One of the qualities I have most admired in Edgar Wright is that he positions himself as a film fan long before he does a director, with each one of his productions feeling like they are authentically crafted by someone who has a genuine fondness for the medium. It has allowed Wright to make films…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
It Should Happen to You (1954)
Do you know the name “Gladys Glover”? Unfortunately, no one did – which is wildly different from the ambitions held by the young Gladys (Judy Holliday), who wanted nothing more than to be famous. Her move from Upstate New York to the Big Apple was supposed to bring her fame and fortune, and launch her…
House of Gucci (2021)
There are two ways to view House of Gucci, the biographical drama directed by Ridley Scott, who depicts the circumstances leading up to the murder of Maurizio Gucci, heir to arguably the most prestigious fashion brand in history. The first is to look at it as a darkly comical voyage into the past, one where…
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
No one writes women quite like Pedro Almodóvar, at least not anyone who has been working in the medium of film in the last forty years. From his earliest days of subversive, darkly comical morality tales that took him to the furthest corners of society, to the present moment where he has engaged with many…
The Power of the Dog (2021)
As a cinematic population, we know better than to question Jane Campion or the decisions she makes when he endeavours to produce a film, even if this a surprisingly rare event (which only adds to the mythology surrounding the director, who is often regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of her generation, her name…
I Killed My Mother (2009)
When it comes to cinematic wunderkinder, few have had a career as impressive as Xavier Dolan, whose initial success came from the fact that he directed his first feature film at the young age of only twenty, an achievement that is all the more impressive considering his directorial debut wasn’t an amateur production, but rather…
The Mass Is Ended (1985)
We have a seemingly endless supply of films that focus on the intimate lives of priests, ranging from the stark realism of Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest, to the politically-charged complexities of Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, to the outright terrifying brutalism of Maurice Pialat’s Under the Sun of Satan. We’ve seen many stories…
Wild Indian (2021)
I’ll start with a bold statement – Wild Indian is one of the year’s best films, and yet very few people seem to be talking about it. The film, which is the feature-length directorial debut of Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr., is one of the many fantastic works produced by and within the Native American community,…
Sitcom (1998)
While his name has come to be associated with a range of prestige dramas and well-constructed comedies, there was a time when François Ozon was more known for his transgressive, boundary-pushing films that were the embodiment of bad taste in a way that no one else of his generation seemed willing to work. This is…
King Richard (2021)
There is nothing particularly remarkable about King Richard, the biographical drama that recounts the formative years of Venus and Serena Williams, as filtered through the perspective of Richard, their hard-working father who did everything he could to make sure that his plans to raise a couple of the greatest tennis players came to fruition. The…
The Postmodern Pelican 