“Hollywood: the only place in the world where a man gets stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder.” William Faulkner, one of the greatest novelists and social critics to ever put pen to paper, famously said this on the subject of the film industry, which he had some experience with as a screenwriter, but…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
Dance First (2023)
The act of paying tribute to some cherished artist or public figure in the form of a film is a pretty challenging endeavour, particularly because it requires a writer or director to stand at a structural crossroads, choosing their preferred approach to examining their life’s story. Do you explore it from start to finish (the…
Black Bag (2025)
Being in a long-term relationship is hard work – and we can only imagine how much more challenging it can become when you and your spouse work in an industry built on suspicion and paranoia. This is a question that Steven Soderbergh asks in Black Bag, a film that he developed alongside David Koepp (with…
Hellboy (2004)
There is nothing quite as enthralling as the perfect marriage between a director and pre-existing material since there are some instances where it is difficult to fathom anyone else handling specific adaptations. In the case of Mike Mignola’s masterpiece Hellboy, which tells the story of a demonic entity who finds his way to our dimension…
Reality Bites (1994)
Whenever the subject of great filmmakers of the past thirty years comes up, one name that is rarely mentioned despite a solid body of work is Ben Stiller, someone who is undeniably familiar to the majority of us, but who barely receives the attention he deserves for his forays behind the camera, at least not…
Stan & Ollie (2018)
There are few experiences more delightful than seeing comedic teams in their element, and the history of cinema is littered with many examples of duos or troupes that collaborated consistently over the years, becoming synonymous with their respective eras and how comedy was performed and consumed at that particular point in the past, something that…
It Is In Us All (2023)
Once someone has been through a traumatic incident, they are likely going to return to the place in which it happened, either physically or psychologically. This is a phenomenon that has been observed among many individuals who have suffered some kind of trauma or tragedy, either witnessing something horrifying or experiencing anything that could cause…
The Roost (2005)
On a quiet country road somewhere in rural Delaware, a quartet of friends speed towards a party, not being aware that their reckless actions will ultimately lead to their demise. It’s a premise that could be plucked from just about any slasher horror film made in the past thirty years, but in this instance, it…
Bobi Wine: The People’s President (2023)
Generally speaking, there are two kinds of people living under an authoritarian regime: there are those who just blindly accept that this is the way their lives have to be, and then there are those who stand up and fight in some way, even if it is only launching their own small, intimate rebellion against…
The Cameraman (1928)
As a general rule of thumb, when assessing the legacy of someone within the film industry, we can usually divide them into those who worked for their place in history, and those who were shoehorned into it as a result of some forced act of popularity. In many cases, we find that some of the…
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