The first time we encounter Joanna Rakoff (Margaret Qualley) is on a quiet New York City street towards the end of 1995. It doesn’t take long for us to get to know her – she’s currently finishing her Master’s degree in English Literature, and has come to the city to visit an old friend for…
Cleopatra (1934)
Let’s talk about Cleopatra, Cecil B. DeMille’s ambitious attempt to capture the life and times of one of history’s most enigmatic figures on screen. This is a film brimming with historical inaccuracies (with screenwriters Waldemar Young and Vincent Lawrence, and the film’s resident researcher and compiler of information, Bartlett Cormack, choosing to forego correct chronology…
In Bed with Victoria (2016)
Romance comes about in many different ways in film, and for Justine Triet, her approach to representing love on screen is somewhat unconventional, but still thoroughly invigorating. Focused on working women who have to juggle their successful careers with modern feminist issues (including their sexuality, which the director is never afraid to explore, showing desire…
Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958)
In an Italian prison, Cossimo (Memmo Carotenuto) sits stewing in anger – a career criminal known for his elaborate heists, he has been caught before managing to achieve the riches he had always envisioned for himself – and the fact that he was sent to prison for attempting to steal a car only increases his…
Kung-Fu Master! (1988)
You can delineate the career of Agnès Varda into various areas (rather than stages, since they often had significant overlap and even occurred concurrently in some spaces) – there are her human dramas that are often driven by a sweetly sentimental sense of individuality, her socially-charged documentary shorts, and her full-length non-fiction pieces that often…
The Father (2020)
In The Father, his ambitious adaptation of his own stage play, Florian Zeller created one of the most heartbreaking films of the past few years, a strikingly beautiful ode to memory told through the eyes of someone who is on the verge of losing his entire perspective on reality. It was already a peculiar situation…
Ladro lui, ladra lei (1958)
When it comes to Italian comedy, the 1950s were a watershed moments, since this was the era in-between the height of the Italian neo-realist movement, and the peak of Commedia d’Italiana, both of which were pivotal moments in cinema history that left an indelible impression on global film in the decades that followed. There wasn’t…
Vertigo (1958)
Most of the time, I tend to avoid discussing situations where a film has achieved the status of being considered one of the greatest of all times, because it would normally come down to reiterating many of the same points that others have made about why this particular work deserves the title, or it will…
Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)
Johnny Triton (Edward G. Robinson) has earned a living as a marginally famous mentalist, performing to mildly-amused nightclub crowds, who marvel at his supposed skillfulness at telling their future, which he does through logic and educated guessing. However, he has recently come to discover that he is indeed able to get visions of the future,…
Bianca (1983)
There are few artists who seem to love the sound of their voice more than Nanni Moretti, who has made a series of films in which he not only directs stories that focus on his own individual quandaries as a filmmaker, but also positions himself in the central role on many occasions. However, unlike some…
The Postmodern Pelican 