This is an old article of mine that was published on Culturewatch (which later became the Film & Bible Blog from Damaris) in 2007. I am gradually republishing many of my Culturewatch articles here, especially since the demise of Damaris Trust and its websites. What's prompted me to republish this article on Amazing Grace today […]

This post was first published in Film & Bible Blog. © Tony Watkins 2013. For discussion material on this film, see Sophie Lister’s Damaris Film Blog discussion guide and the supplementary questions in the published version of this article in the Film & Bible Blog Philomena Lee (Judi Dench) has lived with a secret for […]

Beasts Of The Southern Wild Day four of the Keswick Unconventional Film Club found us watching Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin’s extraordinary magic realist film, which is unlike any other I can think of. During or after our discussion yesterday evening, one person compared aspects of it to Terrence Malick’s The Tree of […]

Day three of the Keswick Unconventional Film Club had smaller numbers as Son of Rambow is nowhere near as well known as Blue Jasmine and Philomena. Written and directed by Garth Jennings (his directorial debut) and released in 2008, this eccentric gem of a movie is one of the best films about growing up. I'm […]

Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine; © Gravier Productions, Inc./Warner Bros., 2013. Used by permission. I’m running the Keswick Unconventional Film Club at the Keswick Convention this week. It’s the first time we’ve run it, though we did have a one-off film discussion one wet afternoon last year. I’m planning to write a brief blog each […]

Richard Curtis is almost an icon of British romantic comedy, thanks to Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), and Love Actually (2003). About Time is very much a comedy in the Curtis style, and love is the central ingredient, but ultimately it is not so much about romantic love, as the love […]

Film & Bible Blog Article The Past Comes Flooding Back Image © Independent Film Company, 2013. Used by permission. Art historian Max (Ciarán Hinds) is grieving after the recent loss of his wife, Anna (Sinéad Cusack), to cancer. Against the advice of his daughter Clare (Ruth Bradley), he goes to stay in a boarding house […]

This is an interview I gave in Norway in August 2013 for Damaris Norway. I am very grateful to Mark Meynell’ for his brilliant insight into the two types of superhero in ‘Why We Love Men in Capes’, which you can find in the iTunes store. I was taking Buy Xanax Online reducing the dose […]

I have had a post on this site for a long time listing some great films for film discussions (which I've updated occasionally), as well as a post on how to run film discussions. Since Damaris launched Damaris Film Clubs in 2013, more people have been asking me which movies are the best for group […]

This post was first published on Culturewatch as part of the Film & Bible Blog. © Tony Watkins 2013. For discussion material on this film, see my Damaris Film Blog discussion guide and the supplementary questions in the published version of this article in the Film & Bible Blog. Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is a […]

This post was first published on Culturewatch as part of the Film & Bible Blog. © Tony Watkins 2013. For discussion material on this film, see my Damaris Film Blog discussion guide and the supplementary questions in the published version of this article in the Film & Bible Blog. Alfred Hitchcock is one of the […]

This post was first published on Culturewatch as part of the Film & Bible Blog. © Tony Watkins 2013. For discussion material on this film, see my Damaris Film Blog discussion guide and the supplementary questions in the published version of this article in the Film & Bible Blog. Some of us have known Jesse […]

This post was first published on Culturewatch as part of the Film & Bible Blog. © Tony Watkins 2013. For discussion material on this film, see my Damaris Film Blog discussion guide and the supplementary questions in the published version of this article in the Film & Bible Blog A house is being burgled in […]

This article was first published as a Film and Bible Blog article in Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2012.For discussion material on this film, see my Damaris Film Blog discussion guide and additional questions for reflection in my Film and Bible Blog article. Warning: This article contains plot spoilers. Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) and Victoria ‘Vika’ […]

This article was first published as a Film and Bible Blog article in Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2012. For discussion material on this film, see my Damaris Film Blog discussion guide and additional questions for reflection in my Film and Bible Blog article. Warning: This article contains plot spoilers. Richard Karlsen (Jack Reynor) has just […]

This article was first published as a Film and Bible Blog article in Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2012.For discussion material on this film, see my Damaris Film Blog discussion guide and additional questions for reflection in my Film and Bible Blog article. The end of the eighteenth century was a time of great change in […]

This article was first published in Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2012 Berberian Sound Studio is an extraordinary, profoundly unsettling film like no other. It’s the second film by independent British film-maker Peter Strickland, confirming the talent he demonstrated with his acclaimed debut Katalin Varga, which won the Silver Bear at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival. It stars […]

This article was first published in Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2012. For discussion material on this film, see Sophie Lister's Damaris Film Blog discussion guide. James Bond has been in the spying business for such a long time that he really ought to be up for a long-service award. But the world’s most famous secret […]

This article was first published on Culturewatch.org. © Tony Watkins, 2012 There seems to be considerable interest in films based on fairy tales at present. Rupert Sanders'sSnow White and the Huntsman comes close on the heels of Tarsem Singh's Mirror Mirror, while in various stages of development are Jack the Giant Killer, Hansel and Gretel: […]

This article was first published in Culturewatch.org in two parts, where you can also find my discussion guide. © Tony Watkins, 2012. How can we ever understand God? Because he is infinite and transcendent, and we are finite and limited, we often end up thinking about him in very human terms. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud claimed […]

This article was first published in Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2012. My discussion guide is here. Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent in The Iron Lady. © 2011, Pathé Productions Ltd. Used by permission. An old lady in a headscarf is buying a pint of milk in a local shop. She’s surprised by the price of the milk, […]

This article was first published on Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2011 Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) sits brooding in the empty Oakland Coliseum stadium. He switches on his radio to listen for a few moments to the commentary of a baseball game, then turns it off. It’s only moments before he turns it on again. Off. […]

This article was first published on Culturewatch.  ‘Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up.’ Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) would probably agree with Tom Stoppard’s wry comment. Oliver is fifteen years old and anxious to be grown up, yet struggling with the transition to adulthood. He’s a rather serious boy, full of both […]

This article was first published on Culturewatch.  Life in a broken world is deeply unjust. Some people breeze through life with material security, happy marriages and hardly a care in the world. Others struggle through every miserable day. The central character in Paddy Considine's astonishing and harrowing debut as writer-director, Joseph (Peter Mullan), is a […]