Cinema

Cinema is the effect that occurs when one takes a series of still images and shows them rapidly, creating the illusion of movement.

One might imagine that Dr Kermode, who wrote his PhD thesis on horror fiction and has been a professional film critic for over 20 years, and Mr Mayo, who has accompanied Mark on his cinematic journey for most of those years, would be aware of this simple fact. But it was only when interviewing Charlie Kaufman for Anomalisa that they realised their foolish mistake. Up until then they believed that the figures were really moving, and that the pantheon of animated characters, from Snow White to Gerard Butler, was really populated with living, breathing creatures. What else could account for the stunned silence that followed this statement, broken only by Mark uncomfortably mumbling "... yup"?

One might be charitable and assume that Kaufman was not used to dealing with reviewers of Mark and Simon's calibre.