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…

When it comes to exploring a country and its culture, I subscribe to the belief that everything that we need to know about a nation and its people can be found in its comedy since humour is both a universal language, but also something that is often quite specific, whether it is to a specific…

1942 is considered one of the most undeniably notable years for Portuguese cinema, specifically due to the release of two films in particular, which stand as being historically relevant in looking at how the film developed in the country. The first was Aniki-Bóbó, which was the directorial debut of the legendary Manoel de Oliveira, whose…

Hollywood has always had a very difficult relationship with the concept of representation, which is a point that certainly doesn’t need to be emphasized, having become an objective fact. For as long as films have been made, there have been individuals, whether within the industry or outside of it, that have made it their life’s…

By this point in its existence, cinema has seen just about every potential property turned into a film at some point, with Hollywood essentially being built on a foundation of scouting for the most popular ideas and transferring them to the screen in some way or another. When it comes to Barbie, arguably the world’s…

Don’t let the title fool you – there is not a single mention of the namesake Yuletide festivities anywhere in Christmas in July, and the decision to name it as such is quite bewildering since audiences will likely enter into this film under the belief that they are going to be receiving a charming and…

If there is one sentiment that we have held as an unimpeachable truth for over a quarter of a century, it is that everyone does indeed love Raymond – or rather, the man behind that iconic television show and one of the most beloved comedians of the past few decades. His lovable goofiness, coupled with…

The 1990s were not the strongest time to be a devotee of the work of Mel Brooks, at least in terms of his directorial output (he spent a good portion of this decade working on the musical adaptation of The Producers, which is arguably his greatest achievement as an artist), since none of the three…

“I’m sorry you had to meet me at this point in my life – although I’m pretty sure you would have hated me anyway” These words appear at the start of the climactic moments of Shortcomings, the ambitious directorial debut of Randall Park, who adapts the graphic novel of the same title by Adrian Tomine,…

We’ve spoken extensively about the Pre-Code era, the period in which Hollywood was allowed to be slightly more libertine, with some more controversial or provocative themes slipping through the cracks that had yet to be domineered by the Hayes Code and its draconian principles. It was a period of only a few years, but some…