America – the land of the free, home of the brave, and the country of seemingly endless opportunities. For about as long as the United States of America has been an entity, there have been people from all around the world that have flocked to the nation, seeing it as a safe haven in which…
House of the Long Shadows (1983)
Horror is a genre that has taken countless shapes over the course of its existence, to the point where even just referring to the genre as a whole feels too broad, since it has developed so many offshoots and deviated in several different directions that are impossible to contain within a single category. There is…
Catherine Called Birdy (2022)
There isn’t a clear set of criteria with which we can judge a filmmaker and determine whether they are objectively good at their chosen vocation, since there are too many variables to consider before we even start constructing such a rubric. However, there are certain qualities that every filmmaker, regardless of background or style, needs…
Out of the Past (1947)
Memory is a tricky concept – the events of the past tend to take on more grotesque shapes when it comes to being relayed, especially as time has gone on and we start to subconsciously fashion them to be reminiscent of our own idealistic agenda. For a film that spends roughly half of its already…
The Music Man (1962)
The Music Man was made at a time when we still had films that felt like genuine events. Not to disparage the modern state of the industry (which is still producing films of an exceptional quality regularly), but we’ve gone past the point where standalone films could be considered major moments in cultural history. Much…
Spiderhead (2022)
Any film that prominently uses Thomas Dolby’s new wave masterpiece “She Blinded Me with Science” is automatically going to be considered worthwhile, even if the general consensus behind it is that it represents the kind of misguided attempt at an intelligent blockbuster that we often see coming in the wake of major franchises and their…
The Red House (1947)
Nothing is quite what it seems in the world of The Red House, the fascinating film by Delmer Daves that combines many different genres in its pursuit of some deeper meaning. Whether or not it finds it is another matter entirely, especially when it becomes increasingly clear that something is amiss with the world in…
A Love Song (2022)
When it comes to the concept of love, has there ever been something so universally acknowledged, but yet singularly impossible to define in clear terms? Everyone from existential philosophers to those in the arts has dedicated a large portion of their time to unpacking the phenomenon that is love, particularly the act of falling for…
The Eagle with Two Heads (1948)
Jean Cocteau was an artist whose name immediately brings one of two projects to mind – we immediately associate him with either the gorgeous 1945 version of Beauty and the Beast (the finest version of that story told until Angela Carter reconfigured it many decades later), or his Orphic Trilogy (consisting of Orpheus, The Blood…
Uptown Saturday Night (1974)
It is necessary to start this review with a disclaimer. Unfortunately, one of the reasons behind Uptown Saturday Night being relatively under-discussed in recent years has to do with the fact that this is a buddy comedy, in which one half of the central duo is played by someone who has deservedly fallen out of…
The Postmodern Pelican 