Cinema
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Back on the (block)chain gang
My current writing project is around blockchain and the entertainment industries, and mostly involves sorting hype from legitimate ideas. This is one of the first not-super-conceptual academic pieces I’ve written, so it’s interesting to sort through a whole bunch of reportage, blogs, videos, and just get a sense of what the current atmosphere around something… Continue reading
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Interview with Intellect Books
In the chaos of 2020 I didn’t post this, but here’s a chat I had with the lovely James from Intellect Books. Mostly we chat about war and cinema (my first book The Hollywood War Film was published by Intellect in 2017), but there’s a small nod at the end of the conversation to Material… Continue reading
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the freshness of being
I couldn’t stop watching it. Again. Like, the film is two hours and forty fucking minutes long. It’s also been a solid two years or so since the first time I saw it. And it’s not the same. I thought it would feel slower. That I would be made to feel each agonising camera movement… Continue reading
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Romance and reflection
There is a mode of writing about film that I really enjoy reading — I’m cautiously calling it romantic-reflexive. Practitioners of this style include Murray Pomerance, Geoff Dyer, Raul Ruiz. It’s a style I enjoy because it feels immediate, almost as if the thought had just occurred to the writer. It’s an informed style, but… Continue reading
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Another one bites the dust
I received this text message today, and it made me sad. I lived in Katoomba for a couple of years while I was working on the PhD, and somewhere between the Carrington Hotel and Civic Video, plus the not too shabby view off the back verandah, was maybe one of the most blissful and productive… Continue reading
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The world is so unutterably boring
Sometimes it’s the movement. Just the movement. As the light hits a blade of grass, or a leaf — something that’s completely out of a cinematographer’s control. Sometimes it’s the perfect placement of a vaguely recognisable object — like a syringe, or a coin, or a calendar page — just below the surface of a… Continue reading
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Dunkirk (2017)
David Cox’s no doubt controversial take on Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk has spurred me to writing, and not, as you might think, to leap to the film’s defence. I saw Dunkirk on Saturday morning; not in IMAX, as Nolan would make everyone if he could legally do so, but at my local cinema, on a normal screen. I’d… Continue reading
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Hypnosis
Like the boy reaching out in Persona … … like Neo, who cannot resist the mirror … … cinema is hypnotic, and we are powerless to its mechanisms. Continue reading
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Stoker (2013)
I’ve frequently maintained that the best films stay with you. I don’t mean ‘best’ in terms of quality, necessarily — though that helps — but the best films in terms of those that actually meaningfully contribute to what we call cinema. The best films keep projecting into our temporal lobes long after the credits have… Continue reading
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Awaiting Awakens
It’s been hard for me to focus today. Technically it’s a work day — the place I work for doesn’t close down for the Christmas break until December 23. For better or worse, though, the primary element of my role — teaching — wrapped up at the end of October. Grading assessments brought me up… Continue reading
About Me
Daniel Binns is a media-maker and theorist of media and screen cultures. He is the author of The Hollywood War Film: Critical Observations from World War I to Iraq (2017), and Material Media-Making in the Digital Age (2021), and has published work on Netflix documentaries, drone cinematography, and film genres. Long walks on the beach are fine, but I much prefer cabins in the woods, board games, RPGs, and movies.
Daniel Binns 