Below, you’ll find a selection of links to some of my favourite posts I wrote on the previous blog. I’ve picked out ones that I feel either best showcase my writing style or my versatility or my dedication (with explanations given next to them in case you’d like to pick and choose), but you’re also welcome to browse at your own leisure. You can find all of the old posts here, in their original form. Be kind, a lot of them are shabby and very clearly the work of a much less experienced writer, but I’m preserving them as they are for the sake of honesty. So anyway, here are my favourite things I’ve written, presented in no particular order.

My Favourite Video Game of 2020 – Hades – A write-up on Hades and why it works so well for me particularly. It serves as both a sort of review of the game, as well as an attempt to recommend it to others through enthusiastic analysis.

Review – Promising Young Woman – My review of a film that has proved challenging, both in its upsetting subject matter and its critical divide. I navigated those two divides through the lens of my positive thoughts on the film, being careful to consider those who felt differently on the film to me but not in a way that compromised writing a review that is clearly mine.

My Favourite Album of 2020 – Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers – I often don’t write on music as its where my critical faculties are most limited, but I left my comfort zone for this album because it affected me so much. I’m proud of both the analysis of the music and the way I extrapolated that into the albums emotional impact on myself.

Can I Offer You On Cinema in This Trying Time? – This piece well demonstrates my willingness to write on something because I believe it is worthy of coverage and not because it is in the zeitgeist at a given moment. It’s also proof that I have no pretentions regarding what form art arrives as, whether it is a film, a video game or a web series.

Do You Feel Like A Hero Yet? – The Last of Us and Violence in Context – Mainstream coverage of video games often fails to reckon with the context surrounding games, especially those from larger, AAA developers. I’m really proud of doing that with this piece, weighing up the success of a story on its own terms and in the world from which it was formed.

Review – Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – While I most often spend time reviewing films that I like or even loved, it’s a much trickier thing to review a film that I have a more conflicted opinion on. It was also a review I wrote in only a handful of hours and yet I’m still really happy with how the review turned out.

Goodbye Bojack Horseman – Again, this was a piece that sits somewhere between the realm of a review and a more in-depth piece on what I believe to be one of the best shows ever made. TV remains harder for me to discuss in my writing due to my lack of dedication to it, but when the right show comes along I rarely refuse the opportunity to discuss it.

Review – I’m Thinking of Ending Things – It can be hard to measure success as a writer past viewership numbers. For me, this review is one of my biggest successes because two friends watched the film because of my glowing words. Though they both confessed afterwards to hating the film, it showed me the power my words can have.

The Desolate Campuses of a Pandemic World – When I find something that interests me enough to write about, the next stage is to find an angle that makes this compelling. With The Last of Us, I found my favourite angle, discussing the brilliantly realised campuses of the game world in comparison with those of the real world.

Review – Uncut Gems and Review – Little Women – Both of these reviews are ones I’m proud of for the same reason, as reviews that heap exuberant and eloquent praise onto two films that have really deeply affected me recently. When struck by a profound love for film, this is the kind of writing I am capable of.

Deep Dive – Depression, Anxiety and Melancholy in the Internet Age – To this day, this piece is the one that I’ve had the most personal responses from. It was me talking through my dark emotional state at the time and while I personally struggle to re-read it because of that, it also meant the writing is intensely personal.

Review – Miami Connection – Bad films are one of my great passions and outside of my undergraduate dissertation, this review of Miami Connection is my best writing yet on why the subject compels me so much and why it should be of interest/enjoyment to others.

La Haine and Regrettable Relevancy – This was a piece I wrote in 2020, both as a result of the 25th anniversary re-release of the film and the Black Lives Matter protests that took place during the summer that year. It’s one of the most openly political things I’ve ever written, yet still contains my strong analytical voice.

Review – London Film Festival 2020 Part 1 – Whenever possible, I try and attend the London Film Festival and would one day love to cover it for another outlet. This particular piece was written for the digital edition of LFF, during which I was able to see 30 films and picked out The Painter and The Thief, Mangrove and Kajillionaire to review. (This piece also had a second part, found here, for which I reviewed Never Gonna Snow Again, Supernova and Limbo.)

Top 100 – My Favourite Films of the 2010s – I’ve written many “Top 7” lists while I’ve been a writer, which often don’t contain my most in depth work. However, this project took such a long length of time to create that it warranted mention. Excluding the months and years it took to watch and rewatch films for the list, I spent countless hours writing up anywhere from a few lines to multiple paragraphs on the films that I have most loved in the past ten years.