It seems almost too ludicrous to be true, but there was a time when Joel and Ethan Coen weren’t the iconic stalwarts of filmmaking they are today, but rather obscure independent storytellers, film school graduates without any experienced, venturing into Hollywood with nothing but ambition and a couple of strong ideas for stories. Blood Simple,…
Costa Brava, Lebanon (2022)
Home is where the heart is, the place in which we feel the most comfortable and secure, safe from the outside world that tries to invade the sanctuary we have constructed for ourselves, whether literal or metaphorical. This idea serves as the foundation for Costa Brava, Lebanon, the wildly ambitious and deeply meaningful solo directorial…
Dark Passage (1947)
The 1940s were inarguably the peak of film noir – the 1930s featured several thrillers that laid the groundwork, while the 1950s were all about experimenting with form and content, continuously searching for new ways to explore the genre and represent its many fascinating conventions. Squarely in the middle of these two eras was one…
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)
There was a joke that used to frequently go around my corner of the playground when I was younger, namely that there are only two examples of pure genius when it comes to making music – Ludwig von Beethoven and “Weird” Al Yankovic, with the comparisons between the two not being nearly as tenuous as…
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
Contrary to what many people may believe, crafting any work of well-made romance is a challenge. This isn’t applicable to the endless stream of cheap, disposable stories that think that lust and desire are adequate stimuli for a relationship, but rather those rare works that touch on issues much deeper than carnal cravings. Few texts…
Causeway (2022)
Coming home can either be a joyful event or a melancholic affair, depending on the circumstances that surround it. The concept of homecoming is a regular theme in films centred around soldiers, whether those that depict them fighting on the battlefields hoping to survive so that they can return home after the war has ended,…
Little Big Man (1970)
When it comes to titles, few are as appropriate in describing a film as Little Big Man, a film of staggering length about a very small and supposedly inconsequential individual whose voyage through various stages of American history have made it one of the more cherished works of the New Hollywood movement. Directed by Arthur…
Railroaded! (1947)
One of the wonderful by-products of early film noir and gangster storytelling is that the viewer learns an abundance of new terms and concepts that may have gone out of fashion, but remain eternal, preserved in the cinema that was designed to entertain audiences of yesteryear, but have somehow managed to remain relevant until the…
The Silent Twins (2022)
For several decades, the story of June and Jennifer Gibbons has been the subject of a lot of conversation, with their mysterious lives being the source of an enormous amount of analysis as behavioural psychologists, linguists and a range of other investigators tried to determine the root of their condition that caused them to go…
Bus Stop (1956)
I’m not one who is typically known to lament the Golden Age of Hollywood in a way that discredits the current state of the industry, since there is a lot of value in any era of cinema, and those who complain about how the “good old days” of filmmaking are behind us are often quite…
The Postmodern Pelican 