Film, TV & Book Reviews

By Philippa Tracy Hallie Rubenhold’s book The Five is the story of the ‘canonical five’ victims of Jack the Ripper: Mary Ann or ‘Polly’ Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, ...

The Covid-19 era was completely insane. For months, we were stuck at home, unable to go out, doing absolutely nothing except playing video games all day and watching movies nonstop. ...

Before his retirement party has properly ended, CIA operative Luke Brunner (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is dragged back into action for one last job that turns his world upside down, as the ...

There is a line midway through Vera, or Faith, when the novel’s eponymous protagonist reflects that her family situation has become ‘worse than the time Daddy had gotten into ...

Dark and comedic, Netflix’s Sirens delves into the complicated relationship of the DeWitt sisters. Masterfully created by Nicole Kassel and Quyen Tran, it’s captivating and unsettling. After Devon (...

In a recent review, I talked about how fictional secrets ought, if possible, to be kept rationally and meaningfully, but that often this isn’t the case. The ‘but’ you ...

And just like that, it was there. Right there. I opened my App Store and, right at the very top, there was the HBO Max app and a prompt asking ...

Few series open with quite such immediacy as To Navayio (The Shipwreck), which premiered a few days ago on Alpha Cyprus. The first images were striking, restless Aegean waters under ...

By Philippa Tracy Elizabeth Strout has written a number of best-selling literary novels, featuring complex and recurring characters in small-town America. These include Olive Kitteridge, which won the Pulitzer Prize ...

We had a good run. Homo sapiens have been around for roughly 300,000 years, evolving from rock-throwing cave dwellers to rocket-launching studio apartment renters. Could we have done better? Absolutely. Regardless, ...

Washington is thrown into catastrophe. In the opening episode of Netflix’s Designated Survivor an explosion during the State of the Union address kills the President, the Vice President, and ...

By Simon Demetriou Ideally, I would sit down to write a review the day after I finished reading a book, having had time to ruminate and plan, and for impressions ...

Moving from the console to the big screen more often than not spells disaster both commercially and critically. It turns out that adapting an art form that unfolds over tens ...

Kim’s Convenience follows a family of Korean immigrants running a convenience store in the Moss Park neighbourhood of Toronto, Canada. The show juggles a continuous parade of colourful characters ...

In the age of global entertainment, finding quality international TV shows can be both thrilling and frustrating—especially when subtitles are scarce. Enter iOffer-Movies, a unique online platform that offers ...

Secrets in stories, whether on page or screen, are tricky things. Everyone knows that in real life, people keep secrets irrationally, not to say stupidly, and that’s just how ...

With July rolling along, summer is in full swing, much like my air conditioning settings, and we suddenly find ourselves with more time on our hands. Lazy August is just ...

In The Waterfront, the latest drama created by Kevin Williamson (Dawson’s Creek, The Vampire Diaries, and Scream) we see a grounded portrayal of a family-run business on the verge ...

By Philippa Tracy Hidden Valley Road is the story of an American family striving for the American dream. There are 12 children: two girls and 10 boys, six diagnosed with schizophrenia, one ...

I was never a big fan of culture wars. I have always considered it to be a distraction from the real issues, such as systemic oppression, and an attempt to ...

DCI Carl Morck is beyond grumpy. The kind of grumpy you really wish you could get away with, but politeness means you can’t. He is the lead of a ...

It takes some guts to write a novel in which your narrator and central character is a comedian, for the simple reason that to pull the character off, you need ...

“Superhero films are dead!” That’s the tired cry we’ve heard from critics for years now, so often, in fact, that it’s become meaningless. Despite the headlines, superhero ...

The Diplomat opens with a bang — literally. Minutes into the two-season series, a British aircraft carrier is bombed off the coast of Iran, killing dozens of sailors and triggering an ...