Films about writers are about as effective as books about filmmaking – they’re only good to a certain extent, since there is an inherent challenge in cross-medium interference, whereby looking at one through the lens of the other can sometimes be a bit difficult. However, when they work, it can sometimes be extraordinary, especially when…

Despite having both critical and commercial success over the course of a few decades, Cameron Crowe remains one of the more polarizing filmmakers working today, specifically because he seems to lack a certain panache that makes him interesting. He had radical successes with Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous, so much that he was essentially given…

There was roughly a twenty-year period between the 1980s and early 2000s where it was impossible to take a step outside one’s own front door and not be bombarded by the latest cinematic British sensation. For some reason, Hollywood grew to really appreciate these irreverent stories of the British Isles and their prodigious offspring, so…

There’s nothing quite as liberating as the feeling of finally being able to exist authentically. For the majority of people, this is a seamless process that often just entails finding your place in the world and adhering to the status quo. However, there are those that tend to struggle with their identity, which can sometimes…

You have to give credit to Lena Dunham – for around a decade, she has withstood an endless stream of controversies, ranging from the lack of nuance on her television show Girls or the questionable morality she demonstrated through her autobiographical writings. Not necessarily a defence of Dunham, especially since many of these criticisms do…

Cinema loves politics, particularly during the 1970s. There was something about this specific era that brought out the best in filmmakers with an interest in the subject. Perhaps it was the tumultuous real-life political landscape, with the height of the Cold War causing much strife, even in the domestic lives of ordinary citizens, and events…

We all love a good underdog story, especially when it comes to those that centre on ordinary folk going up against some systemic issue and emerging victorious. This was exactly what Jerry Selbee and his wife Marge, a happily retired couple from a small town in Michigan, did when they discovered a flaw in the…

When it comes to contemporary American theatre, few names carry both the prestige and element of intimidation quite as much as that of David Mamet, who remains one of the most revered and feared modern playwrights, known for his scathing critiques of contemporary life, no-holds-barred vulgarity and truly deranged sense of humour that make him…

Do not let its generic, unremarkable title fool you – The Inside Story is an absolute delight. The film, which was written by Mary Anita Loos and Richard Sale (the latter a notable writer of pulp fiction) and brought to life by Allan Dwan, one of the more underrated filmmakers of the Golden Age of…

Has Woody Allen lost the magical touch that placed him at the very apex of his craft all those years ago? The answer is unfortunately the affirmative, as his most recent efforts have proven that he epitomizes the concept of quantity over quality. While not all of his films produced in the past decade are…