Category: Movie Review
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Some Favourite Jewish Movie Recs

I’ve been having a great deal of fun watching The Pitt recently, it’s been wonderful watching a show that’s so joyful and complex not just in its Jewish characters and storylines, but also in its complex approach to ethics and philosophy within a medical workplace. I definitely understand what they mean about intending it as…
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My Favourite Films of 2025

My top watches of the year! 2025 was a really good year for me flicks-wise, and it’s been a great year for film in general — a lot more of my favourites are new releases than usual, and a fair few of them I actually watched in the cinema. I watched 120 films in 2025 — a few were rewatches — and…
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Movie Review: Victor/Victoria (1982, dir. Blake Edwards)

Had the absolute pleasure of going along to the Pictureville cinema here in Bradford this weekend to watch Victor/Victoria (1982, dir. Blake Edwards) as part of their Widescreen Weekend film festival. It was on my radar for a while, but I’d never gotten around to watching it, and when some friends of mine were going…
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Alien: Romulus: An Abortive Attempt at Homage to a Classic

Romulus started out promising, then proved itself an awful disappointment. The original Alien (1979) is far and away one of my favourite sci-fi films, one I’ve written about in the past, and I have a lot of affection for Aliens (1986) and even Alien 3 (1992), for all I feel it has its narrative flaws.…
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The Devouring Gaze in The First Omen

The horror of surveillance and surveilling in Arkasha Stevenson’s The First Omen (2024). Cap via ScreenAnarchy. I was saying the other night after we came out of the cinema that for the past few years, it really feels like I can trust horror films more than virtually any other film — horror films generally have a specific, presumed…
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Crimson Peak: A Love Letter To Gothic Romance

Adoring thoughts on Guillermo Del Toro’s 2015 masterpiece. This review and bit of analysis is related to the talk I’ll be giving on Crimson Peak tomorrow, responses to misogyny and marginalisation in and around Gothic fiction, and how much of this social conservatism is mirrored in BookTok and modern retorts to problematic fiction. All proceeds…
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My Top 6 Films of 2023

Just some recommendations for my favourite new releases of last year! Photo by Wyron A on Unsplash 2023 had a few knock-out hits as far as the cinema goes — obviously, people were very excited about the respective releases of Barbie and Oppenheimer, but my top films of the year were a bit different. One thing I do think…
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Raped and Ruined: Themes of Sexual Assault and Reproductive Coercion in Alien (1979)
Theme: Capitalism, Theme: Debt & Money Troubles, Theme: Gender Exploration & Nonconformity, Theme: Horrors & Thrillers, Theme: Misogyny & Sexism, Theme: Monsters & Monsterfucking, Theme: Patriarchy & White Supremacy, Theme: Pregnancy & Reproduction, Theme: Science Fiction Movies & Books, Theme: Sexual Abuse & Rape, Theme: Sexual Health & Midwifery
Exploring the underlying anxieties around sexual assault, loss of bodily autonomy, and forced impregnation in Alien (1979). From Merriam-Webster: Rape: unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person’s will or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of…