Features

NB = Online work only; for a shorter list of more recent work, including print-only work, click here.
For reviews of individual films (from press screenings, commercial releases, etc.), click here.

ANNIVERSARIES (by film)

Frenzy at 40 (Aug 12)

Ghostbusters at 30: zeitgeist poltergeists (Oct 14)
The Godfather Part II at 40 (Feb 14)

Home Alone 2 at 20 (and 21) (Dec 13)

Taxi Driver at 35 (Apr 11)

BOOK REVIEWS (by most recent)

Manchevski (Marina Kostova)
Hou Hsiao-Hsien (Richard I. Suchenski) (Nov 14)

In Times Like These: Lubitsch Can't Wait (various) (May 14)

The Sky Between the Leaves (David Walsh) (Feb 14)

The View From the Train (Patrick Keiller) (Jan 14)

Studying The Bourne Ultimatum (Neil Archer) (Jan 13)

The Doll Princess (Tom Benn) (Jan 12)

COLUMN: ECONOMIC MEASURES/GESTURES (by most recent)

Christmas, Again (Dec 15)
Ferrara and Pasolini (Aug 15)
Tavernier and Noiret (May 15)
Dalton Trumbo (Apr 15)
Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Jan 15)

Body Counts (Sep 14)

Erotikon (Jul 14)

I Wouldn't Like to Be a Man (May 14)

Wrestling with Kinski (May 14)

Aurora (Apr 14)

The Stranger (Feb 14)

The Street Fighter (Oct 13)

The Great Beauty (Sep 13)
Riff-Raff (Aug 13)
One. Two. One (Jul 13)
The New World (Jul 13)
Heat (Jul 13)

ESSAYS/ARTICLES (by most recent)
The Cinematic North East (Jul 18)
Living in the End Times: Strange Days (Mar 18)
Anywhere but Here: Mati Diop (Mar 18)
Strange Things Still Happen in This World: Self-Criticism of a Bourgeois Dog (Jan 18)
A King in New York: Jerry Lewis in The King of Comedy (Jan 18)
Diamonds Aren't Forever: The Anderson Tapes (Dec 17)
Money Games: Fatal Assistance and Murder in Pacot (Nov 17)
Democracy Now, and Always: A German Youth (Oct 17)
A Ghost Story: Almost Heaven (Oct 17)
Tales of Two Halves: The State I Am In and The City Below (Sep 17)
Battle Royale: The Graduation (Sep 17)
Welcome to Hell: Impression of a War (Aug 17)
Don't Let Them Deceive You: The Event (Aug 17)
This House Is Haunted: Sarah Winchester, Phantom Opera (Apr 17)
Playthings Playing Things Straight: Viva (Mar 17)
Italian Psycho: Investigations of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Feb 17)
Love Actually: Modern Romance (Feb 17)
Arthouse Rocco: Catherine Breillat (Jan 17)
Shapeshifter: Mysterious Object at Noon (Jan 17)
Concrete and Clay: Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) (Dec 16)
Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Blue Room (Oct 16)
Terrorize This: Team America World Police (Aug 16)
Cows Aren't Built to Swim: Kelly Reichardt (Aug 16)
Stick Figures Getting Sick: It's Such a Beautiful Day (Jul 16)
Water Rackets: Erin Brockovich (Jul 16)
Cannons and Balls: Whose and How? (Jul 16)
Not the Size of the Dog in the Fight (Jul 16)
Flashbulb Satire: Horrors Preordained (Jun 16)
A Story for the Oksmans: O Futebol (Jun 16)
A Specter Is Haunting: Europe, She Loves (Jun 16)
Roads to Perdition: The Brown Bunny (May 16)
The Sum of All Fears: Fail-Safe (May 16)
An Agony in Eight Fits: Out 1 (Apr 16)
Back to the Future: Androids Dream and El Futuro (Apr 16)
No Home Movie: P.S. Jerusalem (Mar 16)
Pebbles That Clatter and Spark: Four Films by John Cassavetes (Mar 16)
Writing's On the Wall: Possession (Mar 16)
California Eulogies (Dec 15)
Limbo land: Sarunas Bartas (Sep 15)
Earth, Sky and Steel: Sergei Loznitsa (Aug 15)
Walter Hill, Renegade Poet of Action Cinema (Jun 15)
Fascism, Flames and Pharaohs: A History of Cinecitta Film Studios (Jun 15)
Branding Change (Jun 15)
Practice Makes... (Jun 15)
Is Katharina Gruzei's 'Cinéma Variété' the Scariest Short Film Ever Made? (May 15)
Strife and the City: Urban Space and the Essay Film (Mar 15)

Pregnant Airs and History's Heirs (Mar 15)
Fishes Out of Water (Jan 15)

A Man Escapes: Li’l Quinquin (Dec 14)

2014: A Year in Review (Dec 14)

American History X Was the Film That Taught Me A Lesson About Masculinity (Dec 14)

Playboy Library: Where Eagles Dare (Dec 14)
To the Wonder: Mike Hoolboom (Oct '14)

Michael Caine in The Quiet American (Aug 14)

Brand Image and Independent Cinemas (Jul 14)

Retro Rondo: A Night of VHS in Poland (Jul 14)

Unintentionally or Otherwise: Oscar Micheaux (Jul 14)

Only Connect (Mar 14)

Essayist, Essay Isn’t (Feb 14)

1/2 Europa Utopia (Feb 14)
2/2 Nagging Doubts (Feb 14)

