film adaptation

In the build-up to the release of Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, there has been a small but vocal public backlash. The crassness of the title, combined with the few promotional stills of Brendan Fraser donned in an Eddie Murphy-style…

The live-action family film has not had a great few years, it must be said. Paul King’s excellent Paddington films were two of the few bright sparks during a time when the genre was beset with rapping chipmunks and an endless supply of…

I had a bad habit when I was 17. Before I could legally buy movies with that blood red "18" cert I was scouring the internet for them. Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit On Your Grave, Ichi the Killer. Nothing was off limits but due to my limited…

For decades it seems we’ve been searching for a new Eden. A natural area untouched by our corrupting influence. Perhaps we can create it through conservation. Perhaps it lies up there, among the stars. In Jeff Vandermeer’s 2014 novel…

Louisa May Alcott’s two-part novel from 1868 and 69 is a curious beast indeed. What, in this critic’s opinion, makes it such a fascinating read is Alcott’s own ambivalence towards the whole endeavour. The same year that the first volume of…

A man I know often ponders the contradiction observed in a mutual friend, a writer. “Why does she write such sad books, and yet have such twinkly eyes?” he laments. The author in question certainly does write very serious fiction. It’s…