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James Harvey

@orharveyworking.bsky.social

Writer? Contributing Editor for Film Stories Magazine. Words in/on Total Film, BBC5Live, Great Big Story, WhyNow, GameRant, NE Londoner. NCTJ Gold Standard. Scripts in a drawer. He/him. https://linktr.ee/orharveyworking

353 Followers  |  267 Following  |  61 Posts  |  Joined: 17.10.2023  |  2.1589

Latest posts by orharveyworking.bsky.social on Bluesky

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Roofman review | You'll believe a man can hide (in a Toys "R" US) Channing Tatum goes on a McDonalds robbing spree and hides in a Toys “R” Us in Derek Cianfrance’s sweet holiday crime comedy. Here’s our Roofman review.

Derek Cianfrance's Roofman is the family Christmas hit you didn't know October needed. Review for Film Stories:

filmstories.co.uk/reviews/roof...

07.10.2025 14:08 — 👍 0    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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Tilly Norwood | We can still fight back against the rise of creepy AI actors AI 'actor' Tilly Norwood is said to already have a talent agent. The public response suggests audiences aren’t yet ready to embrace the tech.

A bit by me on AI 'actor' Tilly Norwood: we can still fight back against this creepy nonsense.
filmstories.co.uk/news/tilly-n...

01.10.2025 08:19 — 👍 8    🔁 7    💬 1    📌 2

Why does the new Mandalorian and Grogu trailer have the energy of a noughties sponsored McDonald’s advert?

22.09.2025 14:20 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Really sweaty now, realising Chicken Run wasn’t in the Sight and Sound top 100. Yes I know I’m late. I’m also right to be concerned.

20.09.2025 15:26 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

#TheLongWalk is the biggest surprise of the year. This was so much more intense and emotional than I was expecting and I am DYING to watch it again.

More thoughts 👇

09.09.2025 16:51 — 👍 6    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0

I want to explain a few things and then it might be clearer why UK trans people are upset.
In 2001 I married my wife, Sylvia.
In 2005 I started medical transition. (1/13)

29.08.2025 11:56 — 👍 5506    🔁 3312    💬 65    📌 489
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Have we passed peak 'eat the rich'? Knives Out, Triangle Of Sadness, The White Lotus – has the ‘eat the rich’ genre burnt out too soon?

For Friday’s Film Stories newsletter, I wondered if the post-pandemic “eat the rich” trend has run its course:

filmstories.co.uk/newsletters/...

19.08.2025 13:19 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
WEAPONS (2025) - huge spoiler chat, including THAT ending...!
YouTube video by Film Stories WEAPONS (2025) - huge spoiler chat, including THAT ending...!

Me and @orharveyworking.bsky.social chatted all about #WeaponsMovie and apparently also about breastfeeding and getting killed by Pennywise 🤔

Anyways, go watch it! youtu.be/DpIFOMifhD0?...

09.08.2025 09:26 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

Patient, sobbing: But Doctor, I AM Pagliacci!
ChatGPT: Apologies. I didn't realise when recommending Pagliacci's epic show to cure your depression that you were the genius himself. I'm impressed! With regards to your initial question, I can recommend seeing the Great Clown Pagliacci.

07.08.2025 11:31 — 👍 11702    🔁 2885    💬 18    📌 31
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In Defense of the Traditional Review Far from being a journalistic relic, as suggested by recent developments at the New York Times, arts criticism is inherently progressive, keeping art honest and pointing toward its future.

Every word of this, from @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social: www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

24.07.2025 15:29 — 👍 10    🔁 3    💬 1    📌 2
Film Stories issue 56 cover. Support independent cinema.

Film Stories issue 56 cover. Support independent cinema.

Once again, we've handed our front cover over to lots of indie movies. Indies HAVE to support indies in the current climate. We're an indie, and we're proud to do our bit.

Please help spread the word. Issues for sale here > store.filmstories.co.uk/products/fil...

15.07.2025 11:38 — 👍 31    🔁 11    💬 2    📌 4
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The Vortex: Cocaine and Controversy Home Chat: The Noël Coward Podcast · Episode

The first ep of my hip new podcast is out now, combining my great loves: history, theatre, and 20th century newspapers going absolutely insane. Available on Spotify!

open.spotify.com/episode/2yfJ...

23.06.2025 07:31 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The film-TV-film pipeline isn't working With Karate Kid: Legends struggling at the box office and a Jack Ryan flick on the way, can the film-to-TV pipeline ever reverse course?

