Canadian poet and classicist, Anne Carson, has followed up The Autobiography of Red with this stunning “sequel”, Red Doc>. G, the central character, a winged being and herdsman like his mythical namesake, Geryon, is on a road trip with artist, Ida (who looks like a “tough experimental baby”), and his former lover, Herakles, now in Read More
Having read nothing beyond the most basic plot synopsis for Don Jon, I was not expecting much from this screening. I assumed “Jersey-Shore style ladies’ man and porn connoisseur finds love with woman who expects him to change his lifestyle” was going to be a puerile comedy running entirely on sex jokes and cleavage shots. Read More
After spending 6 months researching in Glasgow, Pedro Lenz releases his debut Swiss-German novel Der Goalie bin Ig. What’s special about this book? It is written entirely in the vernacular Swiss-German ‘Mundart’. What’s even more special is that Donal McLaughlin has painstakingly translated the work into a thick, west –Scottish dialect and released the novel Read More
This film begins with the obvious portents: Dr. Ryan Stone (her father wanted a boy), played by Sandra Bullock, is space sick; her ECG levels are off and she can’t adapt to the constant movement of anti-gravity. After only 6 months of intensive NASA training, the medical engineer embarks on her first mission aboard the Read More
John MacKenna writes prolifically, and to acclaim, across the full spectrum – playwriting, novels, short stories, biography, documentary, radio and poetry. He approaches all of these different forms from the tri-fold backdrop of writing, producing and acting. All of this lays the foundation for his third poetry collection, Where Sadness Begins. Collected in four parts, Read More
Short Term 12 is director Destin Cretton’s first feature length film but, if its success is anything to go by, it will not be his last. The film won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 2013 SXSW Festival and, on the whole, brings a refreshing subtlety to Read More
In Arabic, Adéle’ means ‘justice’, and it’s wonderful to see that Abdellatif Kechiche’s masterpiece has rightfully received it’s ‘Adéle’ – not only in critical accolades but in global audience attention too. This film is overflowing with subjects to discuss: New Queer Cinema, physicality, use of colour, twenty-first century existentialism (which Adéle defines as “existence, essence; Read More
The Devil in the ocean, [how] it had cursed the town and all the children in it. Paul Wright’s first feature length film has been widely anticipated after his short Until the River Runs Red, a story of a little girl, God’s daughter, lost and wandering in the wilderness, won Best Short at the BAFTA Read More
Norman Jope’s Aphinar is not an easy read. It is a collection which requires full investment from the reader. It is ambitious. The diction is complex and the content rich – dense, even. As far as first impressions are concerned, Aphinar is, without doubt, intimidating. Yet, it is also immediately captivating – cohesive, intricate and Read More
Ovid wrote Heroides over 2000 years ago, and in the succeeding millennia attitudes towards this remarkable text have veered from reverence to disdain. Once his most celebrated work, recent critics have held it in less high regard. This series of letters from the women of Greek and Roman myth to their absent lovers has been Read More