Category: Films
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Exploring Blackness of the Inner City: A Review of Netflix’s “The Kitchen”
As an urban geography professor, there are some films that are so on the nose with regard the themes that pervade my teaching and research encounters that they demand a closer inspection: and Netflix’s The Kitchen by Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya is one such film. Set in a near…
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From Below (2022)
A quick post to say that our feature-length documentary film produced as part of the recent AHRC-funded research project on mutual aid in the pandemic is now available for FREE online. Entitled ‘From Below’, and directed by the brilliant Matthias Kispert, the film speaks of how people and volunteers mobilised…
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Fight Club 20 years on: suicide and empathy
David Fincher’s Fight Club is now 20 years old. And that the film still manages to talk directly to the issues of today is a testament to the foresight of Chuck Palahniuk’s original novel, but also to the incisiveness of Fincher’s film-making. There are countless blog posts, papers, books, online documentaries,…
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Blade Runner 2049: A loving review
As the new Blade Runner film dissipates from the cinemas, I feel it acceptable to write about it in-depth, given that (hopefully) those of you interested in it, would have seen it by now. *****warning MAJOR spoilers ahead*****
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The Materiality of Die Hard
Last night I had the privilege of watching Die Hard on the big screen at the Filmopolis Christmas Party. A great night, with an even greater film. Die Hard is one of those films that you can watch repeatedly, and rarely strays from perfection. Despite containing now tired Hollywood clichés,…
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Transforming Cities
Cities, on the surface at least, seem stable. The imposing physical materiality of concrete, steel and glass projects an endurance that is ‘built to last‘. Yet decades of urban critique have elucidated the fluidity of cities. From Walter Benjamin’s Arcades, through Cedric Price’s Fun Palace to Nigel Coates’ Ecstacity, people…
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Jurassic World and Personal Technology
Jurassic World is a film about dinosaurs isn’t it? Well yes and no. Like all good films, the subtexts run rather differently to what we actually see on screen. So while we see giant dinosaurs taking chunks out of each other, we’re also witnessing a rather subtle commentary on social relations,…
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Who Framed Roger Rabbit as urbanist critique
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) is no doubt a classic film. It was technologically innovate, and spliced the detective film-noir genre with the comic, slapstick animation of classic ‘toons of the 1960s and 70s. Truly, a masterpiece of Hollywood cinema, and if you are not familiar with the film, you can…
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Zombie Films and the Urban Condition
Recently, I was involved in a Twitter conversation with Allan Watson (and others) on a recent debate he had in his class about a zombie invasion, and whether it would be better for survival to live in a sprawling city or a dense urban centre (and what a great way…
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Blade Runner Review
Just a quick post to point you toward my review of Ridley Scott’s masterpiece Blade Runner over on That Film Guy. I’ve been using that site to vent my film fanboy amateurish tirades and this certainly falls into that category. Hopefully, now that the marking has died down, I’ll be able…