Hey, Medium.

Long time no fucking see, huh?

It’s weird to think that we used to talk to each other every day. Well, to be precise, I mostly did the talking, and sometimes you gave me money. Nothing to complain about, as far as I was concerned.

Then somewhere along the way, we lost each other. Not to pull an “it’s not you, it’s me” on you, but it really was me. The truth is that I got a little too invested in other stuff. …

Despite being about solving a murder mystery, the most surprising thing about The Lovebirds might be that it was ever meant to get a theatrical release. …

Forget about gingerbread houses and white pebbles: if Oz Perkins’ Gretel and Hansel takes its inspiration in the classic Grimm story, what he shows us has little to do with a children’s story. The inherent eerie nature of fairytales has been an inspiration for many horror films in the past, from its most mainstream representants in Pan’s Labyrinth to the more obscure in The Lure. It was only a matter of time before the most famous abandoned kids of German literature would get their own time to shine in the ever-changing world of arthouse horror.

As the inversion of the…

If the verbally abusive calls that Jane gets from her anonymous boss are the most explicit depiction of the extent of his cruelty, the most terrifying scene of Kitty Green’s The Assistant isn’t one of direct abuse. About halfway through the film, the young woman leaves her usual spot at her desk to go knock on another door - presumably, one of a HR representative. Visibly uncomfortable, Jane struggles to find her place as the man in front of her reassures her that she came to the right person for whatever it is that is causing her distress. He smiles…

It is rare to get everything you will ever need to know about a film’s main character simply by looking at its poster. Standing straight and staring directly at us, Anya Taylor-Joy’s Emma Woodhouse refuses to be an enigma. She towers above her land, a bright sun in what would otherwise be little more than a bleak oversight of 18th century rural England. Her presence alone is enough to give us an idea of who the young woman we’re about to meet will turn out to be.

Yet the biggest piece of information we can get about the film’s main…

Some stories thrive in the unsaid. Asking the readers to fill gaps in a story can make for a unique experience for each of them, without having anything to do with any kind of laziness on the author’s part. On the contrary, by letting us believe that we are smart enough to only need a few words to understand their message, we feel closer to the novel and its universe than we ever would have had the author laid down everything to simply passively consume. …

Watched as part of a Twitter Watch Party hosted by Allison M. — Thank you for the fun experience, it’s always interesting to watch something you probably would have never picked by yourself!

There’s an unmistakable feeling of being trapped when watching this. The hot Florida weather makes every character heavy with sweat and their words equally lethargic; all the interactions within this little world feel like they already have a fixed outcome. …

The Talented Mr Ripley’s sequels continually suffer from comparison with its original. As the series reaches its end, the disconnect between the first dark thriller and the novels that followed it is more obvious than ever. Ripley is no longer the menacing psychopath we once met on the beautiful coasts of Italy back in 1955; here, he almost feels like an old friend, save for the homicidal tendencies. How easily Highsmith can make us sympathise with a serial killer is proof enough of her writing talents; how melancholic it feels to finally leave him, even more.

We’re back once more…