Every now and then we meet a literary villain who is both villain and victim. Meet Bella, a young woman who does not take kindly to being sidelined or left behind. You might recognize her. Someone who once worked in your office. Someone who once dated one of your friends. Someone you’d like never to…
Stephen King writes scary horror movies and Pet Sematary, which came out in 1989, is one such example. I didn’t see the original, so I have no point of comparison. Nevertheless, judging this remake purely on its merits … it’s intense and creepy. Pet Sematary follows Dr Louis Creed (Jason Clarke), a doctor who relocates…
Cults, brainwashing and exploitation seem to go hand-in-glove. So it is that a young woman, Lisa – played convincingly by Hayley Worsley – a tried and true member of a sect with Eastern leanings, practising spiritualism and free love, finds herself in the hands of a deprogrammer, Mel (Tim Ferris) in Heretics. Lisa agrees to…
When The Decemberists’ first single for I’ll Be Your Girl, “Severed” showed up on the appropriate alternative-friendly satellite radio stations a few weeks ago, I bet I wasn’t the only fan to begin worrying that the more modern Brit pop leanings of 2015’s What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World had led the Portland-based…
James Marsh (The Theory of Everything) directs the true story of an audacious amateur sailor in The Mercy. The year is 1968 and the sailor is Donald Crowhurst (Colin Firth). With his business and home on the line, Crowhurst decides to leave his wife, Clare (Rachel Weisz), and their children behind to take on an epic…
Although it’s a cliched romantic comedy, Book of Love is not entirely without humour or charm. Henry Copper (Sam Claflin) is an academic turned writer whose debut novel The Sensible Heart is not exactly a page turner, nor has it been flying off the shelves. In fact, when he holds a meet-the-author session, the book…
As clever and highly regarded as it is, I can’t say I particularly warmed to Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter. An atmosphere of frustration and menace permeates the setting – a basement in Birmingham. A couple of hit men are awaiting instructions for their next assignment. As the play starts, Ben (John Wood) – the…
Every night, I curl up in bed with my book of the moment and read until my eyes droop and I shut them ‘just for a moment’ … and then wake up with a jump. Lately my reading pile has been filled with books of or about fairy tales and folklore, with a few exceptions,…
The offspring of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) trying to resolve deep-seated familial issues is front and centre in this official close of the Skywalker odyssey. A largely masked Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is given the opportunity to be the unchallenged galaxy leader, with power and control…
A donkey embarks on an existential journey and witnesses the best and worst of humanity in the latest quirky film from revered Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski (Essential Killing). Both visually and thematically it is an ugly film. A mob of soccer hooligans almost beat Eo to death mistaking it for the mascot for the opposition…
