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 […]

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 […]

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. Warning: This article contains plot spoilers. […]

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 is a repost to coincide with the cinema release of The Twilight Sage: Breaking Dawn (Part 1) This article was first published on Culturewatch.org. © Tony Watkins, 2010. Vampires are currently one of the biggest phenomena in popular culture. They are central to hit television series like True Blood, Being Human and The Vampire Diaries, but leading […]

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 […]

A conversation this morning made me realise I'd never posted this article here, which is why it's appearing some time after the film. This article was first published on Culturewatch. Beware: spoilers ahoy! One of the many changes which the Internet has brought into our lives is that it is remarkably easy to masquerade as […]

First published on Culturewatch © Tony Watkins 2011. The King's Speech is bookended by two speeches. The first is a disaster, a deeply humiliating experience for Prince Albert, Duke of York (Colin Firth), because of a severe stammer which had afflicted him since early childhood. He gives this speech on behalf of his father, King George […]

This article was first published in Idea magazine (May/June 2010) and on Culturewatch.org. © Tony Watkins, 2010. The legend of Robin Hood has an enduring fascination, and not just for small boys with bows and arrows. For over seven centuries, he has been an icon of struggle against unjust authority and of defending the interests […]

This article was first published on Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins. When I interviewed Philip Pullman, I found him genial, generous and engaging. He has a sharp mind, a clever wit, and he’s a brilliant writer. He has justifiably been acclaimed as one of Britain’s finest writers, having won several awards including the Whitbread Book of […]