Nutcrackers (2024)

While the industry has shifted and changed in various ways, one kind of film has tended to remain popular, regardless of how much audiences ebb and flow in terms of subject matter. For about as long as the medium has existed, there have been active efforts to make films about the holiday season, with Christmas…

Maria (2024)

Every artistic medium has a range of masters that define the craft at different points – but generally, there is also a small handful who stand as perhaps the most important, or at the very least more prominent than the vast majority, usually acting as representatives of that particular art form. When it comes to…

Law of Desire (1987)

The further one leaps into the careers of artists they admire, the more likely they are to find works that are not only great representations of their creativity, but also serve as clear building blocks that assist in creating their distinctive style. In the case of Pedro Almodóvar, he started as an agent provocateur at…

Unlikely Angel (1996)

In much the same way that Christmas comes at the same time every year, you can guarantee that there will be dozens of films based around the holiday released concurrently. There’s something about this season in particular that proves to be oddly fruitful for film production, and whether for television or theatrical release, it seems…

Juror #2 (2024)

We are living in an era where every film is either an expensive, massively audacious endeavour or a more intimate undertaking where a lower budget and more scarce resources are no longer seen as an obstacle, but rather a cause for celebration as the craft becomes more accessible. Unfortunately, this means that the mid-level budget…

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)

The recent announcement that Aardman Animations would be eventually phasing out its stop-motion department (which produced the films that the studio is undeniably most known for) due to the shortage of physical materials needed to make these films came as quite a shock, and while it remains to be seen if this unfortunate turn of…

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

It’s always a worthwhile endeavour to explore the early careers of the greatest filmmakers of their generation since looking at their origins can yield fascinating results, even if their early work is not particularly reflective of what they did at their peak. In the case of Alfred Hitchcock, he always seemed destined to be one…

Queer (2024)

William S. Burroughs is a writer whose work has divided the reading audience for decades – some view his style as being experimental, daring and unconventional to the point of being borderline revolutionary, while others perceive his novels and short stories as bloated, self-indulgent works designed to confuse and frustrate with their impenetrable style and…

The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942)

There are a few themes that are the foundation for literature – love, family and death being the most prominent of them. The latter in particular is not notable, since it has spawned into many different kinds of stories, most significantly the idea of the murder mystery, which has been popular for about as long…

Our Story (1984)

A solitary man rides the train, watching the surroundings change as he slowly drifts to sleep. He’s awoken by a beguiling young woman who offers her astute observations about someone who she claims is a stranger, but yet one she somehow knows so well. Our protagonist slowly begins to fall deep into a state of…