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…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
Mermaids (1990)
Most of us see the concept of a fresh start as wildly exciting, since it gives us the opportunity to reinvent and reconfigure ourselves to fit our own shifting identity. However, once your life has been defined by a perpetual string of new beginnings, it starts to become somewhat exhausting, especially when your life is…
Hellzapoppin’ (1941)
Perhaps its hyperbolic delusion, or possibly even sleep deprivation, but when it comes to choosing the funniest film ever made, there seem to be few options better than Hellzapoppin’, which is especially notable considering we tend to view the works of Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges and Ernst Lubitsch as being the reigning champions when it…
The Sense of an Ending (2017)
When it was published in 2011, The Sense of an Ending was an immediate sensation, with acclaimed author Julian Barnes having written what many consider to be his masterpiece. Instantly, there was discussion about bringing the novel to the screen, as is often the case with wildly successful works of literature, which is a consolidated…
Once Were Warriors (1994)
While I have never claimed to be experienced enough to consider myself desensitized to brutal cinema, once you have seen some of the more controversial works that have been produced over the years (referring specifically to those films that are still made with some artistic integrity and refuse to cross a line), it takes quite…
Haunted Mansion (2023)
In recent years, Disney has been trying everything to scrounge up enough interest in their live-action films, which do tend to make a decent amount of money, but not nearly enough to be considered as radically successful as their past work, as well as their animated output, which has been the focus of much of…
Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom (1980)
In order to have good taste, you need to have an appreciation for bad taste – this sentiment was originally pioneered by cinematic agent provocateur John Waters and has been the driving force behind his career, and while he is undeniably the driving force behind the movement towards more boundary-pushing filmmaking, he has been tethered…
A Night at the Opera (1935)
What I tend to appreciate the most about comedies produced during Hollywood’s Golden Era is their remarkable simplicity – there was very little need for high-concept stories or films that were entirely original or frequently experimental. We have seemingly lost the ability to acknowledge that the more simple a joke, the more effective it is…
My Love, Don’t Cross That River (2014)
For as long as it has been a subject that artists and philosophers alike have explored, the ideal version of love is growing old with someone, spending your entire life in their company and having your entire future defined by the person you consider your soulmate. This is a pleasant and beautiful idea, but one…
The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
We’ve seen numerous attempts to revitalize the Western genre, whether it be the gleefully deranged spaghetti westerns of the 1960s, the acidic revisionist westerns that contained an excessive amount of violence in the 1970s, or the move towards more hyper-realistic depictions of the frontier in more recent years. There’s merit to all of these, and…
The Postmodern Pelican 