Sometimes it’s just black & white

… and sometimes a bit of sepia

Matilde the She Boar

  Came upon this beautiful she-boar the other day. Very friendly, and would have been friendlier had I offered her a snack – though I have a policy of not feeding other people’s animals without their consent. Though disappointed, she was happy to pose for photos and didn’t seem to mind that I struggled with

Turning up for night shift

The sun crests on the horizon, shades of burnt sienna, a spray of muddy wands traversing a dirty sky.  With torpored gaze, we observe its slow descent, devoid of interest: transmutation to vapid ochre, indiscriminate casting of mustard hues. Peering from heads lowered over stooped shoulders, over curved spines, arms hanging limp at our sides;

Pan’s Labyrinth

It’s 1944, five years after the end of  Spanish Civil. The close of WWII in Europe is at hand. Ten year old Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her heavily pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) travel to a remote fascist outpost in the Spanish forest, where they will join her new husband, Capitán Vidal (Sergi López). A

All My Trains (Chinese train part 3)

Previously on Trains of Our Lives, our fair heroine (me) survived a death-defying descent from the upper berth of her miniscule train compartment. She has just made it through a trip to the filthiest loo on five continents. Today’s episode is once again brought to you by haemorrhoid cream, incontinence pads and of course, ointment

Sauna

High-brow Finnish horror washes all your sins away

Quelles Horreurs!

While some of us object to the invasion of American Halloween and K-mart clad ghosts and goblins knocking at the door demanding treats, we would do well to recall that the holiday is rooted in the Druid Samhain – the last day of the ancient Celtic summer – a between-seasons day, when the dead walked

Doomsday

Director: Neil Marshall Any minute now, the deadly ‘Reaper’ virus will strike Glasgow. London will respond by rebuilding Hadrian’s wall, abandoning Scotland it to its fate. Few will escape. Life will go on… …Until the Reaper mysteriously resurfaces in London in 27 years. A team of crack military scientists, headed up by uber-fit Eden Sinclair

Pan’s Labyrinth

It’s 1944, five years after the end of  Spanish Civil. The close of WWII in Europe is at hand. Ten year old Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her heavily pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) travel to a remote fascist outpost in the Spanish forest, where they will join her new husband, Capitán Vidal (Sergi López). A

Donnie Darko

When it was released, I described Donnie Darko as David Lynch for teenagers, and then 26 year old writer-director Richard Kelly is Lynch-in-training. That was in 2001. And while Kelly appears to have been a one-hit wonder, his debut feature continues to amaze and delight – a magic realism horror ride, moody and resplendent with