Richard Hartley

1 week ago | richardhartley.com | Richard Hartley

Since it started in 2022, the Star Wars spin-off Andor has proved an unexpectedly bolshie addition to the Disney-owned mega-franchise. By portraying worker uprisings, surveillance states, sexual violence and prison industrial complexes, showrunner Tony Gilroy added fresh political nuance and human stakes to George Lucas’s endless galactic civil war.

1 month ago | richardhartley.com | Richard Hartley

The date is 1765. Llanrumney is a slave plantation in Jamaica, established by Captain Henry Morgan, a privateer and former lieutenant governor of the Caribbean island, who named it after his supposed birthplace, now a suburb of Cardiff. This is the setting for Azuka Oforka’s drama TheWomen of Llanrumney. Rooted in the truths of slavery, the play tackles its horrors with verve, energised by anger and laced, unexpectedly (if not always successfully), with broad humour.

2 months ago | richardhartley.com | Richard Hartley

North Korea was behind the theft of approximately $1.5bn in virtual assets from a cryptocurrency exchange, the FBI has said, in what is being described as the biggest heist in history. The haul, which reportedly has since lost some of its value, exceeded the previous record sum of $1bn stolen by the dictator Saddam Hussein from Iraq’s central bank before the 2003 war, and underlines the North’s growing expertise in cybercrime.

Feb 2, 2025 | richardhartley.com | Richard Hartley

The latest from the prolific South Korean film-maker Hong Sang-soo may feel familiar to fans of the director’s lo-fi work. Long, well-lubricated nights of soju drinking and oversharing captured by long, watchful mid-shots figure prominently here, as they do in most of Hong’s pictures. It remains an effective formula: By the Stream is a wry comedy of manners that muses, in its unassuming way, on the creative act.

Nov 22, 2024 | richardhartley.com | Richard Hartley

ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, will begin publishing print books in February. The company already publishes ebooks through its imprint 8th Note Press, but will begin selling physical copies in book shops early next year. The imprint will primarily publish genres that are popular on BookTok – the buzzy corner of TikTok where users share book recommendations. These include romance, contemporary fiction, young adult and romantasy – a blend of “romance” and “fantasy”.