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An empty fluorescent-lit corridor with green carpet, white walls, and a vanishing-point perspective.

Severance Season Two and the Geometry of the Hallway

Apple's second season of Severance is built almost entirely out of a single architectural unit. The hallway is the show's argument and the season's discipline.

Priya Nair·8 May·6 min

A conductor's baton raised against a warm spotlight on a dark stage.

Essays

The Film Score Is Doing Work Nothing Else Can

After a decade in which the needle drop seemed to be winning, the original film score has come back with a specific force. An essay on what the current generation of composers is doing that their predecessors could not.

Jules Okonkwo·24 Mar·7 min

A minimalist black rectangle with a single small plus symbol in white

Essays

The Apple TV+ Problem

Apple TV+ has more money than anyone and a production slate that cannot be reconciled with itself. An essay on the strangest major streamer.

Priya Nair·21 Mar·6 min

A clapperboard with famous faces sketched as tiny silhouettes, in muted yellow.

Essays

The Cameo Has Eaten the Comedy Film

The contemporary comedy, across film and TV, has made the cameo its dominant register. An essay on what the cameo does structurally, why it has become default, and what comedy used to do instead.

Priya Nair·9 Mar·7 min

A constellation diagram fading to black, dotted white lines on navy background

Essays

The Cinematic Universe Is Officially Over

The MCU is contracting. The DCU is in perpetual reboot. The Wizarding World is dead. The Dark Universe never started. A post-mortem for a decade's dominant cinematic format.

Marcus Vell·7 Mar·6 min

A vinyl record spinning, gold label centred on warm cream and black

Essays

Why I Still Buy Records

A personal essay on the specific pleasure of owning music in a physical format in the year 2026. Not an argument against streaming. An argument for both.

Jules Okonkwo·18 Feb·6 min

A vertical stack of numerals 03, 03, 04 rendered in thick editorial type

Essays

The Long Film Is Back, and the Short One Should Be Worried

Across the last three years, the three-hour-plus film has quietly returned to the centre of serious American cinema. An essay on what the long film does that the short film cannot.

Lena Ashworth·2 Feb·6 min

A handwritten screenplay page with margin notes in blue ballpoint pen.

Essays

The Actors Started Writing Because Nobody Else Was Going To

A specific generation of actors is writing and directing their own films because the industry is not producing the kind of work they want to be in. An essay on why this matters and what the films look like.

Jules Okonkwo·28 Jan·7 min

A blank timeline with two marks close together, the rest of the line unmarked

Essays

The Anti-Biopic: On Refusing the Cradle-to-Grave Shape

The biopic is a genre with a default structure, and the default is almost always the problem. An argument for the biographical films that refuse the shape.

Lena Ashworth·18 Jan·5 min

A pair of headphones tangled with a strip of film, in ink on cream.

Essays

Music Supervision Is the New Cinematography

The specific practice of choosing the pre-existing songs that go into films and prestige TV has quietly become as identity-defining as cinematography. An essay on who the contemporary music supervisors are and what they do.

Jules Okonkwo·7 Jan·6 min

An ouroboros serpent drawn in fine editorial line against muted green

Essays

Prestige TV Eats Its Own Tail

The specific tools that made prestige TV great have, across two decades of refinement, become the tools that are now limiting it. An essay on formal exhaustion.

Priya Nair·30 Dec·6 min

A yellow minimalist circle of a vinyl record on a black background

Essays

The Year Pop Became an Album Again

After fifteen years of singles-first streaming strategy, 2024 was the year pop music remembered how to be an album again. An essay on why it happened and what it means.

Jules Okonkwo·20 Dec·5 min

A bronze bust in a glass case, with a single crack running down its face.

Essays

The Biopic Is Laundering Its Subjects

The contemporary biopic has adopted a specific form that functions as reputation management. An essay on the mechanism by which the biopic launders its subjects, and what the occasional exception does differently.

Lena Ashworth·16 Dec·8 min

A stack of overlapping film frames in muted orange and green against ink

Essays

Why Legacy Sequels Keep Failing

The legacy sequel, as a format, has a specific failure mode. The films that work despite it are the exceptions, and the exceptions teach the rule.

Marcus Vell·8 Dec·6 min

A large cast photograph where half the faces are blurred, on warm paper.

Essays

The Cast-Size Inflation Problem

Films and TV shows are casting more speaking roles than they can properly serve. An essay on why the ensemble has gotten bloated, what it costs the specific characters inside it, and what tighter casts still do.

