Gloria Bell ends exactly as it starts – the titular character (Julianne Moore) stands on a crowded dance-floor, bathed in neon lights, dancing her heart out to a selection of the hits from a bygone era. The difference between these two scenes is the roughly two hours between them, which chronicle a time in the…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
The Black Panther (1977)
A sub-genre that I have been recently exploring is that of the British true-crime thriller. These are differentiated from fictional works insofar as being equally as gritty (perhaps even more so), they tend to be a lot bleaker and arid than their most enthralling speculative counterparts. One of the most controversial of all of these…
An Average Little Man (1977)
Giovanni Vivaldi (Alberto Sordi) has worked for the government for over thirty years, running the pension office, making his impending retirement bittersweet. However, his son, Marion (Vincenzo Crocitti) is about to enter the work-force, and both his father and mother (Shelley Winters) believe it would be a good idea for their intelligent but meek son…
Desperate Living (1977)
When it comes to making controversial, transgressive cinema, John Waters reigns supreme – throughout his career, especially in the earlier stages, he relished in shocking viewers and leaving the audience shocked. His films are still twisted and perverse by today’s standards, and we look at them through the rose-tinted glasses of cult nostalgia. Imagining audiences…
Providence (1977)
Claud Langham (Dirk Bogarde) is an extremely unlikable man – a ferocious prosecution lawyer, his latest case is that of Kevin Woodford (David Warner), a young ex-soldier discharged and put on trial for a mercy killing of an older man, asserting that it was an act of compassion. Claud’s personal life seems to be just…
The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
The Hills Have Eyes is one of the bleakest films I have ever seen, and also one of the most audacious. Wes Craven ascended to incredible acclaim for his reinvention of the horror genre with films such as The Last House on the Left, the Scream franchise and A Nightmare on Elm Street, amongst others….
Woman on the Run (1950)
Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott) is an ordinary man who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time when he inadvertently witnesses a murder. The police want Frank to serve as a key witness to the trial of who they believe the perpetrator to be (a man heavily involved in organized crime). Not wanting…
T2 Trainspotting (2017)
In 1996, Danny Boyle established himself as a filmmaker to watch with his sophomore film, the dark comedy Trainspotting, which would go on to become a cult classic, and an iconic piece of renegade filmmaking. Something about Trainspotting (both the film and the novel it is based on) just made it a sensation – whether…
Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019)
In all honesty, Pokémon Detective Pikachu is exactly what you’d expect from a modern live-action Pokémon film, and will certainly divide audiences – it isn’t going to win any new admirers to the franchise (except for maybe very young audiences, who may have this film serve as their introduction to the iconic Japanese creation) and…
I Am Easy To Find (2019)
Somewhere towards the end of I Am Easy To Find, we are presented with a stark image, accompanied by the following words: “She wondered how she became this person, not others” It is a deeply complex question, and one that isn’t offered any answer, or at least not one that can be readily indicated. There…
