At the perfect intersection between romance, melodrama and fantasy resides Portrait of Jennie, a film that combines all three genres in a particularly beautiful way that has rarely been witnessed, and has allowed it to flourish into one of the more cherished dramas of the 1940s. Director William Dieterle was certainly not a stranger to…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
Dance of the 41 (2021)
One of the main areas in studying queer history is to obviously look into the past, and see how certain events shaped national and global perceptions of issues relating to the LGBTQIA+ community. One of the most significant moments came in 1901, in what is referred to as the Dance of the Forty-One, where a…
The Captain from Köpenick (1956)
We’ve seen many works of fiction that present us with the most unconventional protagonists – vile and malicious career criminals that are portrayed in a slightly more positive light, their reputations almost being entirely repurposed to be vaguely heroic. One of the more captivating examples of this comes in The Captain from Köpenick (German: Der…
Lion’s Love…and Lies (1969)
“What is Hollywood by Babylon and sunshine?” At some point in the 1960s, revolutionary filmmaker Agnès Varda spent some time in Los Angeles (and a few other parts of America, mostly settling on the West Coast), directing a variety of narrative and documentary films, some of which stand as her best work, and her most…
Cruella (2021)
When looking at Cruella, we need to ask a few questions. Was a deep-dive into the younger years of one of literature’s most iconic, sinister villains necessary? Not at all. Did director Craig Gillespie and his cast do the best they could with the material? That one is up for debate, but I personally lean…
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Oftentimes, the difference between a good film and a bad film has very little to do with quality, but rather the viewer’s individual relationship with a particular piece. It’s undeniable that there are some truly abhorrent works out there, as well as many mediocre films that just don’t meet any real standard. However, there are…
Land (2021)
Once you’ve been a working actor for nearly forty years, you tend to learn a few things about how Hollywood works, especially if you’ve been an insider into the industry. Very few exemplify the concept of hard work quite as much as Robin Wright, an actress who has seen every side of the industry, and…
Man on the Tracks (1957)
Many film scholars have provoked the idea of a Polish New Wave, a movement that represented a seismic shift in the cinema of a country that was hit quite hard by the burden of communism, on the same level of a number of other USSR-aligned countries. Yet, it has been questioned whether the films produced…
Interiors (1978)
From a contemporary perspective, Woody Allen is a bit of an anomaly, since he is someone who has developed into something of a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to working in many different genres, but he’s still retained his distinctive authorial voice behind the camera, one being able to recognize one of his films without much…
Four Good Days (2021)
Deb (Glenn Close) seems to have her life together – she has a mildly successful job working as a beautician at a local casino, and her husband (Stephen Root) is always very supportive of her pursuits. They’re an ordinary suburban couple without much excitement in their lives – but Deb does carry a secret burden,…
The Postmodern Pelican 