My first encounter with Mike Mills’ Thumbsucker was shortly after its release, just before his breakthrough with the celebrated Beginners that established him as one of the most exciting new voices in independent filmmaking. His adaptation of the novel by Walter Kirn, which tells the story of a teenager struggling to navigate the challenges of…

One lesson that we all come to learn at some point in our lives is that it is never too late to start afresh. For some, this means reinventing yourself and uprooting your life, while for others it is simply making a small but substantial change, rather than taking a tabula rasa approach to reconfiguring…

There are generally two broad categories of successful comedies – those made by the rambunctious young upstarts who find their primary motivation in proving their mettle as filmmakers and actors worthy to stand alongside the giants of their industry, and those produced by the seasoned veterans, people that were notable enough to sell a film…

When the proverbial definitive history of 20th-century comedy is written, it would be shocking to see anyone other than Mel Brooks credited as perhaps the most influential creative mind of the back half of the century since his impact has loomed so enormously over contemporary humour, we have to wonder whether American comedy would be…

There aren’t many of us who can say we have always adored every moment of our jobs, with the experience of being stuck in some dead-end career seemingly being a universal experience that we all encounter from time to time. Some of us are lucky enough to escape it, while others find themselves trapped within…

If there is one subject cinema loves more than any other, it would be itself – Hollywood seems to adore the sound of its own voice, hence why we have seen countless works produced around the idea of putting on a show, extending to the very earliest days of the industry, which it inherited from…

How do you solve a problem like Suzanne Pujol’s? She’s the perfect wife and mother, living the idealistic life in the high society of 1970s France when a woman’s place was supposedly in the home, rather than the working world – and yet, she strives for more, even going so far as to use her…

It is safe to assume that the vast majority of people like movies, but it’s a much smaller group that makes it their entire personality, the raison d’etre and the motivation for going about their daily life. It’s a world that is both exciting since we can explore over a century of global cinema, but…

When it comes to the subject of iconic French comedy, there are few individuals who are more celebrated than Louis de Funès, whose entire career has been defined by his ability to draw out laughter from the most absurd situations. Known for defining his country’s humour throughout the middle of the 20th century, his work…

The art of simplicity is the quality that keeps most genres alive – and they do not get more delightfully simple than Greenfingers, a relatively obscure but still deeply charming British comedy by Joel Hershman, who tells the story of a quiet but sinister felon who is deemed suitable for a new experimental method of…