Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Image description: Series of moon phases, waning, on black background This time 12 years ago, I was 12 myself, and about to start my first year at secondary school. Unsure of what to expect, I scoured teen magazines – Bliss, Mizz, Sugar, the Irish publication Kiss – in search of tips to help me navigate […]
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Image Description: characters Lars and Sigrit on stage in front of the Icelandic flag Like millions of other Eurovision enthusiasts, I felt my heart sink on March 18th – the day we heard that this year’s contest would no longer be going ahead. I hung my head as I cancelled my viewing party plans and […]
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Image Description: Inside Divinity Schools, Oxford Many of us applied to Oxford with a secret ambition to live our best lives, Brideshead Revisited style. The mental image of spending days punting down the Isis, poring over slab-like books in quirky little pubs and dining in vast, Harry Potter-esque halls seemed all too tempting, thanks to […]
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Image description: a shot from ‘First Thing’ music video A discussion with Flora Faulk, an Art History student at St. Peters, on her recent production of the music video for fellow student, Gigi William’s debut EP and single ‘First Thing’. Flora explains how she got into film-making and ways to get involved from a student […]
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Image description: The view from a plane window I had already seen the film upon its theatrical release, yet here I was watching it again on a screen one-hundredth of the size. Dunkirk nonetheless had me transfixed. Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece almost made me forget the uncomfortable economy seat I was in and the ever-present buzz […]
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Image description: Family watching TV together in the 1950s Are you still watching? Or are you catatonic, quilt-smothered and crisp-covered, one foot dangling over the end of the bed in refuge from the furnace-like heat of your duvet, and one eye bleakly registering the lockdown breadmaking psychodrama on your mum’s cat’s Instagram? This is the […]
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Image Description: Illustrations of scenes from each film This is the year of Parasite, but it is also the year in which Donald Trump declared that a film like Gone With The Wind should have won Best Picture instead. No, Gone With The Wind shouldn’t win Best Picture in 2020, in fact, it shouldn’t have […]
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Image Description: A illustration of a scene from Mulan Oh, glorious CGI! We are a slave to your technicolour dreamscapes, your larger-than-life monsters. It seems remarkable to me to re-watch the first Harry Potter film and realise that I am expected to be gripped by terror, watching that magnificent blue troll before me. It looks, […]
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Image Description: The Hollywood sign “Terrible things were happening all around us. Right next to me a huge reptile was gnawing on a woman’s neck, the carpet was a blood-soaked sponge – impossible to walk on it, no footing at all. ‘Order some golf shoes,’ I whispered. ‘Otherwise, we’ll never get out of this place […]
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Image Description: Poppy flowers in a field When it comes to war films, there are, broadly, two schools of thought for the modern Hollywood studio executive and producer, both of which result in the production of dull and deeply unsatisfying pictures. First of all, and perhaps the most irritating, (although the less troubling) is the […]
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Image description: A collection of matte paintings from a contest The technique known as matte painting is one of the earliest visual effects techniques to be used in filmmaking. Today, in an age dominated by computer renderings of worlds beyond our own, it is often nice to look back on the people who laid the […]
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Top Image Credit: The Radcliffe Camera, Alex Haveron-Jones Main Image Credit: Page 25, The Oxford Student
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Love Actually is my favourite Christmas film. When Santa’s sack of vac scheme deadlines pushes me to the edge, I like to kick back and relax to some wholesome content. This is my escapism of choice. Love Actually is not only touching and profound but offers a vision of a better Britain. Fans of ‘multikulti’ […]
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Tom Hooper’s cinematic production of Cats has been a complete failure in the eyes of critics, being so scathingly criticised that there has been talk of a remake, an attempt at redeeming at least an ounce of dignity for T.S. Eliot’s book of poems. While I recognise and agree with many points of criticism, I cannot […]
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Having moved to new York from Indiana, Charlie Barber (Adam Driver) – in his now ex-wife’s words – has become “more New Yorker than any New Yorker”. He is a recently established theatre director. Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), born and bred in Los Angeles, became locally famous for a film about college life and was engaged […]
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Picking your favourite film is a very difficult task indeed. When getting to know somebody, presenting an elaborate list of every film you’ve ever considered interesting or meaningful isn’t the best way for them to understand you better. So, if I had to pick a favourite film, it just might be Handsome Devil. Released in […]
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Silent films have always intimidated me. At first glance they seem outdated and inaccessible, only useful for studying a bygone era of cinema. Most people who aren’t film critics or academics struggle with the idea of watching a film which lacks one of the key elements of any modern production. For my part, I assumed […]
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“It’s true what they say. Rich people really are different.” This is the message of Ready or Not, the second film directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett who’s previous credits include the horror anthology V/H/S (2012). Samara Weavings stars as Grace, a young woman marrying into the uber-wealthy “Le Domas” family. Instead of being […]
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Quentin Tarantino’s passion for cinema has always been a dominant presence in his work. It’s there in his use of pastiche, in his references to other films and in his gleeful engagement with genre tropes. In his latest effort, it’s more evident than it ever has been. His ninth film, Once Upon a Time in […]
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