Love is a funny concept – it’s something nearly everyone feels at some point in their life, whether intimately or from a distance, but it’s also not something we entirely understand. Science claims that it is the result of some kind of chemical reaction, philosophers view it as having very deep existential roots, and religious…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Nostalgia is perhaps the most powerful drug when it comes to art, and like many substances, it tends to be abused quite frequently, especially in recent years when studios have grown increasingly reliant on replicating the success of existing properties. It seems like every year, we encounter examples of the dreaded triage of “reboots, remakes…
Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024)
Imagination is the most powerful currency known to man. Perhaps an overly hackneyed sentiment that invalidates more concrete forms of wealth, but it is still very motivating and the premise on which many creative individuals choose to base their lives. One of the great examples of this concept in practice comes in the form of…
Friday the 13th (1980)
As a sub-genre of horror, the slasher film has had quite a storied history. Much like film noir and screwball comedy, it has been the subject of a lot of debate, both around the specific criteria that go into the creation of a particular film, and when it first started. By the time Sean S….
What Happens Later (2023)
There is nothing quite as simultaneously frustrating and liberating as coming across an old flame years later. Crossing paths with an individual with whom you shared some of your most intimate moments before drifting apart can be a challenging experience, but one that can bring about a lot of catharsis – and the more time…
84 Charing Cross Road (1987)
There’s nothing quite as delightful as receiving some correspondence from someone whose views and perspective you value – regardless of the mode in which it is delivered, there’s something about the art of written communication that feels profoundly special. I belong to the final generation that can remember when handwritten letters were still considered somewhat…
Toxic (2024)
For some, the pursuit of a better life does not always yield the results that were perhaps anticipated, proving that the grass is not always greener on the other side, as the well-worn adage tends to go. In her ambitious feature-length debut Toxic, Saulė Bliuvaitė questions the very nature of audacity and the perils that…
Boro in the Box (2011)
If one wanted a strong entry point into experimental European cinema, two names that serve to be appropriate introductions are Walerian Borowczyk, the acclaimed Polish filmmaker with a penchant for the absurd, and Bertrand Mandico, a French director who has cited “Boro” as one of his influences. This is made extremely evident in Boro in…
Crime and Punishment (1983)
Regardless of how much work is done by psychologists and analysts, understanding the criminal mind will never be something we will be truly able to do, especially since there isn’t any singular motivation that impels someone to commit a crime, whether petty or major, which makes efforts to curb criminal behaviour from the start a…
The Last Queen (2023)
The term “history” is quite a divisive one – for some, it evokes the feeling of dull, passionless stories that do very little outside of promoting the past and how life was supposedly better or worse at any given point prior to our birth, while for others it is an exciting concept, an opportunity to…
The Postmodern Pelican 