“If you don’t like this…we don’t care” I remember the moment I became aware of Sparks – the faded, worn-out live recording where two peculiar individuals emerged onto a stage and performed a song I would soon come to learn was entitled “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us”. There’s a moment…
Marty (1955)
While it doesn’t necessarily have a bad reputation, Marty is often dismissed as being a minor work, a simple and ineffective romantic drama produced during an era where many notable teleplays were being quickly and cheaply turned into films, in order to profit off the charms of the wildly popular actors that often signed up…
Dune (2021)
Frank Herbert’s Dune has had a long and troubled journey to the screen – from the moment it was released in 1965, there have been various attempts to bring it to the screen. The well-documented efforts by revolutionary Chilean director and film iconoclast Alejandro Jodorowsky to adapt the novel after purchasing the rights failed (but…
Rhinoceros (1974)
No one did absurdity quite as well as Eugène Ionesco, one of the most fascinating playwrights to ever work in the theatre. While he isn’t massively popular outside of theatrical circles, as well as amongst literary communities, the author’s work has remained poignant and captivating, decades after his plays were first staged. His most significant…
Mr. Bachmann and His Class (2021)
It’s incredibly likely that each and every one of us at some point in our lives as students encountered that one special teacher, the person who made us feel like we were the most valuable and cherished individuals in the world, and whose compassion and empathy made them vital role-models during those early years. Dieter…
Friends for Life (1955)
Mario (Geronimo Meynier) is a bit of a slacker – he doesn’t particularly like school very much, and he dreads going home to his working-class family, since while they do have his best intentions at heart, their approach to raising him has always been defined by stricter morals, which aren’t compatible with his more rebellious…
An Unmarried Woman (1978)
As one of the formative voices in the New Hollywood movement, Paul Mazursky had quite a distinct style, which he carefully constructed through a series of melancholy comedies throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Some of them, such as Next Stop, Greenwich Village and Enemies: A Love Story, are very personal to the director, while others…
Charlatan (2021)
Jan Mikolášek was a fascinating figure in the history of the Czech Republic during the 20th century – a self-proclaimed healer that used his deep knowledge of herbs to create alternative medicines that he claimed saved the lives of countless people, his estimation being well over a million, which caused him to become quite a…
The Sign of Venus (1955)
There’s something so charming about Italian comedy, even those films that are not necessarily all that original. They’re often made with such wonderful sensitivity, we can’t help but be beguiled by the endearing nature of these stories. It helps a lot that many of the greatest ones were made by directors who were fully-fledged artists…
Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
Lenny Weinrib (Woody Allen) is a relatively successful sportswriter who specializes in boxing. He leads quite a happy life – he is married to the intelligent and beautiful Amanda (Helena Bonham Carter), who has her own thriving career as an art curator, but has two very bold dreams. The first is that she wants to…
The Postmodern Pelican 