Topsy-Turvy (1999)

When discussing Mike Leigh, we usually associate him with stories within the contemporary working class, deeply meditative and profoundly compelling social realist narratives that are firm reflections of the director’s origins within the movement popularly known as the “angry young men” of British cinema. However, he was prone to experimenting in many ways, and after…

Sisu (2022)

History has always been ingrained in cinema in some form – whether retellings of the past or merely works set within specific periods, there has always been a strong sense of urgency when it comes to exploring the past to some degree. Historical films take many different forms, but one that I have personally grown…

Tuftland (2017)

There are many different motivations for making a horror film, and perhaps the most common comes in the form of those who aim to create films that reflect the darkest aspects of our psychological state, the nightmares that prevent us from falling asleep and haunt our daily lives – this doesn’t apply to every horror…

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Here’s an interesting question – who else could make a film that was abducted by the studio, and edited down to the point of being nearly half the length of the original cut, and still have it be one of the most unimpeachable masterpieces of the Golden Age of Hollywood, other than Orson Welles? For…

Wild Life (2014)

The vast majority of us have at some point or another fantasized about leaving our fast-paced urban lives, and instead disappearing into nature, living off the land as far from civilization as we possibly can, under the belief that the natural world can offer us peace and serenity that is sorely lacking in the more…

Rendez-vous (2019)

While it may seem peculiar to even imagine such a project existed, there is a film that exists at the perfect intersection between Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy and Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, a concept that is almost too absurd to be realistic. However, it is very much extant, as evident by Rendez-vous, the ambitious feature-length…

Paula (2016)

“Loneliness is the source of art” Few individuals knew the crushing nature of loneliness quite like Paula Modersohn-Becker, whose life was filled with a rare kind of isolation, one where she was surrounded by a myriad of people, but where she could never find any sense of belonging, to the point where her premature death…

Romeo Is Bleeding (1994)

Nestled securely in the heart of the tumultuos 1990s is a film written by Hilary Henkin, the journeyman screenwriter responsible for working on some of Hollywood’s most ambitious productions, and directed by Peter Medak, the creative mind behind films like The Ruling Class and The Changeling, films that were not thoroughly appreciated at the time…

Ali & Ava (2021)

We don’t always fall in love with the people we expect, and it is more common that we have a particular kind of person whom we pursue, which can sometimes be complicated when encountering someone who captures our heart, despite not being anyone that we would have expected to be the source of such emotions….

Tobor the Great (1954)

There are few categories of film that are quite as divisive as the sub-genre of 1950s science fiction, which has been a polarizing subject for many, since some view it as a highly influential moment in the history of cinema, while others are dismissive of their tendency to usually be nothing more than cheaply-made B-movies…