Kindness Over Cruelty: Ricky Gervais softens up British Humor
In last month’s Vanity Fair, A. A. Gill, a writer on both sides of the Atlantic, did his best to summarise British comedy for an American audience. “It’s bully humour”,…
Return of the Awkward Twenty-Somethings: Girls, Season Two
Hotter than a vintage market’s last pair of sunglasses, Girls has returned to Sky Atlantic for its second series. Directed by Lena Dunham, who recently won a Golden Globe for…
My Mad Fat Diary: Not that mental
Back in November, David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook demonstrated that on-screen treatment of mental illness combined with comedy need not be tasteless. E4’s new 6-part teen comedy/drama, My Mad…
Zero Interest for Zero Dark
Zero Dark Thirty should by all rights have been a terrific film. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who won an Oscar for her war drama The Hurt Locker, starring up-and-comer Jessica…
American History X: Spielberg Edition
Stephen Spielberg is comfortable with historical epics. From the sombre brilliance of Schindler’s List to the explosive power of Saving Private Ryan, his is the realm of the majestic. Lincoln,…
Visual Power: Zero Dark Thirty and Life of Pi
On Friday, in a fit of cinematic excess, I saw two films – first, Kathryn Bigelow’s gritty, controversial Zero Dark Thirty, followed by Ang Lee’s joyous adaptation of Yann Martel’s…
Making Miracles From the Mundane: Why Claymation Still Works
The release of the long-awaited Monsters, Inc prequel, Monster’s University, reveals just how much CGI animation has grown over the past decade. Back in 2001, when Pixar released the original…
Django Unchained excels, Waltz and all
I’ll start with a statement about Django Unchained, and then I’ll spend most of the rest of the review justifying it. Django Unchained is cool. Like, really fucking cool. So…
