iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 4h

"Forget the myths that the media has created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand." - Hal Holbrook, All The President's Men (1976)

020

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

So Burnham bottles it on water nationalisation. What a surprise - to absolutely no one. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

030

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

HONTAR: We must work in the world. The world is thus. ALTAMIRANO: No, Señor Hontar. Thus have we made the world. Ronald Pickup & Ray McAnally, The Mission

000

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Someone should sit Andy Burnham down in front of The Crown episode Act of God, about the Great London Smog of 1952, if he really thinks that the ongoing heatwaves are nothing more than "weather".

000

Reposted by Alistair Owen

Count Binface @countbinface.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Checkmate, Nige.

14678221992

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

"I know what I have to do now. I've got to keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring." - Tom Hanks, Cast Away

010

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Going from Keir Starmer to Andy Burnham is like watching Jaws 2 and finding that Amity Island still has the exact same mayor.

010

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

This really is a delight. I picked it up on DVD, on spec, years ago, and it was 3 quid very well spent...

110

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

On the blog today: my contribution to Rupert Lally's new book You Need To See This - a foreword, and a friendship, inspired by a shared love of Bruce Robinson's greatly underrated film Jennifer 8. www.alistairowenwriter.com/blog/you-nee...

alistairowenwriter.com

You Need To See This — Alistair Owen

You Need To See This

020

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Name a TV show you're positive no-one remembers but you. Despite being directed by Danny Boyle, written by GF Newman and starring Martin Shaw, Fiona Shaw and Roy Dotrice - with a score by OMD...

001

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

"We've gone through evolution, now we're going through de-evolution. Everything is breaking down. No borders, no boundaries. No limits, no treaties." - Martin Cruz Smith, Wolves Eat Dogs (2004)

220

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Had a J. R. Hartley moment today, and considered buying a secondhand copy of one of my own books, as I've almost run out of author copies. Reader, I resisted.

220

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

"The strategy is ridiculous - try to out-Tory the Tories. But finally, I have to remind you of something you seem to have forgotten: we're not bloody Tories, and so it's a game at which we can't win!" - David Hare, The Absence of War (National Theatre 1993, BBC 1995) www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

bbc.co.uk

BBC Two - Screen Two, The Absence of War

Labour leader George Jones battles with his party on the general election campaign trail.

100

Reposted by Alistair Owen

Will Wiles @willwiles.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Delighted to have received a grant from a submerging writers foundation, which supports mid-career authors while they age, procrastinate and feel their early promise ebb away. Grants like this are essential to the production of unmarketable work of limited appeal.

418139

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

May need to schedule a couple of Tom Stoppard double bills soon...

010

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

My late Mum's programme for Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, which we saw at the NT in spring 1993. That cast, though...

030

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

Genuinely saddened by this. I tried to interview him for two of my books; I still have his gracious demurral on elegant notepaper. The NT production of Arcadia is indelible in my mind, and his scripts for Shakespeare in Love and The Russia House are sublime. RIP. www.theguardian.com/stage/galler...

theguardian.com

Tom Stoppard – a life in pictures

Award-winning playwright Tom Stoppard has died aged 88

220

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Good to see Shepherd's brilliant performance in Peter Flannery & Helena Kennedy's 1988 TV series Blind Justice mentioned here - a show so anti-establishment (the original title was Radical Chambers) that the BBC never repeated it or released it on video or DVD... www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

theguardian.com

Jack Shepherd obituary

Versatile actor, director and playwright who found television fame in the detective series Wycliffe

020

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Share a ‘90s movie you think deserves more love

020

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

🎂 Happy 25th birthday to my first Q&A book, #SmokingInBed: Conversations with Bruce Robinson. It was a Pick of the Week for Nicholas Lezard, a Book of the Year for David Hare and a career-starter for me. So here's to it, and the inimitable Mr Robinson, and everyone who's ever read it and loved it!🍷

000

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

I reviewed my favourite reads of 2025 for Shepherd Books: Year of the King by Antony Sher from @nickhernbooks.bsky.social, Karla's Choice by @nickharkaway.com and The Proof of My Innocence by @jonathancoe.bsky.social. I was asked to rank them, but all are first class... shepherd.com/bboy/2025/f/...