Barbecues and ballgames: Heat (Dec 13)

Signs of the times: Stray Dogs (Dec 13)

Why This is the End was a more important summer blockbuster than Man of Steel (Sep 13)

The Wire: Straight and True (Aug 13)

Institutional malaise in Hollywood's most beloved city: True Confessions (May 13)

Literal and symbolic barriers in Proof of Life (Apr 13)

In dreams and imagination: Lynch and Surrealism (Mar 13)

Screengem: The red rubber ball in The Prestige (Mar 13)

Long Live the New Text: Eight Nicolas Provost Shorts (Mar 13)

Out of the Past: Language, Landscape and Memory in Shoah (Jul 13)

Face-off: Andy Warhol's Screen Tests (Feb 13)

'The Greatest Films of All Time': branding change (Aug 12)

Spatial clarity and thematic currents in three William Friedkin chase sequences (Aug 12)

"Extraneous knicknacks": Patrick Keiller at Tate Britain (May 12)

Time for space (Mar 12)

"Communism is dead"; long live communism! (Nov 11)

Some ruminations on things, related or not (Nov 11)

Catering for all tastes... at the expense of the film (Oct 11)

"See the movie before everyone else has seen the trailer"... or not, as the case will be (Oct 11)

Ken Loach, Kes and brief questions of independence (Sep 11)

id, I'd, I.D., I do (Aug 11)

When all before you is barren... (Aug 11)

Top 100s and why we make them (Jul 11)

Rooting for the undersold, or championing the cinematographer (Apr 11)

A brief, further example of the director fetish (Apr 11)

Towards less fetishisation of the director (Apr 11)

Where are all the Werewolves? (Apr 11)

The film(s) I always return to (Apr 11)

Some Iranian films I've watched recently (Feb 11)

Memories and desire: how time and narrative affect our understanding of film noir (Feb 11)

On remakes, and five suggestions... (Feb 11)

Another class? (Feb 11)

Christopher Nolan: A self-serious mannerism, Part 2 (Jul 10)

Christopher Nolan: A self-serious mannerism, Part 1 (Jul 10)

Indecision and Digitalism (Jul 10)

FESTIVALS/CRITICISM (by most recent)

For full festivals index, click here.

Fuck You, Pay Me (One Way or Another) (Sep 16)
Getting the Job Done (Sep 15)
Around the World in 24 Festivals (Jan 15)

Take Note(s): making the most out of film festivals (Jun 14)

"In person!" Some notes on film criticism (Feb 14)

IMAGES/CREATIVE PROJECTS (by most recent)
Opening Shots: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Jan 17)

Opening Shots: The Sopranos (Aug 13)

"Que-se jai?" (Apr 12)

Visual pleasure and the male... glare (Jan 12)

INTERVIEWS (by surname)
William Basinski (Nov 18)

Tom Benn (Dec 12)
Tom Benn (May 17)
Mark Chapman (Jun 15)

Kahleen Crawford (Jun 14)

Joanna Hogg (Aug 13)
Agnieszka Holland (Mar 17)

Mike Hoolboom (Oct 14)
Ivan Ikić (Apr 15)

Patrick Keiller (Jan 11)
Oliver Laxe (Oct 15)
Sanna Lenken (May 15)
Sanna Lenken (Oct 15)
Sergei Loznitsa (Dec 15)
Jonathan Perel (Jan 16)
Jason Singh (Sep 17)

Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (Aug 14)
Dominik Tschütscher (Apr 17)
Billy Woodberry (Jan 16)

LISTS (by most recent)
Notebook's 10th Writers Poll (Dec 17)
Ten great films set in north-east England (Apr 17)
Five non-fiction films to look for from the New East (Apr 16)
Place Portraits: a 2015 Top 17 (Nov 15)
Top 100 (Sep 15)

Ten great London crime films (Jun 15)
Ten great epic documentaries (Jan 15)

Wayward Youths (Dec 14)

Ten Great Long Takes (Dec 14)

2013 Top Ten Shorts and Mid-lengths (Dec 13)

Top 100 (Sep 13)

Some observations on a Top 100 Films list (Sep 11)

MUSIC (by most recent)
The Madness (Jun 15)
Bridie Jackson and The Arbour (Jun 14)

OBITUARIES (by surname)

Alexey Balabanov, 1959-2013 (May 13)

James Gandolfini, 1961-2013 (Jun 13)

Dennis Hopper, 1936-2010 (Jul 10)

PARTYCRASHERS (by most recent)
= video dispatches with Neil Young
2017 in Review (Jan 18)
Porto/Post/Doc (Nov 17)
2016 in Review (Jan 16)
Vila do Conde (Jul 16)
L.A. Takedown (Apr 16)
Diagonale (Mar 16)
Berlinale (Mar 16)
2015 in Review (Jan 16)
Viennale (Nov 15)
Locarno (Sep 15)
New Horizons (Aug 15)
FIDMarseille (Jul 15)

WANDERINGS (by location)

Berlin (Feb 14)
Cartagena (Apr 15)

Delft (Apr 14)

Fårö (Jul 14)

Graz (Apr 15)
Lisbon (May 14)

Marseilles (Jul 14)

Rotterdam (Feb 14)

Seville (Nov 14)

Thessaloniki (Mar 14)

Zagreb (Dec 13)

GUEST CONTRIBUTIONS (by most recent)

Call and response: The reciprocal influence of jazz and film (by Phil Hogan, Jun 11)

Sidney Lumet: an appreciation (by Daniel Singleton, May 11)