Professor George Hamilton (Edmund Gwenn) is a profoundly gifted scientist who has been working tirelessly with the American government to produce new technological innovations that will help push them further on the global scale. However, he is upset and chagrined to realize that his work is being used to develop weapons of mass destruction. Not…
Beasts Clawing at Straws (2020)
A faux-Gucci bag filled with money, half a dozen eccentric characters, an abundance of violence and the good sense to weave it all together are the essential components of Beasts Clawing at Straws (Korean: 지푸라기라도 잡고 싶은 짐승들), the deliriously funny and perverted dark comedy by South Korean filmmaker Kim Yong-hoon, who crafted one of…
Qivitoq – Fjeldgængeren (1956)
Cinema affords every viewer the opportunity to be both a time-traveller and a world explorer, giving us the chance to see different cultures through the lens of many notable artists from around the world. The process of experiencing something we have never seen before is incredible, especially when the film surrounding it is so strong….
The House of Yes (1997)
There is a reason The House of Yes, the ambitious but controversial play by Wendy MacLeod, has somewhat faded into obscurity, only really being known to those devoted to lesser-known stage plays – but it has nothing to do with the content of the story, but rather the depths to which it is willing to…
Portrait of Jennie (1948)
At the perfect intersection between romance, melodrama and fantasy resides Portrait of Jennie, a film that combines all three genres in a particularly beautiful way that has rarely been witnessed, and has allowed it to flourish into one of the more cherished dramas of the 1940s. Director William Dieterle was certainly not a stranger to…
Dance of the 41 (2021)
One of the main areas in studying queer history is to obviously look into the past, and see how certain events shaped national and global perceptions of issues relating to the LGBTQIA+ community. One of the most significant moments came in 1901, in what is referred to as the Dance of the Forty-One, where a…
The Captain from Köpenick (1956)
We’ve seen many works of fiction that present us with the most unconventional protagonists – vile and malicious career criminals that are portrayed in a slightly more positive light, their reputations almost being entirely repurposed to be vaguely heroic. One of the more captivating examples of this comes in The Captain from Köpenick (German: Der…
Lion’s Love…and Lies (1969)
“What is Hollywood by Babylon and sunshine?” At some point in the 1960s, revolutionary filmmaker Agnès Varda spent some time in Los Angeles (and a few other parts of America, mostly settling on the West Coast), directing a variety of narrative and documentary films, some of which stand as her best work, and her most…
Cruella (2021)
When looking at Cruella, we need to ask a few questions. Was a deep-dive into the younger years of one of literature’s most iconic, sinister villains necessary? Not at all. Did director Craig Gillespie and his cast do the best they could with the material? That one is up for debate, but I personally lean…
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Oftentimes, the difference between a good film and a bad film has very little to do with quality, but rather the viewer’s individual relationship with a particular piece. It’s undeniable that there are some truly abhorrent works out there, as well as many mediocre films that just don’t meet any real standard. However, there are…
The Postmodern Pelican 