8th May 2021
Delving into pop culture tropes. Tropes and cliches are usually some of the first things brought up when people are discussing media. Is X trope subverted well, does Y drag the story down, does Z make it predictable? There are entire websites dedicated to tropes in entertainment (and I will admit, I’m very partial to ...
14th April 2021
Culture is always looking forward. The year is 2015. Flying cars dart like shooting stars across motorways in the clouds. Nike trainers have replaced normal laces with electronic “power laces”. Jackets automatically adjust to the measurements of their wearer. The criminal justice system can sentence people within a matter of hours, owing to the abolition ...
14th April 2021
Not even Scooby-Doo gets to be happy anymore. Everyone loves a bit of nostalgia. As a result, in recent years we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of early-00s childhood-show reboots. For example, Fate: The Winx Saga is one such reboot which reimagines the much-loved early-00s animated series Winx Club in live-action. The original ...
16th March 2021
Though it might’ve been a different story pre-pandemic, now it’s not. Think back to the time when you first got the internet and made use of the torrent sites to convert the YouTube video of Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi into an MP3 to download on your iPod Nano. Or maybe it was Rihanna’s Shut Up and ...
11th March 2021
Next up is Anastasija Svarevska, whose Memory of a Gig is a little more exotic than the rainy, freezing queue outside of the Hydro, but the rather notorious, celeb-studded Corner Hotel in Melbourne, Australia, in which Weyes Blood played a monumental set. It’s March 2020: my repatriation flights from Australia back home to the good ...
7th March 2021
Gunda brings filmmaking back to its very core: the moving image. Gunda opens with a single shot of postpartum tranquillity. Our heroine lies in a bed of straw as her heavenly babies emerge into the frame. A litter of piglets snort and screech as they fight for their mother’s milk. Gunda, the sow and star ...
7th March 2021
Limbo follows the emotional journey of a Syrian refugee in Scotland, as he both passes the time with his friends and overcomes a crisis of identity. Limbo is a film that will touch your heart on multiple occasions. The second film from Scottish director Ben Sharrock tells the story of asylum seekers and refugees living ...
25th February 2021
Our local, humble poet has an astounding worldwide outreach. From stamps to statues, banknotes to books, film to festivities and Coca-Cola bottles to curriculums, there is nobody who has infiltrated and influenced global culture at every level to the extent that the Scottish Bard, Robert Burns, has. As one of the most prominent figures in ...
23rd February 2021
Ahead of Milan fashion week, Olivia Marrins details what it will look like on-screen. As nearly every social event is rescheduled, cancelled, or taken to Zoom, it is no surprise that Milan fashion week has traded up bustling live venues for digital runways. This fashion exhibition showcases autumn/winter 2021/2022 collections across January and February through ...
22nd February 2021
The Emperor has never looked so good. From literary retellings to stage adaptations, from art and cinema to poetry and metaphor; the one collection of stories to which the western tradition is perhaps most indebted is Greek mythology. Stories of gods and heroes told millennia ago still echo strongly in the popular culture of today. ...
