There are three works I consider to be the greatest in the history of English literature – The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, epic chivalric odyssey written by an anonymous poet, being one of the earliest surviving works of known literature. The…

The existence of The Last Duel is both fascinating and bewildering, since it takes some time to actually realize this film was made by perhaps the most unexpected group of collaborators imaginable. This is an adaptation of the non-fiction book by Eric Jager, which tells the story of the last legal duel fought in France…

Sir Carol Reed was a filmmaker who had a tendency towards never finding a distinct style, often directing films in a wide range of genres, each one of them giving a different glimpse to one of the subjects that seemed to most interest the director, the lives and times of the population of working-class London….

While his name may not be known to many people outside of aficionados of early Hollywood history (and even then, it may not be as obvious as it would seem), William A. Wellman will always be considered part of film history for directing arguably one of the defining works of silent era cinema, the incredible…

When it came to the swashbuckling genre – a kind of film that barely exists anymore, outside of a few ill-fated attempts to revive it – you got a wealth of different styles. These were films propelled by action, romance, mystery and even some comedy, many of them occurring in tandem, creating enthralling and captivating…

Peggy (Cathy Dunn) is a precocious little girl who refuses to be underestimated – her small size shouldn’t fool anyone, since she is one of the most dynamic individuals one can ever hope to encounter. She passes her days visiting a variety of local New York City establishments with a photographer who is compiling a…

As clichéd of an expression as it may be, there are some films that truly define the concept of dynamite coming in small packages. We’ve seen short films produced over the years that manage to be beautiful, poetic and thoroughly entertaining works – but one of them truly shows how valuable time is, in the…

There are two kinds of critically-reviled films – the first those that are panned upon their initial release almost universally, but over time acquire a more positive reevaluation, normally through being revisited by a new generation of critics, who find something special in it. The second are those that are torn apart when they’re released,…

It almost becomes frustrating to consistently have to praise a filmmaker for their perpetual brilliance, to the point where one actually tends to yearn for a failure on occasion, just for the sake of changing the pace and having something new to talk about. In discussing the career of Alfred Hitchcock, you’d struggle to find…

The Magistrate (Sir Mark Rylance) is an unnamed bureaucrat perched at the top of a remote outpost in a distant region of an indeterminate colonial empire. He maintains a good relationship with the locals – he’s a kind-hearted and genial man who immerses himself in the culture, and longs for nothing other than a peaceful…