From the first moment I spent with the characters in The White Lotus, I knew that it would be inevitable that I would make the rare exception to write about a television show. It often becomes quite unwieldy to discuss them, since so much depends on the cumulative nature of multiple seasons, and they often…

How do you begin talking about Pink Flamingos in a way that captures not only the spirit of the film, but offers insights into the impact that it had on the industry? The answer is quite simply that you can’t – this is a film about which nearly everything has been written. Critiques of its…

Literature loves a good detective – from the earliest days of penny dreadfuls, to the low-quality pulp fiction novels sold at the corner store, to the modern era where everyone has some degree of interest in solving mysteries, we see so many stories of detectives, whether professional private investigators or those that treat it like…

As is often the case with any medium, it was inevitable that cinema would get to the point where it started producing artworks that were self-reflective commentaries on its own existence. This happened almost immediately, with the advent of self-aware cinema occurring from the outset. There are a few subjects that filmmakers seem to adore…

There are few terms in cinema that are more prominent but indescribable than “Hitchcockian”, which we know as referring to films that evoke the spirit of the brilliant Alfred Hitchcock, whose career as the master of suspense is nothing short of revolutionary. There are many signs that a film meets the thresholds to be labelled…

Ruben Östlund is one of our greatest living filmmakers, and someone whose artistic integrity and profound curiosity as a storyteller have allowed him to explore a wide range of complex themes. From his early works that were steeped heavily in social realism, to his depiction of a marriage in trouble in Force Majeure (his breakthrough…

We all grieve in our own way – and for the protagonists of Raymond & Ray, the journey to coming to terms with their father’s death is not an easy one, both geographically and emotionally. Rodrigo García is one of our great journeyman directors, a filmmaker who may not always have the most distinct authorial…

In both concept and execution, Jennifer’s Body is a peculiar film. It is gnarly and rough around the edges, and often struggles to make it clear entirely what it wants to be in the first place. However, we have never found a cult film that didn’t possess some of these qualities, or at least have…

The contributions Charles Chaplin made to cinema can never be underestimated – whether in his early days as one of the most prominent stars of the early Hollywood era, to his later years as an established filmmaker in his own right, Chaplin’s work was always impeccable and made by someone who had a genuine fondness…

America – the land of the free, home of the brave, and the country of seemingly endless opportunities. For about as long as the United States of America has been an entity, there have been people from all around the world that have flocked to the nation, seeing it as a safe haven in which…