Why does crime fiction fascinate so many people? What might this show us about people's concerns today.

The dwarves have all the best songs. Whether they are singing raucous ditties about smashing Bilbo’s best crockery or low, mournful…

At one time, every parent and child knew all about Nativity plays. Many will have memories and photographs of tea-towel-adorned shepherds,…

M (Judi Dench) is nothing if not pragmatic. Before the opening credits of Skyfall have even rolled, she has allowed not one, but two of her…

The most recent strain of Brontemania, at large throughout 2011, included major film versions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and the…

According to the Romans, ‘bread and circuses’ were the key to keeping a population content. As long as their immediate physical…

Vincent Van Gogh is now a solid fixture in our cultural vocabulary. I need only mention sunflowers or a bandaged ear to conjure up his life…

The second of the two films adapted from J.K. Rowling’s final Harry Potter novel begins at the place where the first left us hanging:…

When newspaper columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) meets homeless, schizophrenic Juilliard-dropout Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Jr. (Jamie…