On Cinema
My war stories
The role of the war film in British cinema
Wall St wolves
On money, morality and motive in three films
Sound of a free press?
How did a film wishing to highlight the sexual exploitation of children become a culture war?
Acting his age
What happens to film franchises when action heroes age?
We don’t need another (super)hero
The shrinking world of the superhero franchise film.
The wild north
On screen savage battles, middle-aged villains, decline and disease are reviewed by Robert Hutton
Into thin Air
A pro-capitalist cinematic curiosity
Killer roles
The Dungeons & Dragons romp-com
Taking flight
Why planes make such a great setting for films
The human subject
Tár is a film of moving ambiguities
Eerie decadence
“Blink Twice” accelerates from black comedy to dark drama
London and the laggards
In the eighteenth century London was booming, but many towns weren’t doing so well
“Bold vision”
An action or choice can perfectly well be bold without being good
Landfill indie remembered
A Golden Age? It was barely a Plastic Age
Ireland must accept the Cass Review
The Republic is ignoring the disturbing evidence about youth transition
Forces of nature
Antonin Dvorak: Symphonies (Warner/Pentatone)
Playing the long game
Rishi Sunak misjudged the electorate by prioritising tax cuts over the country’s future
How H&W hit the iceberg
The opportunism and ineptitude that brought Belfast’s shipbuilding industry to its knees
Fleeing Sally Rooney’s god
Why have critics been ignoring one of the novelist’s most important themes?
Starmer’s tax will hurt children
It is not just a tax, it is cruel theft
Power and authority
The development of British towns in the 17th and 18th centuries
