The world is dominated by several modes of government. Firstly, there are the broader names we are all familiar with: democracies, dictatorships, autocracies and monarchies. Yet secondly, they can rarely be summed up under these labels. For instance, each democracy has its own specific constitution while some may be democratic in theory but not in …
Author Archives: mirrorsmoke07
Prejudice – The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
In the 1990’s “political correctness” in the United Kingdom loomed large on the landscape. Decades on from homosexuality being legalised and at the other end of a century in which women had got the vote, society as a whole was expected to follow a new code of conduct that would not tolerate racism, homophobia or …
Death of the Film Maker
With multiple pay per view streaming channels popping up and television and film both being on demand and repeated or be downloaded infinitum, the contemporary viewer has never had so much control over the content they can watch. For decades, the vast majority of television viewers were at the mercy of channel schedules. In the …
The Seventh Seal – Antonius Blocking Out His Anxiety
An existentialist cinematic exposition about fatalism? A post-war re-evaluation of faith and nature? A dance with death in the Skandi traditions of Edvard Munch or Henrik Ibsen? Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal has been considered to be concerned with all these subjects since its release in 1958.
The Rise of Halloween in Britain
The rise of Halloween in the United Kingdom in the last decade, to nearly mirror its popularity in the United States of America, has been remarkable. As a child of the 1980’s and 1990’s, one did mark the 31st October in the home with sweets, supposedly horror themed movies and, if you were lucky, some …
James Bond – Glamour or Gluttony?
With one of cinema’s most popular and successful franchises looking set to reach its 7th decade, one cannot help but wonder what keeps James Bond relevant in a very different world to the one Ian Fleming created him in during the 1950’s. When Fleming first launched 007 on readers with the novel Casino Royale, the …
Athon 