Marcus Vell·2 Dec·7 min

An empty chair beside a window, evening light falling across the seat

Essays

The Cinema of Grief: Notes on a Decade

The most consistent artistic project in English-language cinema of the last decade has not been a movement or a style. It has been a subject: grief, treated with a specific patience that the previous decade did not allow.

Lena Ashworth·29 Nov·5 min

Three stacked Blu-ray cases in muted primary colours against slate grey.

Essays

Why Criterion, Arrow, and Vinegar Syndrome Are Winning

The physical-media market for serious film has specifically grown across the last five years, against every predicted trend. An essay on what streaming failed to provide, and what the 4K disc is doing to fill the gap.

Lena Ashworth·18 Nov·7 min

A festival lanyard lying on cobblestones beside a spent cigarette, at dusk.

Essays

Festival Cinema Has Become Something Else and the Festivals Haven't Noticed

The specific function of the international film festival circuit has quietly changed across the last five years. An essay on what Cannes, Venice, Sundance, and TIFF are actually doing now, and what they have stopped doing.

Priya Nair·11 Nov·7 min

A static television screen rendered in faded neon pink on black

Essays

On the Death of the Music Video

The music video as a form had a specific golden age. It is now largely dead, replaced by things that are not music videos. An essay on what we lost.

Jules Okonkwo·5 Nov·6 min

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Essays

The Death of Mid-Budget Horror

There was a specific mid-budget horror economy that functioned across the 2010s. It does not function anymore. An essay on what was lost.

Marcus Vell·28 Oct·6 min

Eight horizontal bars of different lengths, one marked in red

Essays

Against the Eight-Episode Season

The eight-episode prestige-TV season has become the default format. It is also, for most shows, the wrong length. An essay on what the episode count is costing us.

Priya Nair·14 Oct·6 min

A ticket stub stamped with REFUNDED in faded red, under soft studio light.

Essays

The Flop Gets Rehabilitated Faster Than It Used To

The flop, as a cultural category, is being rehabilitated inside five years instead of twenty-five. An essay on why, and what is gained and lost in the accelerated cycle.

Lena Ashworth·7 Oct·7 min

Two paper hearts in slightly mismatched red, overlapping on a cream ground.

Essays

The Romantic Comedy Came Back Because Everything Else Got Heavier

The rom-com was commercially dead for a decade. It returned in 2023-25 and the return was not coincidence. An essay on what the surrounding cinema had become, and why audiences wanted this back.

Lena Ashworth·22 Sep·7 min

A prosthetic mask on a workbench beside a cracked monitor, shot in tungsten light.

Essays

The Practical-Effects Backlash Has Become Its Own Dogma

The argument against CGI and for practical effects has hardened into a specific aesthetic dogma that no longer tracks the actual craft. An essay on what the argument originally responded to and why it now misfires.

Lena Ashworth·8 Sep·7 min

A stopwatch face showing 90 minutes, rendered in bold red on ink-black.

Essays

The Ninety-Minute Movie Is the Craft Format and Everyone Forgot

A case for the 90-minute movie in the age of 160-minute movies. Most short films are tighter, meaner, and more controlled than most long ones, and the industry has forgotten to value this.

Marcus Vell·26 Aug·7 min

A single ribbon of film unspooling into a tight knot, in ink on cream paper.

Essays

The Limited Series Is Killing the Ongoing Series

The limited series is absorbing the specific talent, capital, and formal experimentation that used to sustain the multi-season drama. An essay on what the two forms do differently, and what we are losing.

Priya Nair·5 Aug·7 min

A hand-marked calendar grid with Friday and Saturday circled in red ink.

Essays

The Opening-Weekend Model Is Broken and Nobody Wants to Say It

Hollywood's opening-weekend-dominant distribution model was built for a specific marketplace that no longer exists. An essay on what has broken, which films are succeeding despite it, and what a replacement would look like.

Marcus Vell·30 Jul·7 min

A cluster of star rating marks, most in grey, one in red, on graph paper.

Essays

Letterboxd Is Functioning as the Critic Now, and That Is a Problem

Letterboxd's aggregate star rating is now the first thing most viewers see about a film, and it is quietly replacing the job criticism used to do. An argument against treating aggregation as judgement.

Marcus Vell·14 Jul·6 min