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…

Paul Thomas Anderson is a director of unusual creative versatility. He tends to go in radically different directions with each movie, so you never quite know what you’ll get. This element of surprise is part of the fun of going to see his movies. …

A handful of times a year, movies I don’t have big expectations of blow me away. The element of surprise makes these some of my most memorable cinema trips — ones that immerse and engage when I wasn’t expecting. These movies, as much as ones I anticipate and do live…

Belfast is a movie with its heart in the right place. It carries good messages about sectarianism in the context of Northern Ireland, persecution based on faith, and the moral challenges community members are forced to confront when living with a young family in something akin to a civil war…

Good Shakespeare adaptions tend to fall into two camps. They can be theatrically faithful treatments that put the 17th-century plays on screen with reverence, using cinema to add elements not possible on the stage (Macbeth (1948), Orson Welles). …

A change I decided to make this year is to diversify my writing. Writing on cinema is where I am most confident: I love good cinema, and I enjoy taking part in the “discourse” (blistering rants) about bad cinema, too. I also have some background in the subject — I…