On the weird obsession with taking TV-shows-based-on-films back into cinemas...

@filmstories.bsky.social

filmstories.co.uk/features/the...

10.06.2025 08:35 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Oh Oscar, someone’s been listening to the Dan Stevens Frankenstein audiobook.

01.06.2025 14:38 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Ballad Of Wallis Island review | Acoustic comedy with charm to spare An estranged folk duo reunite for a private gig in a thoroughly charming almost-rom-com. Here's our The Ballad Of Wallis Island review.

The Ballad of Wallis Island is so much my jam* I might start selling it at a farmer's market. Review for @filmstories.bsky.social

*This ref doesn't really work, but "so much my chutney" feels obtuse.

filmstories.co.uk/reviews/the-...

28.05.2025 08:19 — 👍 5    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0
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Lilo & Stitch review | Has Disney grown too big for its ideas? A small blue alien makes a half-hearted attempt at destruction as the soul comes out of a beloved film. Here's our Lilo & Stitch review.

Lilo & Stitch deserves to be exiled into space and obliterated with a plasma cannon before it can learn the meaning of ‘ohana’. Review for @filmstories.bsky.social

filmstories.co.uk/reviews/lilo...

20.05.2025 16:23 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

One of the most depressing trends of the last decade has been watching the once thriving space of video game journalism and editorial coverage, with continuity going back decades and a respect for the written word rooted in early internet culture, get successively gutted and destroyed.

01.05.2025 15:44 — 👍 87    🔁 16    💬 3    📌 4

I’m on another podcast! Listen on Apple Podcasts if you like The Last Of Us and also podcasts. And me (please like me)

30.04.2025 19:44 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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>>> HUGE NEW ISSUE KLAXON <<<

Film Stories issue 55 is shipping NOW!

A massive exclusive on the British comedy crime thriller #DeepCover leads the issue.

The UK's biggest film magazine, 168 pages, 100% independent too.

Order your copy here! buff.ly/7dBgpb7

29.04.2025 14:59 — 👍 6    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 5
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Séamas O'Reilly: Trans people have spent a decade being attacked in a moral panic The poor provision of unisex children’s facilities— which reinforces gender stereotypes and inconveniences women and men both — was, incidentally, an issue I remember being quite talked-about a decade...

The UK's political and media class has spent years heaping sadism on trans people, and they want to do the same in Ireland next. Calls for civility and calm won't cut it. We need to fight them tooth and nail.

www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...

26.04.2025 09:54 — 👍 2474    🔁 818    💬 48    📌 65
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Two accountants talk about The Accountant It’s easy to assume accountants love The Accountant. As The Accountant 2 arrives in cinemas, we asked a pair of them about it.

It's easy to assume all accountants love The Accountant, so I did. I asked two real-life finance people how to kill a man with a belt.

filmstories.co.uk/features/two...

26.04.2025 07:27 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Black Mirror Archives

Spent most of this week watching the new season of Black Mirror, exactly 50% of which is the best the series has been in years. Find out which 50% in the individual episode reviews here (I can't be arsed to find a down arrow emoji).

filmstories.co.uk/tag/black-mi...

11.04.2025 13:27 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
I hate all of this in almost every way a thing can be hated. I hate the factless waffle that surrounds Big AI’s every improbable goal. I hate how insipidly stupid, or just plain evil, those goals so often are, and the yawning chasm between them and any form of achievable reality. I hate that Big AI’s successes are inflated and its failures ignored — or are even categorised as hilarious mis-steps, like when AI chatbots tell people to eat poisonous mushrooms, put glue on pizza, or make air diffusers from chlorine gas.

I hate that Big AI consumes so much energy that every time you generate a six-fingered portrait of Anne Frank or a scene from the Vietnam war in the style of Studio Ghibli, you might as well just kill a polar bear with a crossbow. I hate that it can run roughshod over every copyright law and environmental protection on the planet in pursuit of the data it needs to continue failing, with no consequences save for the enrichment of the worst people on Earth, who have managed to make all of this magical bullshit seem sensible to an intellectual class comprised of people I wouldn’t trust to print an email.

