Clint Eastwood, for better or for worse, has made a substantial impact on cinema, both as an iconic actor and as a director whose works span over five decades and include a number of significant accolades and positions within the canon of great American filmmaking. One could argue that Eastwood’s work is very much hit-and-miss,…
Category: Crime
10 Rillington Place (1971)
I was recently having quite a spirited discussion with a colleague of mine on the subject of serial killers, and we were both questioning precisely what is it that makes true crime stories so captivating? What is it about recountings of the grisly, gruesome crimes of other people that manages to be so alluring? From…
Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1993)
With the exception of Charles Dickens’ seminal words “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, or Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins”, I would argue that there has not been a more iconic and noteworthy set of words to open any work of literature than…
BlacKkKlansman (2018)
When someone asks me why I admire Spike Lee, I normally point to any of his tremendous films such as Jungle Fever, 25th Hour, She’s Gotta Have It or Do the Right Thing, a film I consider to be the greatest film ever made by an American director. This year, he may have just proven…
Branded to Kill (1967)
Branded to Kill is the kind of film that makes me want to realize my dream of becoming a filmmaker so I can make films just like this. Perhaps not a film I could absolutely understand, it is one that exhibits an impressive amount of sheer audacity, and if there is something I admire in…
Game Night (2018)
Here’s something I’ve learned: never have exceedingly high expectations for a film, but also don’t underestimate the effectiveness of a well-made film either. This lesson has been learned through countless disappointments and pleasant surprises, and I can say that recently, I have added another film to one of these categories. I was not expecting too…
Ocean’s 8 (2018)
Allow me to be frank – there are few films that I enjoyed watching this year more than Ocean’s 8, and that could be for a number of reasons. The film is a continuation of Steven Soderbergh’s highly-popular heist comedy film series, constituted of Oceans Eleven through Thirteen, films that also adhered to the manifesto…
Inside Man (2006)
There are many reasons why I admire Spike Lee so relentlessly, but the most important one is that he is one of the few filmmakers who gives me exactly what I desire in a film – memorable stories, interesting characters, notable filmmaking style, and a great song over the opening credits (the most important aspect…
You Were Never Really Here (2018)
Lynne Ramsay has made four feature-length films, each of which have been tense, gritty and relentlessly realistic views of society, with Ramsay being particularly adept at showing the most explicit and shocking version of humanity through her films. Her latest film is You Were Never Really Here, a brutal crime thriller that manages to be…
25th Hour (2002)
If you knew your life was going to come to an end tomorrow, how would you spend today? This is a central issue in Spike Lee’s 25th Hour, albeit not quite as extreme. Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) is being sent to prison for dealing drugs in 24 hours, and he decides to spend the last…
The Postmodern Pelican 