For Stephen Spielberg, the story of a rampant Republican government wielding its power to silence the free press was simply too prescient to reject; the urgency apparent even during Trump's notorious campaign and before his employment of "alternative facts". A believer in objective truth, Spielberg set to work assembling a cast and crew, creating the film Read More
This new collection of poetry, from Suffolk-based writer Semmens, takes as its title a quote from Joseph Stalin, dated 1938. The Soviet leader’s reflection, and the volume itself, look backwards over the “purges” – the waves of political assassinations and executions that were implemented twenty years after the Russian Revolution. This historical resonances of the Read More
The first thing to mention about Sean Baker’s modern classic The Florida Project is how beautifully understated it is. At no moment does this film feel like it is shoving its contents in your face, desperate to leave a lasting impression. Instead, the performances that capture your attention are at once so subtle, yet Read More
[…] Dear wall, dear gate, dear stile, dear Dutch door, not a cat-flap nor a swinging door but a one-time piñata. […] Entering any body of work via an “Ode to the Hymen” announces, with undeniable chutzpah, that things are about to change; really, there’s no going back. Sharon Olds’ most recent collection Odes Read More
Anyone who has seen The Lobster – which I wholeheartedly recommend you do – will have an inkling of what to expect from Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film. That is if you can imagine the slow, ominous oddity of The Lobster cross-bred with the domestic horror of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. It is a ghastly, grisly, Read More
Written and directed by one of the hottest screenwriters of the past two decades, Molly’s Game is an explosive, fast-paced drama that seeks to uncover the truth about Molly Bloom. The self-styled “Princess of Poker”, Bloom sought to gain vast sums of money by running illegal poker games in L.A and New York, enticing some Read More
As its title suggests, Jacqueline Saphra’s latest collection, All My Mad Mothers, is about women and family. Saphra’s poems examine the multifaceted nature of femininity, individual and universal, moving within, between and beyond the roles designated to women. This applies particularly to familial roles she inhabits – mother, daughter, stepdaughter – but also examined is Read More
“The variety of work a photographer, who devotes his time to subjects outside the studio, is called upon to do […] is what no one would believe.” So said Magnus Jackson in a communication to the Dundee and East of Scotland Photographic Association in 1881. This new exhibition at Perth Museum, of reproductions of his Read More
Ten minutes ago, I wrote these words. Ten minutes; now I think I think them. They knew me first, I fear, another me went first and thought them. Roddy Lumsden’s tenth collection, So Glad I’m Me, has a misleading title; in fact, one of the major themes of the collection questions the very nature of Read More
This poetry collection is Douglas Dunn’s first since 2001. Since then he has focused on editing poetry anthologies; The Noise of a Fly is an innovative return to form. Here we find work by a mature poet, sometimes painfully self-aware. As ever, Dunn casts new light on diverse subjects, whether environmental or cultural. Douglas Dunn Read More