There are few filmmakers who see the world in quite the same way as Xavier Dolan. A young artist who grew up enamoured with the world of cinema that quickly captivated him, it’s easy to see how he was impacted by the presence of certain genres during his formative years. Inspired by the melodramas of…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
Raymond & Ray (2022)
We all grieve in our own way – and for the protagonists of Raymond & Ray, the journey to coming to terms with their father’s death is not an easy one, both geographically and emotionally. Rodrigo García is one of our great journeyman directors, a filmmaker who may not always have the most distinct authorial…
Nightmare Alley (1947)
At its peak, film noir was one of the most popular genres – whether extracted from the wildly entertaining pages of pulp fiction novels that were consumed at a rapid pace by readers of all ages, or more high-concept, experimental works that saw various filmmakers taking on more original ideas, these films were extremely popular,…
The Good House (2022)
The past few years have not been easy for Hildy Good, the protagonist of The Good House, the delightful and captivating adaptation of Ann Leary’s peculiar novel, which tells the story of a formerly successful real estate agent who proudly calls herself the North Shore’s top broker and has made many life-long friends along the…
Jennifer’s Body (2009)
In both concept and execution, Jennifer’s Body is a peculiar film. It is gnarly and rough around the edges, and often struggles to make it clear entirely what it wants to be in the first place. However, we have never found a cult film that didn’t possess some of these qualities, or at least have…
L’Atalante (1934)
While his career may have been cut short due to his tragic death at a very young age (leaving him with a very small body of work), Jean Vigo produced some of the most important films in the history of French cinema, not only based on what they were and the stories they told, but…
Crimes of the Future (2022)
It’s been nearly a decade since David Cronenberg made a film, and he is still as provocative as ever, perhaps even more so now that he had given himself a chance to step away from the industry for a short amount of time. After the release of the polarizing Maps to the Stars, it seemed…
They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970)
There are two ways to make a good sequel – either hire the exact same people and attempt to replicate exactly what made the original such a success in the first place, or do everything extremely differently, keeping the similarities to the film that preceded it to an absolute minimum, as a way of avoiding…
Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
The contributions Charles Chaplin made to cinema can never be underestimated – whether in his early days as one of the most prominent stars of the early Hollywood era, to his later years as an established filmmaker in his own right, Chaplin’s work was always impeccable and made by someone who had a genuine fondness…
Clerks III (2022)
When looking at the new wave of independent films made by young American directors that started in the 1990s, we tend to gravitate towards the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson as the most pertinent examples of the rambunctious talents that traded audacity for the chance to make films inspired by their own…
The Postmodern Pelican 