Like its culinary counterparts, the spaghetti western is incredibly popular – safe, reliable and enjoyed by generations across all cultures. However, its also an acquired taste, and like any genre, it’s going to have its share of successes and failures. I’m certainly not someone who advocates heavily for this kind of western, despite having enjoyed…
Les Créatures (1966)
Who is the ultimate authority after a film has been made? Is it the general public, who its often intended to entertain, or the critics that make it their professional duty to determine whether it is a success or a failure, or the filmmaker, who looks back at a specific work and decides whether they…
Tigertail (2020)
“There are many things I never told you” Representation matters. It isn’t enough to just work with undervalued groups, and there has been a seismic shift away from the realm in which people of colour weren’t afforded the opportunity to play the roles they deserved. Visibility is not only about focusing on diversity in your…
Mona Lisa (1986)
George (Bob Hoskins) has just been released from prison – he was a driver for a mysterious London crime boss (Michael Caine) and took the fall for a job gone wrong, resulting in seven years of incarceration. His return to society is far from as ideal as he’d hoped it would be – his family…
Spawn (1997)
Al Simmons (Michael Jai White) is a soldier that is under the employment of the US government, reporting into the apparently morally-superior Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen), who is actually a potential warlord, having successfully developed a virus that he will eventually disperse into the world’s population as a form of biological weaponry. Simmons, realizing these…
Juno (2007)
Juno is a very important film for several reasons, most of all for its legacy. A quaint and charming independent comedy in its own right, it worked alongside Little Miss Sunshine to inspire over a decade of imitators, films that embrace their independent spirit and more twee nature and exploit them in conjunction with the…
Thanos and Despina (1967)
The Greek countryside at some point in the 1960s – Thanos (George Dialegmenos) is a young man who works as a goatherd for his rural community, coming from a long line of manual labourers and shepherds, including his deceased father, who died from what appears to be over-exertion under the employment of Vlahopoulos (Tzavalas Karousos),…
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967)
J. Pierrepont Finch (Robert Morse) is a humble window-washer that stumbles upon a book that answers all the burning questions that he’s been asking himself for years, mainly “how to succeed in business” – this quick guide to climbing the corporate ladder becomes a sacred text to the ambitious young upstart, who follows the rules…
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Everyone wants their art to become iconic – there’s nothing quite as special as the moment in which your work becomes definitive of the particular art form, regardless of the specific area in which you operate. However, the challenge that comes with this kind of reputation is the tendency for the work to become so…
Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959)
“A person can run away from anything, but not from his destiny” It’s a familiar story – a very successful person (normally in the entertainment business) is at the top of their fame, and are absolutely adored by the masses. They encounter a younger, unassuming individual, who they subsequently transform into a sensation of their…
The Postmodern Pelican 