There may be many different forms of humour, but comedy has always been driven by a few major tenets, with every work that sets out to provoke some form of laughter following either one or a combination of these concepts. Mistaken or false identities have always been a very reliable source of humour, going back…
Peter von Kant (2022)
They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery – but for François Ozon, it has never only been about paying tribute to his artistic heroes, but infusing his films with a celebratory spirit that vividly praises their work, getting to the heart of what makes each one of them such important influences in…
Switching Channels (1988)
They say imitation is the finest form of flattery – but when you outright piggyback off the success of another work of art in order to try and glean some of that acclaim, then there is a conversation to be had about the ethics of taking inspiration from other projects. Broadcast News is one of…
Desperate Characters (1971)
It’s often been said that in order for a story to be effective, all one needs is a single location, a pair of good actors and a strong script that gives them something to do. It’s the foundation for a lot of theatre, and as a result has inevitably found its way into cinema as…
The Stepford Wives (2004)
It’s high time that we start the critical re-evaluation of The Stepford Wives, the remake of the undersung New Hollywood classic that has often been dismissed as a paltry attempt to recreate the magic of the original. Frank Oz is a director that many of us have learned to put absolute faith in – his…
Knock at the Cabin (2023)
There are some filmmakers that have such unsteady careers, you can almost visualize their work as a series of peaks and valleys, with the shift in quality sometimes signalling a decline in their dedication to their work, or simply having lost the skill needed to be an effective filmmaker. The best one of these people…
Mexicana (1945)
There’s nothing quite like good old-fashioned entertainment, which is essentially the best way to describe most musicals produced during the Golden Age of Hollywood, long before there was a rise in the more subversive or challenging musicals that would come in later decades. The only problem is that they were produced at such a staggering…
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Martin McDonagh is one of our greatest living playwrights, with his work being widely produced, from the sacred stages of Broadway to the smallest public theatres in Asia, and everywhere in between, his penchant for darkly comical morality tales being the source of many fascinating discussions under the direction of a range of artists who…
Detour (1945)
We may tend to think that Hollywood was built on the big-budget spectacle, put together by masterful craftsmen that had strong directorial vision, and guide by the watchful eye of the tyrannical producers that kept them on the straight and narrow. However, what we soon come to realize after a while is that, while important,…
The Northman (2022)
As is often the case with most great literature, the premise of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is not original to the Bard, but rather taken from an ancient text, which he carefully appropriated to creatively hide the fact that this story of revenge and violence was not his own work (although the semantics of such situations…
The Postmodern Pelican 