The Crawthorne State Mental Hospital is an institution that specializes in housing and treating children with mental handicaps. It’s run by the stern but dedicated Dr Clark (Burt Lancaster), a serious doctor who does his best to care for the children put under his care. He soon finds himself dealing with a new set of…
Monos (2019)
Much of the publicity around Monos, the audacious new film from bright you talent Alejandro Landes, has mentioned a few works as being fundamental in inspiring this film to come about, most notably Elem Klimov’s horrifying wartime odyssey Come and See and William Golding’s seminal coming-of-age horror adventure Lord of the Flies – these are…
Equinox Flower (1958)
The Hirayamas are an ordinary family living in Tokyo. Wataru (Shin Saburi) is the patriarch, who has provided for his family in his capacity as a highly-respected businessman that has made many friends along the way and has positioned him as a trusted voice for numerous people seeking help with their own individual problems, whether…
Luce (2019)
Luce is a film I truly don’t care for. No matter how much effort I put into revisiting this film, mainly since it has been hailed as some modern masterpiece, can convince me that it’s anything other than plainly mediocre, and the appeal surrounding it continues to evade me. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted…
The Executioner (1963)
“He looks like a normal person. If we met in a café, I’d never suspect it” The person being described here is Amadeo (José Isbert), a humble old man who is on his way to retirement after years of service to his craft. What most people don’t realize when they see him walking through the…
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)
When you’ve made arguably one of the greatest films of all time, a director is normally allowed to do anything he or she decides is worth their time, granted its within reasonable limits, and maintains some kind of artistic integrity. Vittorio De Sica is the mind behind Bicycle Thieves, a film that not only stands…
Hallelujah the Hills (1963)
In 1963, two works of fiction were released that stand independent of each other, but are inextricably linked in numerous ways. The first was V, the debut novel by Thomas Pynchon, who would go on to become one of the late twentieth-century’s most important writers. The second was Hallelujah the Hills, the first major work…
Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (1963)
Olya (Olga Yukina) is a mild-mannered girl living in a big Russian city. She spends her time gallivanting with her motley crew of friends, finding new ways to cause mischief and pass the time. When she’s caught sneaking into the cinema (which was at the time forbidden to anyone under the age of sixteen), she…
The Servant (1963)
“He may be a servant, but he’s also a human” These words occur at a crucial moment in The Servant, the first of three collaborations between acclaimed playwright Harold Pinter and exiled American director Joseph Losey. They may appear to be an obvious, perhaps even painfully gauche, sentiment – but they happen almost concurrently to…
Vera Drake (2004)
The cinema of Mike Leigh has always been something I’ve been so deeply fascinated by, with his work being pivotal in my development to truly appreciate the art of filmmaking. One of the first encounters I had with Leigh was when I stumbled upon Vera Drake just after its initial release. Too young to fully…
The Postmodern Pelican 