I have been an ardent admirer of Noah Baumbach for quite a while now. From his beautifully nostalgic portrayal of the millennial lifestyle in Frances Ha and Mistress America to his delicate and moving portraits of family in The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) and The Squid and the Whale, he has found his niche in…

I think we can all remember where we were when we watched our first John Hughes film. Whether it was The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, John Hughes was a formative force in the cinematic education of many of us today. Despite being born just outside of his glorious reign…

In 2011, Paul Feig directed the now iconic Bridesmaids, based on the script by Annie Mumulo and Kristen Wiig. This was, for better or worse, the first truly great female-led mainstream comedy, and the combination of the talented cast, the hilarious script and the emotionally-resonant execution resulted in a wonderful film. It was also one…

They just don’t make films like The Awful Truth anymore, do they? A great comedy film driven by nothing more than sparkling dialogue, the tangible chemistry between the lead and a wonderful story that flows exceptionally well, supported by the incredible performances by a talented cast. The Awful Truth is the rare kind of film…

If there was a way to describe independent cinema in only one sentence, it would probably be “the films that tell the stories that mainstream cinema is too afraid to” – and very few films are as applicable to this concept as Obvious Child, the debut feature by indie filmmaker and writer Gillian Robespierre. Obvious…

Up until this past weekend, I believed that Blue Velvet was the greatest satire of the archetypal American suburban condition of the 1980s. As much as I am an ardent devotee to David Lynch, I have to admit that such a belief was nothing more than a misguided delusion. As effective and brilliant as Blue…

I have always been an ardent devotee of comedy, and several years ago, I went in search of some obscure, alternative comedy that would satiate my desire to find something different to anything I had seen before. There were two television shows that I encountered that were of extreme fascination – The Day Today and…

For centuries, audiences have had a certain obsession with artistic representations of true stories, reenacting historical moments and real-life events in a way that shows the inherent tragedy or historical significance that captivates us and keeps us thirsting for more. It has persisted from the earliest days of theatre to the present day, when audiences…