By Romke van der Veen Just recently a new ‘Alien’ movie was announced, this time to be produced (not directed) by Ridley Scott. But this news got little media attention. Why is this? For a franchise that was once considered some of the best science-fiction out there. A franchise that produced blockbusters and even one…
Ukraine and the Charge of the Light Brigade
By Romke van der Veen There are certain regions of the world, which have historically been at the convergence point of conflicting cultures. Ukraine has been one of these frontiers; a place of tensions between powers, not unlike the Balkans, Caucasus or the Arabian Peninsula have to an even greater degree. In Mackinder’s ‘Heartland Theory’…
Blue Thunder – The Foregone Era of Smart Popcorn Flicks
By Romke van der Veen Many today might associate older action films with the cheesy, cliché and overly loud schlock that appeared in the 80s with Rambo, Die Hard and Commando. It isn’t inaccurate, the trend of the loud and violent action blockbusters, which have remained a staple of action and even some thrillers alike….
Why Do We Know Friday the 13th?
By Romke Van Der Veen With another Halloween that has come and gone, I was reminded of some of the holiday’s most infamous icons and horror in general. Jason Voorhees, I’m sure you’ve heard that name alongside that of Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers (from Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween, respectively). But why? These names are commonly known…
Keanu Reeves: Acting Hero or Action Hero
By Romke van der Veen With the release of Matrix 4 this winter, we could say this decade marks the return (of sorts) of Keanu Reeves into the limelight as our beloved action star. He is a celebrity that has amassed immense notoriety and fame for what is, in fact, only just a handful of…
The Conflict of Historical Filmmaking
Romke van der Veen When you’re depicting history in movies, or portraying a historical event, making a biopic or period-piece, you are always confronted with walking the line between drama, historical accuracy, or even documentarian type filmmaking. A great example of this conflict is the 2008 German film, Baader Meinhof Complex. Now, German historical films…
Some Thoughts on the Women’s Prize for Fiction
By Marije Huging In March, the longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the UK’s most prestigious book award for women writers, for which the winner gets 30 000 pounds, was released. The drama that ensued earlier this month regarding the prize has something larger to say about literary prize culture, and it’s entering into…
In Praise of Ali Smith and Leonora Carrington
By Marije Huging There was once a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party. There was once a woman who got locked up in a…
Olivia Laing and Loneliness at UCR
By Marije Huging ‘Loneliness is difficult to confess; difficult too to categorise. Like depression, a state with which it often intersects, it can run deep in the fabric of a person (…) Like depression, like melancholy or restlessness, it is subject too to pathologization, to being considered a disease. It has been said emphatically that…
Beating the Winter Blues
By Marije Huging During the last week of a UCR semester, my head usually feels strangely detached from my body, like a little homunculus living in an empty shell. This is what exams, presentations, and what seems like an endless array of papers (that I actually wrote in two days) feel like. During this time,…
Iran: between Tradition and Modernity
by Andrea Undecimo ‘Pink mosque in Shiraz’ When I first told my parents and my friends that I was going to spend two weeks, alone, in Iran, the reactions I received spanned from honest worry for my mental health, to attempts to persuade me not to go, because the place was crowded by religious fundamentalists…
Artist series pt.3: The Canine Conundrum of Wes’ World
By Gabrielle Gonzales SPOILER ALERT In light of the release of his newest, and much-anticipated animated film, Isle Of Dogs (2018), it might just be high-time to sniff out the answer to one very important question: does Wes Anderson actually hate dogs? The seasoned Wes Anderson film-viewer may have noticed, and perhaps has…
An Hour or Two for Raymond Carver
Days that have you short on inspiration are days when nothing seems so worthwhile as sauntering over to the Zeeuwse Bibliotheek and hiding between the pages of a book. If, by chance, you are a reader who finds solace in sinister fiction, you would do good in picking up a book by American short fiction…