Sometime in the mid-1980s, a marriage is gradually falling apart. Rory (Jude Law) is a mildly successful businessman who begins to realize that his recent streak of good luck is coming to an end, and that there isn’t much hope for him in New York. He consults with his wife, Allison (Carrie Coon), who works…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
I Married a Witch (1942)
In the late 16th century, a witch (Veronica Lake), and her sorcerer father (Cecil Kellaway) are caught in the middle of the infamous witch-hunts that many puritanical individuals occupied their time with. Three hundred years later, they manage to emerge as smoky entities, now in search of bodies to allow them to enter into the…
Wolfwalkers (2020)
Something quite interesting happens when we look beyond the confines of major studios, particularly when it comes to contemporary animation – we discover new and revolutionary works that change our perspectives and present us with something entirely unique and exciting. While they have been doing some wonderful work recently, Pixar and Disney have been overtaken…
The Goddess (1958)
In the early 1930s, somewhere in the Deep South, a young woman (Betty Lou Holland) is growing weary of how limited her life has become now that she has a daughter. She will do anything to rid herself of the child, who she sees as nothing but a burden – and while she was too…
A Flower in Hell (1958)
In recent years, Korean cinema has exploded into the mainstream, with audiences all around the world starting to pay attention to the work being produced in the tiny nation, particularly since many of these filmmakers tell stories that we can’t necessarily find elsewhere. The global obsession with the country’s cinematic output extends for around the…
My Salinger Year (2020)
The first time we encounter Joanna Rakoff (Margaret Qualley) is on a quiet New York City street towards the end of 1995. It doesn’t take long for us to get to know her – she’s currently finishing her Master’s degree in English Literature, and has come to the city to visit an old friend for…
Cleopatra (1934)
Let’s talk about Cleopatra, Cecil B. DeMille’s ambitious attempt to capture the life and times of one of history’s most enigmatic figures on screen. This is a film brimming with historical inaccuracies (with screenwriters Waldemar Young and Vincent Lawrence, and the film’s resident researcher and compiler of information, Bartlett Cormack, choosing to forego correct chronology…
In Bed with Victoria (2016)
Romance comes about in many different ways in film, and for Justine Triet, her approach to representing love on screen is somewhat unconventional, but still thoroughly invigorating. Focused on working women who have to juggle their successful careers with modern feminist issues (including their sexuality, which the director is never afraid to explore, showing desire…
Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958)
In an Italian prison, Cossimo (Memmo Carotenuto) sits stewing in anger – a career criminal known for his elaborate heists, he has been caught before managing to achieve the riches he had always envisioned for himself – and the fact that he was sent to prison for attempting to steal a car only increases his…
Kung-Fu Master! (1988)
You can delineate the career of Agnès Varda into various areas (rather than stages, since they often had significant overlap and even occurred concurrently in some spaces) – there are her human dramas that are often driven by a sweetly sentimental sense of individuality, her socially-charged documentary shorts, and her full-length non-fiction pieces that often…
The Postmodern Pelican 