If there had been a scenario where David Lynch was tasked to make a contemporary riff on This is Spinal Tap, chances are that it would look very similar to The Nowhere Inn, the absolutely ingenious and brilliantly subversive satire that was directed by Bill Benz, who was essentially standing in service to Annie Clark…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
Gods and Monsters (1998)
The Golden Age of Hollywood is filled with stories of the fascinating individuals that made it such a curiously interesting time to be alive, allowing future generations to live through these often scintillating (and sometimes even vaguely implausible) parables that are often told through rose-tinted glasses, almost as if to imply the industry was far…
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Greed does not do a man’s body or soul any good. One of the most potent representations of this very idea comes in the form of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, John Huston’s ambitious and sprawling adaptation of the novel by B. Traven, which tells the story of three impoverished American men that risk…
Sharp Stick (2022)
You have to give credit to Lena Dunham – for around a decade, she has withstood an endless stream of controversies, ranging from the lack of nuance on her television show Girls or the questionable morality she demonstrated through her autobiographical writings. Not necessarily a defence of Dunham, especially since many of these criticisms do…
A Hen in the Wind (1948)
There are some that consider A Hen in the Wind (Japanese: 風の中の牝鶏) to be one of the more minor efforts in the notoriously prolific career of Yasujirō Ozu – and while it is easy to adhere to this belief based on the scope of the film (considering how this was the final film he made…
The Candidate (1972)
Cinema loves politics, particularly during the 1970s. There was something about this specific era that brought out the best in filmmakers with an interest in the subject. Perhaps it was the tumultuous real-life political landscape, with the height of the Cold War causing much strife, even in the domestic lives of ordinary citizens, and events…
Jerry and Marge Go Large (2022)
We all love a good underdog story, especially when it comes to those that centre on ordinary folk going up against some systemic issue and emerging victorious. This was exactly what Jerry Selbee and his wife Marge, a happily retired couple from a small town in Michigan, did when they discovered a flaw in the…
Spring in a Small Town (1948)
Nothing signals tenacity more than a filmmaker doing whatever possible to get their film made. This is applicable to Fei Mu, whose film Spring in a Small Town (Chinese: 小城之春) was a labour of love in every definition of the term. Not being given much resources on which to construct this film, and seemingly being…
The Plumber (1979)
It has been over a decade since Peter Weir made his most recent film, seemingly having receded into some form of retirement, despite being one of the most creative and compelling auteurs of the past half-century. Whether it was populist fare or more edgy, independent productions, Weir consistently produced work of exceptional quality, proving that…
In Front of Your Face (2022)
As one of the most notoriously prolific directors of his generation, Hong Sang-soo is someone that is consistently managing to defy expectations and find new stories to tell. A surface-level glance at the films he has made over the years might lead the untrained eye to assume that he peddles in the near-derogatory sub-genre of…
