Tornado: this samurai-western immigrant revenge tale tries to be many things – but runs out of ammo: Tornado is many things: a British period drama, a western, a samurai film, a coming-of-age story and an origin story. Set in the windswept moorland of Britain in 1790, the film offers a lawless backdrop fit for a …
Political gambling: a cautionary tale from the 2009 expenses scandal: As gamblegate stretches into its second week, it seems there is no end to the revelations about MPs misbehaving at the bookies. And naturally, as when any significant ethical misconduct is in the news, it didn’t take long for this one to be equated with …
You Are Here by David Nicholls – a touching tale of finding love and connection in nature: Forgem/Shutterstock Coming soon after the release of the Netflix version of One Day, David Nicholls’ latest novel is another bitter-sweet homage to skewed romance. While the lovers in One Day are divided by class and aspiration, in You …
The Taste of Things review: this gastronomic French tale is a feast for the senses: Tr?n Anh Hùng, the Vietnamese-born French director known for his Oscar-nominated film The Scent of Green Papaya (1993) and Norwegian Wood (2010), returns with another gorgeous work, The Taste of Things. Due for UK release in February 2024, the film …
How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol anticipated the psychology of Freud in its tale of childhood trauma: Arthur Rackham , CC BY With a joyful celebration of family love and communal bonds at its heart, Charles Dickens’s story A Christmas Carol has often been credited with creating our modern idea of Christmas. Published on December …
The Shepherd: Disney’s ghostly new Christmas tale evokes the eerie qualities of Britain’s abandoned second world war airfields: From Charles Dickens to M.R. James, Christmas has a long association with ghost stories. In The Shepherd – part of Disney+’s festive fare for this year – we have an evocative addition to the genre. Based on …
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch: Booker prize-winning novel is a distinctly Irish tale of civic and ideological collapse: The philosopher Hannah Arendt’s much-quoted description of the “banality of evil” could be applied to the disquieting story told in Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. The Booker prize-winning novel is a perfect study of the banality of …
Foe review: a Frankenstein tale of the not-so-distant future: Science fiction is never really about the future. The best sci-fi makes use of an imagined future world to provide a critical distance from our current time; to ask questions about what we are doing rather than where we are going. Director Garth Davis’ Foe, adapted …
Winnie and Mandela biography: a masterful tale of South Africa’s troubled, iconic power couple: A new book on South African liberation struggle icons Nelson and Winnie Mandela is a masterful biography of the pair. It’s a work of scholarship involving an immense body of primary and secondary research, written with flair and panache but in …
Asteroid City: Wes Anderson’s cosmic tale is his most engaging in years: Wes Anderson’s new film Asteroid City (2023) is a sci-fi dramedy following a grieving family stranded in a rural US town during a star-gazing event in the summer of 1955. However, it’s also a text by fictional playwright, Conrad Earp (Edward Norton), the …
How Wrexham’s football fairy tale is fuelled by Disney and Hollywood glamour: For one of the oldest football clubs in the world, this has been a season to remember. Wrexham’s men’s team have won the National League title and promotion to League Two, the fourth tier of English football. And while it’s still a long …
The Winter’s Tale review: jarring Shakespeare’s Globe production lacks warmth: The Winter’s Tale is one of Shakespeare’s great “hospitality plays” – a tragicomedy about what goes wrong when a guest outstays their welcome. Leontes, king of Sicilia, suspects his friend Polixenes, the king of Bohemia, of adultery and catastrophe ensues. In keeping with the 16th-century …
Netflix’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover reduces this tale of class conflict to a simple love story: The film's Lady Chatterley and her Mellors have an easier path to love than their literary counterparts. Parisa Taghizadeh/Netflix It is easy to understand the appeal of D. H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) for filmmakers. The issues the …
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio review: this tale of a lost child is the filmmaker’s destiny: A still from del Torro's Pinocchio. Netflix That Guillermo del Toro would eventually create a version of Pinocchio feels something like cinematic destiny. The overriding theme of his cinematic vision is, afterall, a love for those others would see as …
Elon Musk’s revived US billion Twitter bid is another twist in this tale, but it may not be the last: With only about two weeks to go before a court case over his attempts to withdraw his US$ 44 billion (£39 billion) offer to buy Twitter, Elon Musk’s second U-turn over the deal shows the …
A tale of two cities: why Indonesia is planning a new capital on Borneo – and abandoning Jakarta. Podcast: An artistic impression of Indonesia's new presidential palace, designed by the artist Nyoman Nuarta. nyoman_nuarta via Instagram Indonesia plans to move its capital city from Jakarta on the island of Java to a new forest city …
Zadie Smith: how the Wife of Willesden brings to life Chaucer’s tale of sex and power: They call her The Wife of Willesden. Marc Brenner It could be easy to assume that The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories written in Middle English at the end of the 14th century, would not hold much relevance …
Check out this Paternoster image: British Library digitised image from page 5 of “Cured by an Incurable. A tale, illustrated by E. Fitzpatrick … Second edition” Image by The British Library Image taken from: Title: "Cured by an Incurable. A tale, illustrated by E. Fitzpatrick … Second edition" Author(s): Fitzpatrick, Edmund [person] ; Power, Philip …