251

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

🎂 Happy 2nd Birthday to my 5th Q&A book, #TheMirrorAndTheRoad: Conversations with William Boyd. Observer, Independent, iNews & TLS all called it "fascinating", and Slow Horses author Mick Herron hoped to find it in his Christmas stocking. Cheers to that! 🍾 www.alistairowenwriter.com/the-mirror-a...

alistairowenwriter.com

The Mirror and the Road — Alistair Owen

An exclusive series of interviews with bestselling author and screenwriter William Boyd

000

Reposted by Alistair Owen

Philip Ralph @philralph.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Every word... more people with RTD's clout and influence need to be standing up and speaking out in this way. "Censorship is in us." TV needs leaders and champions who stand up for the world we want to see and be. "TV is a light in the dark and we must not let that flame go out!"

11613

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

I've now talked to three different people with very varied tastes and, like me, they all gave up on The Thursday Murder Club after 20 minutes. Does Netflix's "No. 1 in Movies" algorithm tell them when viewers have bailed on a film cos it's unmitigated shit...?

150

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

🎂 My second literary birthday this week - 5 years since I published my debut novel, The Vetting Officer, first on Kindle and later in paperback. Part spy yarn, part love story, it earned a "Bravo!" from William Boyd, and a modest sense of pride from me! 🍾 www.alistairowenwriter.com/the-vetting-...

alistairowenwriter.com

The Vetting Officer — Alistair Owen

A story of secrets and second chances

020

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

"I watch her. I assume she watches me." Everything you might expect from director Steven Soderbergh and Panic Room writer David Koepp, and perhaps a little bit more: sleek, smart, stylish, slyly witty and coolly seductive. Mr & Mrs Smith meets Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, by way of The Ipcress File.

UK poster for the film Black Bag, featuring Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Rege-Jean Page and Pierce Brosnan.

030

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

🎂 Happy 20th birthday to my third Q&A book, Hampton on Hampton - conversations with playwright, director & Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher Hampton. A book of the year in the Observer, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ on Amazon & also available from @faberbooks.bsky.social. 🍾 www.alistairowenwriter.com/hampton-on-h...

alistairowenwriter.com

Hampton on Hampton — Alistair Owen

Conversations with Christopher Hampton

020

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

"I'm a story that I tell people..." Like Jason Bourne with laughs or Quentin Tarantino with heart, this super-stylish 6-parter from @joebarton.bsky.social is even more entertaining on 2nd viewing - episode 5, in particular, funnier than most romcoms amid the gunplay and bloodshed. Season 2, please!

Poster for the Netflix series Black Doves, featuring Ben Whishaw, Keira Knightley and Sarah Lancashire.

051

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Starting shortly after he swapped the Westminster village for a walled garden in Northumberland, and ending on the day the Queen died, the fourth volume of diaries by @chrismullinexmp.bsky.social is as invaluable as its predecessors in tracking where we are as a nation, and how on earth we got here.

Cover of the book Didn’t You Use to be Chris Mullin? - Diaries 2010-2022.

141

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

The Owen oeuvre, canon, or body of work. #worldbookday

000

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

"All I am is what I'm going after." Epic in scope, intimate in detail, and crafted with breathtaking precision, Michael Mann's crime classic hasn't dated a day in nearly three decades - and makes most current Hollywood movies look pretty puny by comparison.

UK poster for the film Heat, featuring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer.

010

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

"The less you know, the better you sleep." Series 1 of Ben Chanan's conspiracy thriller was good. Series 2 is better: tense, twisty and unsettling - though it's ironic that a drama about data manipulation has been quietly recut from a neat 6 parts to a messier 8 on its way from the Beeb to Netflix.

010

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

"It's always the question that involves the listener. It's never the answer." The opening is so dry (even after skipping the titles) that I nearly gave up. But then I'd have missed a mixture of Kubrick's formalism, Polanski's suspense and Todd Field's own brand of cool detachment. Compellingly odd.

UK poster for Todd Field's film Tár, depicting Cate Blanchett as a classical conductor.

