Xan Brooks
@xanbrooks.bsky.social
Novelist, journalist. THE CATCHERS (https://tinyurl.com/TheCatchers2024)
Spoke with Joel Edgerton & Clint Bentley about their fabulous Train Dreams, & the pleasures & pain of a life on the road
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no...
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no...
‘Studio bosses were like: it sounds lovely. We’ll pass!’: Joel Edgerton and Clint Bentley on their Oscar-tipped lumberjack tragedy
The actor and the director of Train Dreams – a quietly powerful tale of a logger in 1900s Idaho – on the slog of getting it made, the joy of motel living and why human-made things will always beat AI
www.theguardian.com
November 14, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Spoke with Joel Edgerton & Clint Bentley about their fabulous Train Dreams, & the pleasures & pain of a life on the road
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no...
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no...
Delighted by this; it's a book that sticks around.
Right alongside Denis Johnson, too, for the added real estate value
Right alongside Denis Johnson, too, for the added real estate value
November 11, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Delighted by this; it's a book that sticks around.
Right alongside Denis Johnson, too, for the added real estate value
Right alongside Denis Johnson, too, for the added real estate value
Reposted by Xan Brooks
Whole fucking thing makes me sick to my stomach. An abject fucking liar, a man who lies as easily as he fucking breathes, threatening an organisation which strives for truthfulness. And plastic patriots like the Mail and Farage urging him on. Jackels.
November 11, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Whole fucking thing makes me sick to my stomach. An abject fucking liar, a man who lies as easily as he fucking breathes, threatening an organisation which strives for truthfulness. And plastic patriots like the Mail and Farage urging him on. Jackels.
By this logic, can the BBC now countersue Karoline Leavitt for labelling its output as “100% fake news”? Have her stand that up in court, with evidence, or the White House pays a billion in damages www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/w...
Trump Threatens to Sue the BBC for $1 Billion After Jan. 6 Documentary
www.nytimes.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:03 PM
By this logic, can the BBC now countersue Karoline Leavitt for labelling its output as “100% fake news”? Have her stand that up in court, with evidence, or the White House pays a billion in damages www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/w...
Waking up to wall-to-wall news of the BBC mugging & the Democrat collapse (8 turncoats, but that's all it takes) & it feels somehow seismic, a battle lost on two crucial fronts. 2025, what a year, constant cowardice & capitulation.
November 10, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Waking up to wall-to-wall news of the BBC mugging & the Democrat collapse (8 turncoats, but that's all it takes) & it feels somehow seismic, a battle lost on two crucial fronts. 2025, what a year, constant cowardice & capitulation.
For @the-independent.com, on the self-admiring Jay Kelly & the constellation of stars who like to orbit themselves www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
George Clooney basically plays himself in Jay Kelly – so why is he so unconvincing?
Noah Baumbach’s new film casts Clooney as a wealthy, handsome, pampered and indulged A-lister, and like many films in which fake stars opine about the miseries of celebrity, it quickly wears out its w...
www.independent.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 7:47 AM
For @the-independent.com, on the self-admiring Jay Kelly & the constellation of stars who like to orbit themselves www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
I love to hear about the genesis of novels. The solitary seed that was planted years before it flowered. The seemingly random schmutter of ideas that slowly come together & spark
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
‘I had a year to write it from scratch’: the 2025 Booker finalists on the stories behind their novels
A newspaper report about a missing girl, the memory of a midwinter emergency … Susan Choi, Andrew Miller, David Szalay and others on what inspired their shortlisted books
www.theguardian.com
November 8, 2025 at 10:53 AM
I love to hear about the genesis of novels. The solitary seed that was planted years before it flowered. The seemingly random schmutter of ideas that slowly come together & spark
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
Jennifer Lawrence Oscar campaign up & running
November 3, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Jennifer Lawrence Oscar campaign up & running
Reposted by Xan Brooks
This week's @the-independent.com column: on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, that magnificent, swaggering, unreconstructed giant of 70s American cinema
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at 50: Unruly, boneheaded, and still a classic
Rejected by most major studios at the time and certainly not expected to win multiple Oscars and place second only to ‘Jaws’ in the biggest films of 1975, Milos Forman’s barbed mental hospital tale re...
www.independent.co.uk
October 13, 2025 at 7:28 AM
This week's @the-independent.com column: on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, that magnificent, swaggering, unreconstructed giant of 70s American cinema
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
Good, stringent piece, Hannah Jane Parkinson taking no prisoners here (as opposed to Saudi, which takes literally thousands)
www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/o...
‘Amoral, evil’: vitriolic backlash builds against comics who played Riyadh festival
Murder by bone-saw, lashings for rape victims, punishment amputation, jail for satirists … these are the Saudi human rights abuses fuelling the fury being directed at the likes of Louis CK, Dave Chapp...
www.theguardian.com
October 9, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Good, stringent piece, Hannah Jane Parkinson taking no prisoners here (as opposed to Saudi, which takes literally thousands)
www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/o...
40 years old this week. One of those rare life-changing albums when I first heard it at 16; the whole wild world kicking in the front door. ‘We sail tonight for Singapore …’
October 4, 2025 at 11:51 AM
40 years old this week. One of those rare life-changing albums when I first heard it at 16; the whole wild world kicking in the front door. ‘We sail tonight for Singapore …’
The one trait shared by all the worst people I’ve ever worked with was their habit of brazenly framing their disasters as triumphs.
