemarque and Sony Interactive Entertainment released one of the best games of the current generation, a punishingly addictive experience called “Returnal.” Combining the brutality of a Soulslike game with the unpredictability of the Roguelike genre, “Returnal” was unlike anything else that year, winning multiple awards for its remarkable design. Five years later, Housemarque…

The wonderfully demented “Widow’s Bay” plays out almost like an anthology of Stephen King short stories, shuffling supernatural urban legends in a small New England community with equal parts humor and horror. It is truly unlike anything else on TV, a wild swing of tonal shifts that works because it commits so fully to both…