Themes such as abandonment and grief are the driving force in a story and are beautifully written and portrayed.

When I started writing this article, I would have never thought that I would have found myself spiraling for a couple of weeks. I tried to delve deeper in the rabbit hole of madness that is dogs (or pets) in movies and TV shows; what followed was more akin to “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” than any of the movies that are presented in this article, but I managed to get on the other side relatively unscathed, physically.

Hollywood feature films are hardly meant to be history lessons or taken as the bible. Producer of acclaimed historical feature Pearl Harbour, Jerry Bruckheimer himself said, '[w]e tried to be accurate, but it's certainly not meant to be a history lesson’.

The mythologising of the Wild West as a home for white men roaming freely and taking the law into their own hands is indicative of a central tenet of American and, more broadly, Western masculinity. It is, quite simply, racist.

The hope that we could tame that ‘bad boy’ or should stick it out in a bad relationship until it eventually turned around was strongly imprinted on us via several fictional couples the same way teen shows depicted girls needing to be white and skinny to be perceived as beautiful. The big difference between reality and fiction, is that in reality these relationships are less romantic, more traumatic, and most likely won’t result in a happy ending before the credits start rolling.

Relationships are often excellent opportunities to impart wisdom about cultures you may not have any exposure to, and indeed throughout our relationship I have taken many opportunities to (re)educate Martin on Italian culture beyond the existence of Pizza Express, ‘gabagool’ and whatever else Hollywood has (not) taught him about Italy.

Relationships are often excellent opportunities to impart wisdom about cultures you may not have any exposure to, and indeed throughout our relationship I have taken many opportunities to (re)educate Martin on Italian culture beyond the existence of Pizza Express, ‘gabagool’ and whatever else Hollywood has (not) taught him about Italy.

But good films (and good art) don’t need a director with personal experience of the subject matter. If they did, there would be no fantasy films, no sci-fi thrillers, and no superhero blockbusters. So why do men dominate in the world of directorial sequels? Are men just better directors than women?

What I love most about the freshness of what is to be queer, is the inclusivity of it, the normalisation of it, especially on the big and small screen. It’s so wonderful to watch something that isn’t just about ‘coming out’.

I conducted a straw poll of my friends, all of whom have a love for cinema, as to whether the Oscars influenced their film choices, and it was almost an equal split with positive and negative responses. Some gave little credence to the awards, believing that the nominated films are likely to be over hyped or simply preferring to seek out films for themselves, whereas others viewed the Oscars as a reliable guide for high quality films.

In light of the pandemic bringing a halt to any and all travel plans my girlfriend and I had, we decided we’d plug in and take a trip around the world through the wonder of the small screen so, without further ado, join us on a whistle stop tour as we take flight from LAX and head eastward bound to sample some of the sights the rest of the world has to offer. Our first stop?

Not only a form of escapism, these shows give us a window into the past, a window into the stories either us, our parents or our grandparents, remember.

Of course, I’m not saying that an actor changing their appearance for a role is bad, there’s nothing wrong with people wearing wigs, different clothes, make-up, accessories, etc… My issue lies somewhere between there and pretending to be an entirely different sub-group by means of physical transformation.

Anime as a genre has enjoyed an increase in popularity over the last decade, with a constantly diversifying audience demographic. Its popularity has especially picked up traction in the latter half of the decade, as establish streaming sites such as Netflix and Crunchyroll continue to host and even produce original anime’s for global audiences.