Pan (2015)

I remember a time. A special time, when around every corner was another secret waiting to be discovered, another story to be told. It was a time that could never end. Of course it did end. We grew up. Reality intertwined our perception and the tales we’d created faded into insignificance. Pan asks us to…

The Face of an Angel (2014)

Michael Winterbottom’s fictionalised account of the Amanda Knox trial appears to present its mission statement early on, with Kate Beckinsale explaining, “You can’t tell the truth unless you make it a fiction.”  Unfortunately, The Face of an Angel – which turns out, in fact, to be a a fictional film about the making of a…

Me, John Green and the Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Unfolding Paper Towns

The opening minutes of Paper Towns, the latest instalment in the John Green Cinematic Universe, aren’t especially promising. Our middle-class white teenage protagonist explains, in faux-profound seriousness, that “everyone gets a miracle.” Maybe you win the lottery, maybe you “marry the Queen of England.” Said middle-class white teenager, Quentin (Nat Wolff), has already found his…