It’s tough to be mediocre – or at least, that’s the basic premise of Brad’s Status, which follows a middle-aged man as he tries to make sense of a world he no longer recognizes while undergoing a series of college tours with his gifted son, in whom he sees every lost ambition and broken dream…

How do you begin to describe My Cousin Vinny without veering too close to either side of the extreme? One of the many comedies produced by Hollywood every year that essentially follows the same structure of taking a major star or two, placing them in an unexpected situation (which may or may not included entirely…

They say it takes a village to raise a child – and this has rarely been more clear than in Steel Magnolias, playwright Robert Harling’s tender love letter to his late sister, and the women in his community that orbited around his family in the years surrounding her untimely death. The film adaptation of the…

Surprisingly, it took Albert Brooks several decades of casting himself in roles that were really thinly-veiled versions of his own life to finally play himself in one of his directorial efforts, which seemed like something that was an enormous inevitability, since even though he’s a remarkably gifted actor with a considerable amount of range, he…

You can always tell when a filmmaker has attained a considerable standing in the industry when the simple question of “what is their best film?” seems to be almost impossible to answer. In this case, the jury remains divided on what film best represents the iconic careers of Joel and Ethan Coen, who remain amongst…

An old man (Hugh Griffith) lays dying – his death being notable, since he is Henry Russell, one of Great Britain’s most notorious jokers, having dedicated his entire life to elaborate practical jokes that defined his entire existence and made him something of a figure of notoriety. However, far from a selfish man, he decides…

When it comes to the subject of Nashville, you essentially get two different kinds of films – those about outsiders making their way to the notorious Music City, or those bursting to get out of there and explore the wider world. Regardless of the specific approach, it is almost impossible to find a film set…

“Dying is easy, comedy is hard” – these words appear whenever someone is talking about the frequent excursions many artists make when it comes to the subject of death. The great inevitability is a subject that has provoked and inspired directors for generations, especially when it comes to looking at it through the lens of…

There are many ways to describe Carmen Comes Home (Japanese: カルメン故郷に帰る), but the most appropriate would be to call it a film built on contradictions. It is bawdy yet elegant, hilarious yet melancholy, dignified yet playful, and simple but always consistently striking. Keisuke Kinoshita was a director who had a strong grasp on his craft,…

One of the more bizarre occurrences that we see from time to time is when a studio greenlights a film that is supposed to serve as nothing but a star vehicle for someone experiencing a degree of immense popularity at a particular moment, and instead of becoming sordid and uninteresting affairs, actually turn to be…