Whenever the topic of Woody Allen’s output in the 1980s inevitably comes up, the devotees and general admirers of the director and his work doubtlessly will mention how this decade represented a seismic shift for the esteemed filmmaker. Following on from the more profound, dramatic material he produced at the tail-end of the 1970s, with…
The Whole Town’s Talking (1935)
While he did work across a range of genres, John Ford was mostly known for directing either action-packed, highly influential westerns, or searing historical dramas, either focused on particular individuals from the past, or an entire group at a specific time in America’s history. However, he did make a few forays into comedy, mostly in…
Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022)
While there have been divided reactions to his previous films, there’s very little doubt that Cooper Raiff is here to stay, representing the future of independent filmmaking. This isn’t some resounding praise (since it is understandable why he has been considering a polarizing figure), but rather an acknowledgement of the fact that he’s proven himself…
The Dream Team (1989)
There’s a sub-genre of comedy that was wildly popular throughout the 1980s, but has seemingly either been mangled to the point of being beyond recognition, or disappeared entirely. These films were based on a simple premise – either an individual or group of people set off for a day out in some major city or…
My Donkey, My Lover & I (2020)
Not since Robert Bresson defined realist cinema with his masterful Au Hasard Balthasar has a film about the friendship between a human and a donkey been as moving as My Donkey, My Lover & I (French: Antoinette dans les Cévennes), a film that celebrates love just as much as it does evoke a lot of…
Starman (1984)
The early 1980s saw a massive shift in the science fiction genre – they were no longer restricted to the realm of the B-movie, and could exist as a legitimate art form unto themselves, instead of being seen as niche genre work. This is very likely the result of the laborious effort put in by…
Elvis (2022)
“This ain’t no nostalgia show…we’re going to try something different” When it comes to music biographies, we seem to have run the gamut – we’ve had traditional recountings of the lives of famous artists, and more subversive attempts to portray the rise and fall of some of our greatest musicians. It seemed almost inevitable that…
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
When Cheryl Dunye set out to make her first feature-length film after a few years of short-format filmmaking, she had quite a challenge ahead of her, not only because she was a relatively novice director, but also because there were simply very few people like her making films, even in the independent sphere. However, these…
Late Spring (1949)
As arguably Japan’s foremost cultural critic, few filmmakers managed to as effectively explore the life and times of ordinary citizens quite as well as Yasujirō Ozu, whose work reflects a keen sense of interest in the human condition, which has fuelled so many of his incredible films. As is often the case with notoriously prolific…
Mother (1996)
As unheralded as a filmmaker as he may be, Albert Brooks certainly has quite a knack for telling stories that resonate with many viewers, in a way that is accessible and endearing, rather than being contrite in the way many mainstream comedies tend to be. A populist filmmaker, but one that uses his platform in…
The Postmodern Pelican 