There aren’t many filmmakers whose work regularly, and often without fail, leave the viewer absolutely speechless. Ken Russell is one such filmmaker – throughout his prolific career that found him working on both sides of the Atlantic, the director managed to showcase a perverse set of talents that could bewilder even the most deranged artists….

The term “Hitchcockian” is thrown around a lot nowadays (or at least since the great master departed this mortal coil and left behind an unimpeachable legacy). Essentially, any work that has a sense of foreboding dread and extreme suspense, as well as potentially a wicked sense of humour and an abundance of peculiar twists and…

There’s a pivotal scene in Bad Influence where the main characters are engaging in a violent crime spree, while the song “Downtown” by Lloyd Cole plays over their antics, which grow increasingly more dangerous the more they become inebriated by both substances and the sheer power afforded to them in that moment. The song contains…

Any cursory summary of the career of Jim Thompson will doubtlessly mention how he was a writer who transformed pulp fiction into art. His particular brand of hardboiled, Southern-fried crime fiction has captivated audiences for generations, with the off-kilter humour, graphic violence and twisted narratives making them far more complex than other supposedly cheaply-produced works…

One of my personal favourite pieces of casting trivia is that, during the process of deciding on someone to star as the titular Mary Poppins, Walt Disney actively pursued Bette Davis for the role, banking on her status as one of the most beloved and recognizable faces from the Golden Age of Hollywood that was…

There are some films that have all the potential to be great – whether featuring an excellent cast, a strong script (especially one adapted from a writer known for being one of the most important of their generation) and gorgeous landscapes are all usually components of very good films. Yet, some films can squander these…

There is something about wolves that are so profoundly fascinating, and which has inspired artists for centuries. It’s difficult to find works of literature or mythology that don’t feature lupine characters in some way, with their enigmatic manner of prowling in packs, or their distinctive howls to the night sky making them almost mystical creatures….

I’ll start with a bold statement – Wild Indian is one of the year’s best films, and yet very few people seem to be talking about it. The film, which is the feature-length directorial debut of Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr., is one of the many fantastic works produced by and within the Native American community,…

There are many distinctive signs of a great director – whether it be a strong visual style, the ability to extract strong performances from their actors, or just the general skillfulness needed to entertain an audience. My personal belief is that any talented director should be able to take a strong script that contains only…

By the time he reached the middle of the 1950s, Alfred Hitchcock was already undeniably a well-established filmmaker who had easily earned his place in the canon of great cinematic artists. No one had been able to make films that were both as artistically-resonant and profoundly mainstream as him, which is essentially what has kept…