If there was a way to describe independent cinema in only one sentence, it would probably be “the films that tell the stories that mainstream cinema is too afraid to” – and very few films are as applicable to this concept as Obvious Child, the debut feature by indie filmmaker and writer Gillian Robespierre. Obvious…
My Own Private Idaho (1991)
I’m a connoisseur of roads. I’ve been tasting roads my whole life. This road will never end. It probably goes all around the world” These are the haunting final words of My Own Private Idaho, spoken by the tragic protagonist of the film, Mike Waters (River Phoenix). My Own Private Idaho is a film about…
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
To date, I don’t think there has been a single film based on a novel by Roald Dahl that I have not liked. The Witches was a juvenile horror masterpiece, James and the Giant Peach was enthralling, and both adaptations of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were thrilling and entertaining, not to mention Danny De…
The ‘Burbs (1989)
Up until this past weekend, I believed that Blue Velvet was the greatest satire of the archetypal American suburban condition of the 1980s. As much as I am an ardent devotee to David Lynch, I have to admit that such a belief was nothing more than a misguided delusion. As effective and brilliant as Blue…
Happy End (2017)
There are few names that have evoked the concept of “revolutionary auteur” quite like Michael Haneke – throughout his career, Haneke has pushed the boundaries of cinema, making audacious and often extremely shocking films about the human condition, showing the smallest nuances of society and the problems that individuals face within harsh socio-political and economic…
A Quiet Place (2018)
Last year, quite a cinematic anomaly occurred – Jordan Peele, the goofy comedian best known for his surreal and unrestrained sketch comedy stylings, wrote and directed Get Out, a film that entirely obliterated the expectations of every single viewer. The film was a scathing social commentary, a darkly hilarious statement on society, and an utterly…
Diamonds of the Night (1964)
Sometimes the most cathartic way of representing tragedy is through artistic expression, and very few events have inspired people from across the world to express their sorrow and pity quite as much as the Holocaust. For over half a century now, artists have produced novels, non-fiction works, artworks and films to try and convey the…
Ready Player One (2018)
We have reached quite a fascinating era, where the past is suddenly becoming far more fashionable than it was before, and people are more obsessed with recapturing previous eras than actually moving forward, particularly in terms of entertainment. This has resulted in many television shows from the 1990s and early 2000s being rebooted – Roseanne,…
David Lynch: The Art Life (2016)
I often question why, out of all the filmmakers I adore and admire, it is David Lynch who I consider to be the singular figure that not only altered my perspective of art but changed my life in some way. Why he has remained arguably the most important artistic figure in my life, an individual…
On Body and Soul (2017)
Two of the major cornerstones of cinema are romance and death, and very often filmmakers blend the two themes in the pursuit of making relatable statements on both of these inevitable, highly-resonant concepts. However, the concept of love has never been as inextricably honest in its relationship to our eventual demise than in Ildikó Enyedi’s…
The Postmodern Pelican 