Eraserhead’s Stylistic Tics Leave Traces of Infection
David Lynch's impossibly mundane and unspeakably grotesque Eraserhead turns a looking glass upon an entire constellation of avant-garde signifiers.
James Baxter
James Baxter is a culture writer, researcher and tutor currently based in South-East London. He graduated from the University of Reading with a PhD in English Literature - @chromakeydream
The “Luxurious Loneliness” of Anime Film ‘Perfect Blue’
In Satoshi Kon's 1997 masterpiece, Perfect Blue, former J-Pop idol Mima Kirigoe's crisis of identity echoes our current 'epidemic' of loneliness -- upsetting the boundary between private and public agency, the desire to hide and the compulsion to be seen.
What Lurks Beneath: ‘Jaws’ and Political Leadership in the Time of COVID-19
Boris Johnson admires the Mayor in Spielberg's Jaws. Remember him? He was the guy who wouldn't close the beaches -- and sacrifice that revenue source -- during a public crisis.
The Ghostliness of Mark Jenkin’s Post-Brexit Parable, ‘Bait’
Mark Jenkin's haunting Bait exhibits a ghostliness that complements the film's transient landscape of seasonal capital and short-term holiday lets.
‘Toy Story 4’ and the Consolation of Uselessness
Josh Cooley's addition to the Toy Story universe is injected with something altogether more cosmic in scope than the previous films -- a comedic reverie of all things disintegratory.
The Unspeakable Horror of Daughters’ ‘You Won’t Get What You Want’
There's an 'exorbitant' something that might be considered the implicit subject of Daughters' You Won't Get What You Want, in which it's never entirely clear if the threat is invasive, exerted from outside, or the confession of internal struggle.