The general principle behind satire is that it needs to occupy one of two extremes – either, it needs to be subtle enough that we don’t realize what is being conveyed until a crucial moment in which we encounter some major revelation, or it needs to be so glaringly obvious that there is never any…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
Highest 2 Lowest (2025)
There are only a small handful of filmmakers who are revered enough that every new film feels like a genuine cinematic event. Whether this is a result of their tendency to only work periodically, taking long breaks in between films, or simply because the quality of their work is impeccable enough to radicalise audiences to…
Last Orders (2001)
“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” These words form perhaps the simplest but effective summary of what friendship represents – and surprisingly, it is not a contemporary quote, but rather found in the musings of the great philosopher Aristotle, who spoke about the concept of friendship with such beautiful and…
A Poet (2025)
Living the life of a creative person is not always easy – for every world-renowned artist, there are a thousand who genuinely believe that they have the potential to make it in the industry, but remain in obscurity for their entire lives. The reasons for this are complex – it could be a matter of…
Caught Stealing (2025)
Some filmmakers immediately establish their identity from the start of their careers and essentially ride a wave of popularity for the rest of their lives. Then some seem to take some time to fully craft their authorial voice, sometimes requiring several films for them to stand out. Darren Aronofsky is a peculiar case, since he…
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (1942)
Few authors earned their reputation more than Edgar Allan Poe, and his status as the quintessential master of the macabre, his style being embraced as some of the most important literature ever to be written in Gothic horror and mystery. Pinpointing his most challenging and disturbing work is a challenge, but one of the strongest…
Eephus (2025)
The term “eephus” is not particularly well-known to those of us who do not follow baseball. However, it is defined as a particular kind of pitch in which the ball is thrown with a relatively low velocity, but still travels in an unusually high arc. The process of waiting for the ball to arrive for…
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025)
I want to start with a brief story – in early 2014, I was in a strange place. I had just turned eighteen and was dealing with the challenges of finishing high school and entering a new stage of my life. For my birthday, my parents had bought me tickets to Bruce Springsteen’s first concert…
Lost in Separation (2019)
Falling in love is easy, but maintaining that relationship is the challenge – so many stories have been built on this simple philosophical premise, it is surprising that people still tend to make the mistake when it comes to rushing into relationships that were never intended to last. No one seems to know this better…
The Jerk (1979)
In the canon of works that are not only vitally important to the development of American humour, but vital to the entire cinematic process, we have The Jerk, a film that was initiated as a flight of fancy between director Carl Reiner and star and co-writer Steve Martin, best-known for his landmark appearances on the…
The Postmodern Pelican 