Absolutely bizarre. Trump takes credit for a judge blocking HIS OWN PLAN to cut $34 million in funding for counterterrorism in New York.
October 3, 2025 at 5:39 PM
The one trait shared by all the worst people I’ve ever worked with was their habit of brazenly framing their disasters as triumphs.
Thomas Pynchon's Shadow Ticket. An antic noir adventure that plays like a postmodern Tintin story. A portrait of 1930s fascism that reminds us a little of now www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...
Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon review – his first novel in 12 years tunes into rising fascism in the US
The 88-year-old’s jaunty whodunnit, set during the prohibition era, features clowns, Nazis and a missing cheese heiress
www.theguardian.com
September 30, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Thomas Pynchon's Shadow Ticket. An antic noir adventure that plays like a postmodern Tintin story. A portrait of 1930s fascism that reminds us a little of now www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...
This is an excellent, clarifying article that points out pretty starkly where we are all standing right now
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Extreme weather and extreme politics go hand in hand – Trump and Musk are pushing both
Rabble-rousing of far-right demagogues is a reminder that the battle for a fair and habitable planet cannot be fought alone
www.theguardian.com
September 26, 2025 at 10:14 AM
This is an excellent, clarifying article that points out pretty starkly where we are all standing right now
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Claudia Cardinale: the only actor to star in three of Sight & Sound's 100 best films of all time, but who also played the princess in The Pink Panther, destoyer & rebuilder of adolescents the world over. The cause of & cure for all our problems. No better legacy. RIP
a woman in a pink sweater is talking on a telephone
ALT: a woman in a pink sweater is talking on a telephone
media.tenor.com
September 23, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Claudia Cardinale: the only actor to star in three of Sight & Sound's 100 best films of all time, but who also played the princess in The Pink Panther, destoyer & rebuilder of adolescents the world over. The cause of & cure for all our problems. No better legacy. RIP
Birds, Strangers & Psychos, an anthology of Hitchock-inspired short stories, is the Times's "thriller of the month". We're launching it at the BFI Southbank, 6.30pm next Monday. Drop by if you're free, or need a place to lie low. Still some vacancies. All mod cons
whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/defau...
whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/defau...
September 22, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Birds, Strangers & Psychos, an anthology of Hitchock-inspired short stories, is the Times's "thriller of the month". We're launching it at the BFI Southbank, 6.30pm next Monday. Drop by if you're free, or need a place to lie low. Still some vacancies. All mod cons
whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/defau...
whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/defau...
Hell is other people, specifically these people www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/w...
Behind Castle Walls, the Rich and Powerful Celebrate Trump
www.nytimes.com
September 18, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Hell is other people, specifically these people www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/w...
Loved PTA’s One Battle After Another for its sheer antic, rolling lawlessness. It’s the red-state blue-state 21stC Pudd’nhead Wilson father-daughter coming-of-age comedy-horror mashup the world (& specifically America) needs right now
September 17, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Loved PTA’s One Battle After Another for its sheer antic, rolling lawlessness. It’s the red-state blue-state 21stC Pudd’nhead Wilson father-daughter coming-of-age comedy-horror mashup the world (& specifically America) needs right now
The Great Robert Redford: “arguably the film industry’s most consequential American over the last fifty years”
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...
American independent cinema owes much to Sundance king Robert Redford | Adrian Horton
With his Sundance film festival and institute, Robert Redford used his considerable power to bring generations of talented film-makers to a bigger audience
www.theguardian.com
September 17, 2025 at 8:02 AM
The Great Robert Redford: “arguably the film industry’s most consequential American over the last fifty years”
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...
Robert Redford, 1936-2025.
“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him”
“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him”
September 16, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Robert Redford, 1936-2025.
“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him”
“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him”
Damn it, he’s gone. I met him once years ago & he was everything you’d hope he’d be. Courteous & thoughtful & entirely comfortable with who he was & what he represented; neither downplaying his status nor exulting in it. Robert Redford, what a man
www.nytimes.com
September 16, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Damn it, he’s gone. I met him once years ago & he was everything you’d hope he’d be. Courteous & thoughtful & entirely comfortable with who he was & what he represented; neither downplaying his status nor exulting in it. Robert Redford, what a man
Latest Indy column: on the posh streets & dodgy estates of Stephen Kingstown, a sprawling film franchise that has the MCU beat
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
The Long Walk is 2025’s most brutal film – and a reminder of Stephen King’s roots
Too many King adaptations have been cautious, fastidiously reverent affairs, which is why it’s so gratifying to find one that has been allowed some breathing room – and space to be a little lurid, wri...
www.independent.co.uk
September 15, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Latest Indy column: on the posh streets & dodgy estates of Stephen Kingstown, a sprawling film franchise that has the MCU beat
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
Reposted by Xan Brooks
Indy column: on the Yorgos Lanthimos career arc, from Dogtooth to Bugonia, & how we’re all Greek Weird Wave now
The mad Euro genius who conquered Hollywood – and convinced Emma Stone to go bald
Against all odds, and via hits including ‘Poor Things’, ‘The Favourite’ and ‘The Lobster’, the Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos has brought his bizarre, berserk eye to mainstream British and American cin...
www.independent.co.uk
September 1, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Indy column: on the Yorgos Lanthimos career arc, from Dogtooth to Bugonia, & how we’re all Greek Weird Wave now