Fake History is as bad as Fake News

I have written previously about my concern that history is being misrepresented in popular media, first in Is Racism in Historical Dramas being quietly Erased? and then in Why Race in a Historical Context is Important. The arrival of Bridgerton on Netflix has not put my mind at ease. The television series departs from the novels by …

Avatar (2009) Revisited

I like science fiction and, as with so many other enthusiasts, I was excited by the prospect of watching James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ when it was first released. After seeing it, however, I was haunted by a persistent feeling of déjà vu. The story goes like this: an ex-soldier is recruited by a private firm to …

Kingdom (Netflix)

I am not a fan of zombies. I have always found them rather limited as a horror staple. I do, however, enjoy Korean movies. I decided to try Kingdom simply because it was set in medieval Korea and included not just the zombie element but also all the court intrigues involved in a power struggle …

Flatliners (1990) Revisited

Being stuck at home under lockdown makes this an opportune time to indulge myself with another of my passions; cinema! My wife used to work in a video store, back when they were a viable business. She was required to know about films so as to advise the customers, which meant that she brought a …

Why Race in a Historical Context is Important

Back in November 2019 I wrote a piece on now racism in Historical Dramas appears to be in the process of being erased from both cinema and television screens <link>. I recently got into an argument about this very subject again. I made a comment about Armando Iannucci’s latest version of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. …

The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot (2019)

There are two ways to view this film. The first is as the result of a bet for director and writer Robert D Krzykowski to come up with something outlandish and present it as a serious drama, the second is that violence simply takes its toll of the best of us. An elderly Calvin Barr, …

Is Racism in Historical Dramas being quietly Erased?

Last night I went to see the film ‘The Aeronauts’, starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones. It is a story inspired by true events. In 1862 James Glaisher undertook a balloon ascent to test his hypotheses concerning weather and his ability to predict it. The story, written by director Tom Harper and Jack Thorne who …

Joker (2019)

Several reviewers have stated that this film is just one man's descent into insanity; it is not. Joker is one man discovering that society has descended into insanity and it is pulling him down to join it. Arthur Fleck's status as a victim is not an excuse for the crimes he later commits, it is …

Tod Browning’s ‘Freaks’, Have Times Changed?

When I first became interested in the horror movie genre, many years ago now, I read a reference to Tod Browning’s film ‘Freaks’ that fascinated me. It was not so much the lurid portrayal of ‘real freaks’ that attracted my attention, I only had to look in the mirror to see some deformed limbs. The …