When composing the canon of great American films, there is one in particular that occupies a very strange space – Elmer Gantry is a film mostly remembered for the dynamic performance given by Burt Lancaster, who was already one of the industry’s most interesting leading actors, and very little else. Richard Brooks was a filmmaker…

Where does one start when talking about Luchino Visconti? A filmmaker who consistently challenges conventions, while becoming quite a formidable creative force in his own right, his career was populated by a wide array of films occurring across multiple genres, each one a masterpiece that challenged certain conventions while immediately proving themselves to be worthwhile…

For a film that is influenced by a Robert Louis Stevenson poem, and even begins with the stanza that inspired the title, Home from the Hill is an awfully prosaic work that really doesn’t contribute much to an already saturated field of Southern melodramas that are far more overwrought than they are impactful, and which…

Sylwia (Magdalena Kolesnik) is more loved than she realizes – one of Poland’s rising stars, she has taken the fitness world by storm, with her knowledge of getting (and staying) in shape being coupled with her effervescent positivity, and making her a figure many people look up to, whether in one of her large-scale public…

There’s a phenomenon that occurs very rarely, but when it does, almost the entire cinematic community comes to a grinding halt, standing in awe at what we’re seeing transpiring – a film legend emerges from the shadows after years of partial or outright retirement or relative obscurity, and provides us with another glimpse into their…

Arthur Seaton (Albert Finney) is an ordinary man – he works a regular job in a local factory in working-class London, and spends his evenings and weekends in pubs and at the local picture show, where he passes the time until he has to return to work the following day. He lives a very simple…

Mona (Tanya Zabarylo) hasn’t had the easiest life so far. When she was only a child (Olivia Landuyt), her life was shaken after her mother dies in a tragic accident, which she experiences through her bereaved father, Vincent (Tom Vermeir) struggling to come to terms with such an immense loss. However, it’s not too long…

It was the iconoclastic playwright and filmmaker David Mamet that called Hollywood “a sinkhole of depraved venality”, which isn’t a sentiment exclusive to his line of thinking – throughout its storied history, the proverbial Tinseltown has been the subject of a fair amount of brutal indictments, whether from those who were soured by their fifteen…

When it comes to taking deep-dives into the careers of artists you admire, one tends to come across some of their weaker moments, but also on occasion discover new sides of their work that we didn’t realize were there. I’ve so often expressed such immense admiration for Yasujirō Ozu, and working through his filmography has…

Sergey (Boris Barkhatov) has just turned five – and despite his young age, he has grown to have a keen understanding of the world around him. However, this sentiment isn’t shared by those in his immediate surroundings, who find him to be just like any other precocious child, curious about life, long before he learns…