We were on holiday in Northumberland, near Hadrian’s Wall, visiting lots of Roman archaeological sites, so we thought we’d watch … More
Category: Films
A dream
I’ve known the story of Gawain and the Green Knight for a long time, initially from Roger Lancelyn Green’s King … More
Judging hope
Martin Compston is best known for appearing in the entertainingly silly police fantasy Line of Duty, but his first acting … More
Keeping faith
Frank Herbert’s Dune has been a part of my life for many years—I started reading it for the first time … More
Not quite
Martin Scorsese has something of a reputation as a film maker who does movies about criminals in New York, but … More
Vivid conviction
Martin Scorsese enjoys making films about criminals. He likes representing their lives and their culture, and he often collaborates with … More
Rhyming cinema
One thing I’ve had reinforced through watching the Rudolph Maté directed Robert Mitchum vehicle Second Chance (1953), is the total … More
Surface is depth
Orlando is a very complex and sophisticated film based on a very complex and sophisticated book which I haven’t read. … More
No conflict
The American economy has had its ups and downs—in the 1970s manufacturing crashed so badly that several large cities were … More
Still hidden
Hidden Figures tells the long untold story of the black women who worked as mathematicians at NASA in the 1950s … More
Menacing angles
Certain times in certain places almost produce stories by themselves. Post Second World War Vienna was one such, a city … More
Doing it every day
Watching the second film in our self-selected route through Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series, I had in my mind the … More
Excavating justice
I don’t come from Suffolk, but I’ve lived here the vast majority of my adult life, and I have family … More
Getting off the train
One of the books that has made the greatest impact on me is Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. … More