There are few people who know the comedy business better than Carl Reiner, with a career spanning from vaudeville to the Netflix era. While the majority of his most influential work was done for television, such as Your Show of Shows, Caesar’s Hour and the iconic The Dick Van Dyke Show, Reiner has put his…
Category: comedy
Finding Your Feet (2017)
Most people, myself included, enjoy seeing films that challenge and stimulate our minds, giving us something to think about through defying conventions and being unique and approaching familiar stories in new ways. However, from time to time, one just needs a dose of pure escapism, usually on behalf of an entertaining but conventional film, such…
Redoubtable (2018)
Like any good scholar of the school of postmodern literature, I love metafiction. There is something so absurd about seeing or reading something in which the author or creator has a keen self-awareness that is often missing in most forms of literature. One branch of metafiction is metafilm, which is certainly not a concept absent…
Holy Man (1998)
I remember, many years ago, I saw a film called Holy Man, and I did enjoy it, despite it being nothing particularly memorable. It was a film that didn’t exactly define my cinematic education, but it was an entertaining one. In recent years, with the internet giving access to more extensive views and criticisms, I…
Thoroughbreds (2018)
What is it about a debut film that excites me so much? There is something so profoundly fascinating about the first film of a filmmaker’s career – and we can look back at the early work of any of the great stalwarts of cinema and find clues in their debuts that would evolve into their…
While We’re Young (2014)
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…
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
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…
Girls Trip (2017)
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…
The Awful Truth (1937)
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…
Obvious Child (2014)
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…
