cultural criticism

I am a culture writer focusing on contemporary cinema, video games, internet culture, and cultural representations of irony and sincerity. I have a Master’s degree in Cultural and Critical Studies from Birkbeck, University of London and wrote my dissertation on New Sincerity in contemporary indie video games with reference to Twin Peaks, David Lynch’s Lost Highway, and Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg.

film criticism

As a film critic, I have reviewed films from a range of film festivals including BFI London Film Festival, Glasgow Film Festival, Fantasia International Film Festival, and BFI Flare LGBTIQ+ Film Festival. I have also appeared as a contributing film critic on the film review podcast and radio show, Cinetopia.

Reviews Per Minute

In 2023, I reviewed every film I watched during the year with a word count that corresponded to the number of minutes long the film is. This project was called Reviews Per Minute.

selected film reviews

Below is a random selection from my film reviews for TAKE ONE. This random selection is auto-generated from a Zotero group using the Zotero API and will present a different selection every time the page is refreshed.

Shiva Baby (2020)

Possessor (2020)

La Chimera (2023)

Bird (2024)

Benediction (2021)

The Astronaut (L’Astronaute) (2022)

Smoking Causes Coughing (Fumer fait tousser) (2022)

Tell Me Who I Am (2019)

The Return (2024)

How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022)

publications and presentations

This list of publications and presentations is auto-generated from my Zotero library using the Zotero API.

Bowie, Simon. 2023. ‘Glasgow Short Film Festival 2023’, TAKE ONE, 4 April <https://takeonecinema.net/2023/glasgow-short-film-festival-2023/>
Bowie, Simon. 2022. ‘Only Time: Time and Trauma in Yellowjackets’, unpublished paper delivered at No Return: A Yellowjackets Symposium (18 June 2022) <https://baftsshorror.weebly.com/no-return-a-yellowjackets-symposium.html>
Bowie, Simon. 2022. ‘Auto-Invitation’, in Invitation to Love, The 6ress, 3, p. 6 <https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1144886005/issue-3-invitation-to-love?show_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details>
Bowie, Simon. 2021. ‘'Under the Sycamore Trees’: Irony and Sincerity in Twin Peaks Episode 29’, unpublished paper delivered at Beyond Life and Death: Twin Peaks at Thirty conference (31 July 2021)
Bowie, Simon. 2021. ‘Posthumanism in Outer Wilds’, Press Start, 7.1, pp. 45–65, doi:10.17613/d4rs-rx03
Bowie, Simon. 2021. ‘Time and the Nuclear in Twin Peaks: The Return’, unpublished paper delivered at 'It Is In Our House Now!’: Twin Peaks: The Return First Online Conference (20 May 2021) <https://youtu.be/L_Cqo0JHiYc?t=5160>
Bowie, Simon. 2021. ‘Hitman & Murder Mysteries’, JumpCut PLAY, 20 January <https://play.jumpcutonline.co.uk/2021/01/20/hitman-murder-mysteries-dartmoor-knives-out/>
Bowie, Simon. 2021. The Fire in Which We Burn: Time and Trauma in Contemporary Television (Beir Bua Press) <https://doi.org/10.17613/yk49-zh32>
Bowie, Simon. 2020. ‘Grey Matters: Black and White Re-Releases’, TAKE ONE, 30 July <https://takeonecinema.net/2020/grey-matters-black-and-white-re-releases/>
Bowie, Simon. 2020. ‘New Sincerity, the Weird, and the Post-Ironic Turn in Contemporary Indie Video Games’ (unpublished MA thesis, Birkbeck, University of London) <https://doi.org/10.17613/5sje-w447>
Bowie, Simon. 2019. ‘A Brief Examination of Bowsette: Memes and Fandom under Late Capitalism’, unpublished paper delivered at Fantastic! Conference 2019 (Sheffield, UK, 25 April 2019), (Sheffield, UK) <https://medium.com/@SimonXIX/bowsette-anti-capitalist-icon-1c988a5c51ed>
Barron, Simon. 2010. ‘The Magic of Fantasy: The Traditional, the Original and the Wonderful’, Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society, no. 50, pp. 31–34 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/48614719>

fiction

My fiction has been published in various literary publications and in New Scientist as the winner of their 2009 flash fiction competition.

Barron, Simon. 2010. ‘Foreword to Volume 421’, Perigee: Publication for the Arts, no. 28 (April) <https://web.archive.org/web/20110521155141/http://perigee-art.com/index-3.php#story>
Barron, Simon. 2010. ‘Eduard Aster and the Möbius Play’, Blankpages, no. 21 (April) <https://issuu.com/blank_media_collective/docs/blankpages_issue_21>
Barron, Simon. 2010. ‘Last Orders’, First Edition Magazine, no. 10 (March)
Barron, Simon. 2009. ‘Body Search’, New Scientist, 204.2739, p. 77 <https://doi.org/10.1016/S0262-4079(09)63335-2>