010

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

🎂 Happy 22nd birthday to my second Q&A book, Story and Character: the first (and, to date, only) book of interviews exclusively with British screenwriters - including Lee Hall, @frankcottrellboyce.bsky.social, Shawn Slovo, Hossein Amini and Neal Purvis & Robert Wade. 🍾 bit.ly/story-character

bit.ly

Story and Character: Interviews With British Screenwriters : Owen, Alistair: Amazon.co.uk: Books

010

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

"What a lovely thing she was..." The story is absurd, the characters cardboard, the dialogue clunky and the direction workaday, but I love it anyway - for Alec Guinness's moving cameo, for John Barry's magnificent score, for the Titanic surfacing again. A not-so-guilty pleasure.

000

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

"Certainty is the enemy of unity." The best adaptation so far, by far, of a Robert Harris novel, thanks to a taut script by Peter Straughan, powerful direction by Edward Burger, towering performances across the board - and a twist that stuns even more on screen than it did on the page. Riveting.

Poster for the film Conclave, featuring Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow and Stanley Tucci as Vatican cardinals.

020

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Just realised that last Wednesday was the 24th birthday of my 1st book, Smoking in Bed: a distillation of 30 hours of wine-fuelled conversations between a wide-eyed film fan and the cult creator of #WithnailAndI. So, belatedly - chin-chin, Mr Robinson!🍷

110

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

"You can't collaborate in anything without love." David Hinton's feature documentary, passionately fronted by Martin Scorsese, is a wonderful, beautiful love letter to British cinema, right up there with the AFI's classic film about cinematography, Visions of Light. Moving, thrilling and inspiring.

Poster for Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger.

030

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

"The world's a hungry place." Bridging the gulf between Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick's visions of The Shining, Mike Flanagan's 3-hour cut of Doctor Sleep is a tour-de-force: ambitious, disturbing and, when it finally goes where you hoped it would, oddly pleasurable. An adaptation like no other.

Poster for the film Doctor Sleep, featuring Ewan McGregor.

110

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

"We're all just looking out for something real." Drawing as much on Stanley Kubrick as Ridley Scott, this is a rare sequel that equals and even surpasses the original - director Denis Villeneuve crafting Hampton Fancher and Michael Green's script into a cerebral, ethereal and truly monumental work.

Blade Runner 2049 poster, featuring Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas and Jared Leto.

010

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

"Nothing can atone for a wasted life." Mannered, melodramatic but intensely immersive, Alfonso Cuarón's adaptation of Renée Knight's novel is driven by mesmeric turns from Blanchett, Kline and - almost unrecognisable in a serious drama - Sacha Baron Cohen. A real kettle of fish.

000

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

"When the skies are grey, hope finds a way." Paddingtons 1 & 2 were full of energy, tightly controlled. With a different director at the helm, and a bevy of writers on board - plus a new Mrs Brown - this charts a more wayward course, but remains a joyously entertaining journey.

000

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 03/11/2024

"I'm vengeance." Each version of Batman is darker than the last; this, from writer/director Matt Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig, is like The Godfather meets Se7en: an epic, Gothic crime saga, sumptuously designed and photographed, and richly scored by Michael Giacchino. Riveting.

000

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 03/11/2024

I wrote about my 3 favourite reads from the past year for Shepherd Books: Cimino by Charles Elton (discovered via @drjonty.bsky.social's Writers On Film podcast); Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions by Ed Zwick; and Word Monkey by Christopher Fowler... shepherd.com/bboy/2024/f/...

shepherd.com

Want to know Alistair Owen's Top 3 Books of 2024?

Alistair's top 3 reads of 2024 include Cimino and two other amazing books. Discover what makes these books unmissable!

010

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 30/10/2024

"There is no worse death than the end of hope." Arthur as a Roman cavalry leader, Guinevere as a proto-Boudicca, Merlin as a warrior Pict; this improbable marriage of Excalibur, Gladiator and Braveheart is as absurd as it is ambitious - but you have to admire its sheer chutzpah.

000

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 25/10/2024

"The dumber I behave, the richer I get." Satire is hard to do well, but writer/director Cord Jefferson - adapting Percival Everett's novel Erasure - makes it look easy, balancing cultural barbs and family drama with poise and precision. And Jeffrey Wright is, as always, superb.

000

Alistair Owen @alistairwriter.bsky.social · 24/10/2024

"Sometimes God happens fast." Screenplays don't get much better than this, and as director Aaron Sorkin does his damndest to match his script. Chastain is sensational, Elba relishes his speeches, and a late scene with Costner is as good as anything in any film. A modern classic.

010