Falling in love is easy, but staying in love is where it becomes challenging. It seems to be a dreadfully trite subject, but we’ve seen multiple examples of stories crafted around the trials and tribulations of couples as they find themselves weathering the storm of relationships that steadily decline for one reason or another. For…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo (2025)
It has often been said that there are two kinds of family that we all experience – the ones we are born into, and the ones we get to choose. Naturally, this requires some flexibility, since no domestic situation is going to be identical to another, but it is generally a good way of looking…
Rich and Famous (1981)
We have all heard the adage “Be nice to people on the way up because you’ll meet them on the way down”, since its often been replicated in many an inspirational seminar and awards show acceptance speech – and when acclaimed playwright Wilson Mizner made this memorable quip, he managed to condense perhaps the most…
Dead Man’s Wire (2025)
Sometimes we come across a story that truly embodies the adage that reality is often stranger than fiction. This is perfectly represented in the case of Tony Kiritsis, a mild-mannered man living in Indianapolis, beloved by his community and respected by all those he encountered in his daily life. However, after feeling wronged by the…
The Gorgon (1964)
The phrase “they don’t make films like they used to anymore” is a hackneyed concept usually brought out to disparage contemporary works, which are often unfairly compared to those of yesteryear, particularly by people who tend to look at previous decades through rose-tinted glasses. Yet, there are some genres where this phrase is not only…
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (2025)
Being a parent is not easy, and anyone who says otherwise is either the recipient of some unusually good luck or completely unaware of the challenges that come with raising children. It doesn’t even require having children of your own to recognise that this is not a particularly smooth journey, since it is almost universally…
Wide Open Faces (1938)
Comedy serves many different functions, but more than anything else, we find that the best comedies are usually those that present a snapshot of the time and place in which they were produced. The late 1930s were not a particularly pleasant time in the United States – the country was in the final stages of…
My Father’s Shadow (2025)
One of the bravest and often most challenging parts of making a film is realising that every piece of art one creates is rooted in the personal, even if it isn’t intentional. We all tell stories that resonate with us, and even the most abstract and experimental works are often formed as a result of…
Urchin (2025)
In her book Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag critically discussed how we position ourselves as empathetic beings, expressing our desire to help those who are less fortunate than us – but in the process, repeated exposure to those who are suffering can cause a psychological fatigue, even amongst those who genuinely set out…
Georgia (1995)
Independent cinema has had a long and storied history, but it cannot be viewed as a single endless stream, but rather a series of chapters, each one defined as something of a generation in a long journey towards negotiating the boundary between the mainstream and the arthouse. One of the most fascinating, at least in…
The Postmodern Pelican 