Writer/director Parker Finn’s debut feature is a curse/demonic possession movie (in that order, with possession playing a subservient role in the narrative) with primary themes of mental health, trauma, and the cycle of abuse. The plot concerns Rose Cotter (played by Sosie Bacon), a cynical-minded psychiatrist who treats a new…

The cinema industry is doing poorly, and buying some food and a drink with your ticket is the best way to support them. That’s where the profits are for the cinema people. I used to smuggle in half-bottles of whisky with friends, and mix them with cinema-bought drinks. The cinemas…

Great documentaries don’t come along that often. A year without at least one superb fictional film released, destined to be recognised as great once the dust settles, is a strange year. Often, there’s a handful. …

Navalny prompted me to stop what I was doing, and write about it with a sense of urgency. I love when that happens. It is a documentary with impact. It leaves you feeling clear about things that can’t just be looked up on Google, or consumed through social media. …

In my younger years I was a big Elvis Presley fan. Not in the sense of knowing a ton of trivia, reading biographies, or even knowing all that much about the man. The internet was primitive, and I read mostly fiction. I would listen to his music all the time…

Before Pig, my last trip to the cinema was to see The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. In that movie Nicolas Cage plays himself, dialling up all the flamboyant aspects of his acting persona to eleven in a knowingly wacky, introspective, and ludicrous way. That movie is somewhere close to…

In buddhism, the second “noble truth” states that suffering is caused by attachment. Taken on its own, it is about recognising the truth of this, whether or not there is anything we can do about it (according to buddhist philosophy there is, but other noble truths handle that). The idea…

They sat in the garden. It was a rare afternoon where the temperature made it pleasant to be outdoors. ‘Where did you go in the war?’ The answer came as a gesture. One hand rising and whirling around. ‘All around.’ It was enough of an answer. Specific place names contained…

An instinct, or compulsion, found throughout the animal kingdom is to prey on animals that display fear. Animals tend to experience fear in the presence of danger, such as predators. Therefore predators can use it as a signal to identify prey. From a predatory viewpoint, animals display fear because they…