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I've been catching up with Spider-Man lately as the films come up on Netflix. Spider-Man was one of my favourite characters growing up. I wasn't hugely into comic culture, and ones featuring the web-slinger were some of the few I dipped into. A life-long animation fan, I devoured the cartoons in the 1990s , including retro re-runs of the 1960s show. As many others felt and feel, Peter Parker's encounters with school bullies, his social awkwardness, his outsider identity even when his alter-ego becomes a hero, his underprivileged socio-economic status, and his moral quandaries were all relatable. I remember in my later teens being so excited when I heard Sam Raimi was directing Spider-Man (2002). There had been attempts before in television movies in the 1970s, but special and visual effects technologies had to progress substantially before the web-slinging would be convincing. Even between the first and third Raimi films the development is palpable.  In my later teens and

My partner runs a module that introduces scholarly concepts a practices to new undergraduate students, and to give them the best possible start to their university careers, he provides exemplary essays as examples of high quality first-year work. This is one he commissioned me to write back in autumn (paid me and everything) as it's about social media, which he does not do, and I do too much. This is a substantial rewrite of an essay by a student , the topic chosen by them, but it wasn't up to his high standards. There was maybe 2-5% of the student's work left by the time I re-researched and re-wrote it. About the Charlie Hebdo hashtags, I thought it might be interesting to share. Content is content is content. 5. Using any social media site of your choosing, select any p ost -2000 cultural event and demonstrate one trend amongst its audience. Discuss the dual Twitter hashtags #JeSuisCharlie and #JeNeSuisPasCharlie as an example of post-event debate. I

I recently recorded a guest spot on the GeekSweat movie review and news podcast for a segment asking whether it is time the Academy Awards added a stunts category. It was a relatively brief slot that involved me speaking with two co-hosts and many of the notes I had prepared became redundant. It's not an area of film production I've delved into much before, but I am concerned about safety on sets, particularly as I have begun to learn more about the production process through speaking to practitioners for Audiovisual Cultures and listening to The Delta Flyers . Here I've typed up my notes for the recording, which I hope will be of interest to anyone else keen to learn more about what production entails and the implications of prize culture. Stunt work being snubbed by the Academy Awards and other prestigious film and television awards ceremonies is a question of acknowledgement and it is telling that the stunt community in Hollywood has established their own body to redre

Usually attached to good news, from home in Northern Ireland I've been seeing much bemoaning of the lack of critical engagement with the arts and how voiceless and unseen artists feel due to this. In response I find myself torn, initially internally screaming: I'm right here and yous have been actively ignoring me for twelve years! And the platforms where people like me used to discuss your work spluttered to closure in the years following the 2008 economic crash and *I can't live off air and good will!* Ahem. Then I gather myself and completely agree, but remain frustrated that those economic circumstances are not taken into account, that when I turned up to events at the Ulster University Art College during my PhD (2008-11) I was made to feel like an outsider by some because I was attached to Queen's and I kept turning up regardless, that there wasn't enough support for publications like Circa or Fortnight to keep them going and they didn't pay for contributi