Ilustrado, by Miguel Syjuco
By Mike Jakeman Ilustrado, winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize and the debut novel by a young Filipino writer, Miguel Syjuco, begins with…
Review Samples - Page 3
Reviewing is a separate art form in terms of writing. It takes on a different tone, format, and style compared to academic writing. Look at our review samples to get better acquainted with review writing.
Angel Time: The Songs Of The Seraphim, by Anne Rice
By Alicia Rudd From its initial façade, the latest novel by international best-selling author Anne Rice carries the attractive promise of being a ‘dark gothic…
And This is True
By Chris Sims ‘Time passes, and little by little everything that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true,’ writes Proust in Remembrance of Things Past.…
Tosca, ENO, Coliseum, London
By Sarah Boyes Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) is a notoriously popular composer. Popular, in terms of sheer numbers of admirers during his lifetime and enduring resonance…
Romeo and Juliet, Rose Theatre, London
By Miriam Gillinson A white mist unfurls onstage. Two armies filter forward—it is hard to make them out through the fog—and begin to mime a…
Up in the Air
By Dennis Hayes Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air is one of those rare films that deals with contemporary working life. It focuses on the…
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest
By Angelica Michelis The final part of Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy starts exactly where the second volume has finished: Lisbeth Salander, the plucky and unusual heroine…
Harry Brown
By Mark Carrigan This film tells the story of Harry Brown, a pensioner living on a decaying housing estate in South London. Formerly a marine,…
The Ghost Writer
By Mark Carrigan Given the likelihood that its director Roman Polanski may never make another film, it is difficult not to approach The Ghost Writer…
Harlan County, USA
By Dan Schneider Barbara Kopple is one of those filmmakers who can do just about any film well. And so much so that when she…
The Tyranny of Guilt, an Essay on Western Masochism, by Pascal Bruckner
By Tara McCormack The other day on the train, I came across a copy of the Daily Express. It is not a paper I normally…
The Importance of Being Earnest
By Jane Turner The Importance of Being Earnest was the first and is also sadly, the last play to be performed in the basement of…
The New Old World
By Chris Bickerton Perry Anderson’s The New Old World is a welcome addition to the many books published in recent years on the European Union…
Macbeth
By Matt Trueman Imagine if you could bathe in Macbeth. Or cut it into lines and snort it. What about painting your house Macbeth? ‘OK,’…
The Slap
By Mike Jakeman Until the triumphant return of Jonathan Franzen in the autumn, it seemed that Christos Tsiolkas’ novel, The Slap, was a contender for…
The Talented Mr. Ripley
There are thriller movies that rely mostly on gore—“Hostel,” “Devil’s Rejects,” “Friday 13th,” and other similar films mostly focus on murder, blood—and their thrill comes…
Visions of Space: God’s Architect
By Dan Schneider Sometimes the extra features on a DVD oddly turn out to surpass the featured film itself. Such is the case with the…
King Death by Toby Litt
By Miguel Fernandes Ceia Working his way through the alphabet, Toby Litt has now delivered the letter ‘K’ with his new novel King Death. The…
How the West Was Lost
By Andrew Wheelhouse ‘We think we know what’s coming. But is it already too late?’ Taglines this ominous in tone usually belong to a Roland…
The Graduate
By Dan Schneider Comedian Mike Nichols, in the mid-1960s, abandoned a flourishing comedy career with his partner, Elaine May, to become a filmmaker. His first…