Debra Granik is a great filmmaker. While not necessarily the most prolific film director, having only directed three feature films (and working on several fiction and non-fiction films in some capacity), she has shown herself to be a remarkably talented artist. This review is concerned with her most recent work of art, the astonishing Leave…
Private Life (2018)
At the beginning of Private Life, the new film from Tamara Jenkins, we are introduced to Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) and Richard (Paul Giamatti), who are the quintessential artistic couple – he is a theatrical genius known for avant-garde productions, and she is a highly-acclaimed writer whose first book is about to be published after years…
The House That Dripped Blood (1971)
They just don’t make horror films like they used to anymore. Not to imply that considerably original work isn’t being done in horror cinema today, but that there was a time when horror was, dare I say, warm and endearing. The British horror films of the 1960s and 1970s had a certain elegant charm that…
Le Bonheur (1965)
Agnès Varda is an institution. She is a filmmaker who made films before, during and after the French New Wave. She is, by that very rationale, the epitomical figure of the French New Wave – and considering she was one of a few women in a cinematic movement almost entirely controlled by men, her films…
Rumble Fish (1983)
The 1980s were a strange time for American filmmaking. There were some excellent films produced during that decade (however, considering the two best American films of that era were made by foreigners, it is quite an anomaly). Quite significantly, some filmmakers that had previously made towering masterpieces in the 1960s and 1970s started to become…
Mandy (2018)
Well, where do we begin? As shameful as it is to say, I don’t think I’ve got the words that can appropriately describe Mandy, the latest film from the obscurely brilliant Panos Cosmatos. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, but considering the director’s previous work, Beyond the Black Rainbow was a work…
The Children Act (2018)
Life is a precious thing – regardless of what you believe, I think we can all appreciate the fact that life is something to be cherished – but there is something else that governs life in many instances that is often extremely important, as well as extremely divisive: the right to choose. This is the…
You Can Count On Me (2000)
Despite having made only three films over the span of nearly two decades, Kenneth Lonergan is most certainly one of the most important voices in contemporary independent cinema. Margaret was a misunderstood labour of love, and Manchester by the Sea was a towering achievement that remains one of the finest representations of grief ever committed…
Destination Wedding (2018)
Perhaps the most succinct way to describe Destination Wedding is if Richard Linklater’s iconic Before…Trilogy featured two despicable curmudgeons who, instead of waxing poetic about life’s great philosophical quandaries, spew vitriolic misanthropy towards each other and society as a whole, while slowly falling in love. Anyone who knows me will understand how this is most definitely…
Hearts Beat Loud (2018)
Audacity doesn’t need a big budget to be fully-realized, and no one knows this better than Brett Haley, the director of some illuminating independent comedies, such I’ll See You in My Dreams and The Hero, as well as the subject of this review, Hearts Beat Loud. A gentle, unassuming and heartwarming project, this film is the representative of everything…
The Postmodern Pelican 