While it may not be particularly memorable in retrospect, there was a brief moment when many of us believed that Una would become one of the major dramas of the past decade. In terms of the premise, the film was an adaptation of Blackbird, a critically acclaimed stage play by David Harrower, which told the…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
Cuckoo (2024)
All is not what it seems to be in the Bavarian Alps – at least that’s what the protagonist of Cuckoo, the most recent film by Tilman Singer, begins to realise as she travels with her family to this remote corner of Europe, where they will be taking up residence as her parents start working…
Woman of the Hour (2024)
As a species, we are generally fascinated by the concept of criminality – even if we would not personally engage in any malicious acts, and attempt to get by without ever coming across these insidious people, there is something quite enticing about stories of those who cross the moral event horizon and decide to seal…
Strange Voyage (1964)
There is a very particular sub-genre of fiction, which we can refer to as small-town noir or pastoral gothic, and which we often find occurring in a lot of European and American cinema in the years following the end of the Second World War, whereby filmmakers ventured out of the cities and chose to explore…
Bartleby (2001)
While he is mostly known for his towering tome Moby-Dick, which is appropriately considered possibly the greatest American novel ever written, Herman Melville was a much more varied writer and someone who composed several tremendous stories, many of which have gone on to become incredibly influential in their way. One of the more prominent is…
Transformers One (2024)
Over time, it has become abundantly clear that if there is a product that could even feasibly become profitable as a film, Hollywood will spare no expense in finding a way to adapt it. Not only has the industry shown interest in taking works from every conceivable medium such as literature, theatre, music and television,…
Mother, Couch (2024)
They say home is where the heart is, but domestic despair tends to be carried with you wherever you go, lingering like a spectre ready to emerge at the most inopportune moments. This is a realisation that many who have ever experienced any kind of familial strife, even only marginally, will immediately recognise as an…
Blue Steel (1990)
As far as public perceptions go, very few professions have been subjected to scrutiny and division amongst the general population than police officers – many view them as admirable individuals who pledge their lives to serving and protecting the community. In contrast, others find their constant abuse of power and tendency to resort to needless…
The Comedy of Terrors (1964)
The blurring of comedy and horror is not always an easy process, but it is one that has yielded some of the most brilliant and provocative works in the history of cinema. It takes quite a special writer and director to combine two wildly different emotions – laughter and fear – and create an atmosphere…
Nightbitch (2024)
There are few concepts simultaneously as comforting and disturbing as placid suburbia – the irresistible push-and-pull of a life defined by white picket fences and perfectly maintained lawns contrasted with the underlying knowledge that not everything is quite as it seems beneath the surface. David Lynch perhaps said it best when he stated “I discovered…
The Postmodern Pelican 