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 …

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 …

Stan & Ollie (2018)

As biographical films go this movie achieves a clever launch of the story of Laurel and Hardy. It begins with the pair informing the audience all about their lives in 1937 as they conduct a conversation while making their way to the set of their latest film, ‘Way Out West’. It is a very clever …

The Frankenstein Chronicles

I am very used to people messing around with established works to produce something inferior. There is the 2015 movie ‘Victor Frankenstein’ for example. I like to think that James McAvoy was as disappointed with the script as I was, hence why he played the title character in such a pantomime fashion. Neither he nor …

The Challenge of Dialogue

One aspect of my written work that I think has changed since I published 'The War Wolf' in 2013 is the dialogue. It is not a dramatic change and I am not talking about just grammar or spelling or punctuation, it is more a question of style, I first noticed this when I was writing …

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 …