I hate all of this in almost every way a thing can be hated. I hate the factless waffle that surrounds Big AI’s every improbable goal. I hate how insipidly stupid, or just plain evil, those goals so often are, and the yawning chasm between them and any form of achievable reality. I hate that Big AI’s successes are inflated and its failures ignored — or are even categorised as hilarious mis-steps, like when AI chatbots tell people to eat poisonous mushrooms, put glue on pizza, or make air diffusers from chlorine gas. I hate that Big AI consumes so much energy that every time you generate a six-fingered portrait of Anne Frank or a scene from the Vietnam war in the style of Studio Ghibli, you might as well just kill a polar bear with a crossbow. I hate that it can run roughshod over every copyright law and environmental protection on the planet in pursuit of the data it needs to continue failing, with no consequences save for the enrichment of the worst people on Earth, who have managed to make all of this magical bullshit seem sensible to an intellectual class comprised of people I wouldn’t trust to print an email.

On hatred.

05.04.2025 12:11 — 👍 1937    🔁 829    💬 26    📌 43
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Reach CEO Jim Mullen steps down with immediate effect Reach CEO Jim Mullen is stepping down after six years with immediate effect. Reach veteran of 11 years Piers North to succeed him.

Jim Mullen out at Reach, taking a new job at the jockey club.

He’s been driving the high story count and journalist reader targets strategy. Will that now change?

pressgazette.co.uk/the-wire/med...

31.03.2025 07:45 — 👍 5    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0

The Sarah Jane Adventures was banned in my house after my mum saw one of the kids talking back to a grown-up. This wasn't the question, but I'm still bitter about it.

21.03.2025 10:11 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Séamas O'Reilly: We need to stop lying about what makes lost boys such easy marks for cons Economically depressed young men are aggressively targeted with the oldest, most seductive pitch there is — money for nothing — by bad faith actors with enormous wealth

I wrote this on young men, and why we need to stop lying about why they're easy prey for reptiles like Andrew Tate.

www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...

15.03.2025 09:11 — 👍 2351    🔁 831    💬 80    📌 122
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Black Bag review | Slick as a whippet, tense as a piano string Stephen Soderbergh's modern Cold War thriller is one of the purest genre thrills you'll get this year. Here's our Black Bag review.

Black Bag is the "movies are back" sentiment condensed into 93 minutes. It's so much flippin' fun. Review for @filmstories.bsky.social

filmstories.co.uk/reviews/blac...

14.03.2025 10:34 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Thanks Simon! I theoretically know what I’m doing now!

08.03.2025 19:20 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

So happy to be officially NCTJ-certified. Now to continue a profitable career in *checks notes* multimedia journalism? Ruh roh!

Available for all sorts of freelance news shifts! Hire me!

08.03.2025 18:55 — 👍 4    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0
francisfordcoppola I am thrilled to accept the Razzie award in so many important categories for @megalopolisfilm, and for the distinctive honor of being nominated as the worst director, worst screenplay, and worst picture at a time when so few have the courage to go against the prevailing trends of contemporary moviemaking! In this wreck of a world today, where ART is given scores as if it were professional wrestling, I chose to NOT follow the gutless rules laid down by an industry so terrified of risk that despite the enormous pool of young talent at its disposal, may not create pictures that will be relevant and alive 50 years from now. What an honor to stand alongside a great and courageous filmmaker like Jacques Tati who impoverished himself completely to make one of cinema's most beloved failures, PLAYTIME! My sincere thanks to all my brilliant colleagues who joined me to make our work of art, MEGALOPOLIS, and let us remind ourselves us that box-office is only about money, and like war, stupidity and politics has no true place in our future.

francisfordcoppola I am thrilled to accept the Razzie award in so many important categories for @megalopolisfilm, and for the distinctive honor of being nominated as the worst director, worst screenplay, and worst picture at a time when so few have the courage to go against the prevailing trends of contemporary moviemaking! In this wreck of a world today, where ART is given scores as if it were professional wrestling, I chose to NOT follow the gutless rules laid down by an industry so terrified of risk that despite the enormous pool of young talent at its disposal, may not create pictures that will be relevant and alive 50 years from now. What an honor to stand alongside a great and courageous filmmaker like Jacques Tati who impoverished himself completely to make one of cinema's most beloved failures, PLAYTIME! My sincere thanks to all my brilliant colleagues who joined me to make our work of art, MEGALOPOLIS, and let us remind ourselves us that box-office is only about money, and like war, stupidity and politics has no true place in our future.

Like most people I was perplexed by Megalopolis but Coppola's response to being singled out for scorn by the atrocious Razzies is better than the movie.

28.02.2025 15:44 — 👍 1032    🔁 203    💬 30    📌 46

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