Growing old is certainly not for the faint of heart, which we have seen addressed on countless occasions in a range of films, many of which focus on how challenging it is to reach an advanced age in a society that sometimes neglects its senior citizens. Few films have been able to capture the experience…
About Schmidt (2002)
As far as universally-resonant themes go, few are more challenging to talk about than ageing and death. These are two of life’s most notable inevitabilities, and while not everyone gets the opportunity to grow old, we all age and learn vital lessons along the way. So many artists have discussed the topic in their work…
The Paradine Case (1947)
One of the more interesting anecdotal facts about The Paradine Case is that, at the time of its production, it was considered extraordinarily expensive, with the cost to produce this film being close to that of Gone with the Wind, the gold standard for epic-scale filmmaking. Where this money went is anyone’s guess, since the…
X (2022)
Recently, we’ve seen the emergence of the sub-genre that is affectionately known as “elevated horror”, which is precisely what the name suggests – attempts to take one of the most popular genres in the history of cinema and infuse it with layers of deeper meanings and poignant allusions to reality that somehow gives it artistic…
Mommy (2014)
There are few filmmakers who see the world in quite the same way as Xavier Dolan. A young artist who grew up enamoured with the world of cinema that quickly captivated him, it’s easy to see how he was impacted by the presence of certain genres during his formative years. Inspired by the melodramas of…
Raymond & Ray (2022)
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…
Nightmare Alley (1947)
At its peak, film noir was one of the most popular genres – whether extracted from the wildly entertaining pages of pulp fiction novels that were consumed at a rapid pace by readers of all ages, or more high-concept, experimental works that saw various filmmakers taking on more original ideas, these films were extremely popular,…
The Good House (2022)
The past few years have not been easy for Hildy Good, the protagonist of The Good House, the delightful and captivating adaptation of Ann Leary’s peculiar novel, which tells the story of a formerly successful real estate agent who proudly calls herself the North Shore’s top broker and has made many life-long friends along the…
Jennifer’s Body (2009)
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…
L’Atalante (1934)
While his career may have been cut short due to his tragic death at a very young age (leaving him with a very small body of work), Jean Vigo produced some of the most important films in the history of French cinema, not only based on what they were and the stories they told, but…
The Postmodern Pelican 