As any parent will say, there is no limit on how far they will go to give their child a good future, even if it means putting themselves in considerable emotional, physical or financial strain. Every parent wants their offspring to have a better life than them, which is one of those rare universal experiences…
Tag: movie-reviews
All That Heaven Allows (1955)
I’ve grown incredulous of the phrase “they don’t make them like they used to” when it comes to film (or any kind of art), since this always feels like an attempt to deify the past, allowing nostalgia to become the only relevant metric when it comes to assessing a piece of work. There are films…
53 Sundays (2026)
There are a few universal themes that propel the majority of art, and very few are quite as resonant as that of family, for the sole reason that we can often find other very common themes (such as love, death and companionship) reflected in these stories, but very rarely the inverse. No matter the configuration…
Kiss of the Spider Woman (2025)
A good film lingers with you after the credits end and you walk out of the cinema. A truly great film stays with you forever, settling in your memory and being recalled whenever it is required. This isn’t a description of Kiss of the Spider Woman itself, but rather the central premise of Bill Condon’s…
Rebuilding (2025)
Life can change in a moment, and there’s nothing we can do about the unpredictable nature of reality – and in many cases, it’s difficult not feel like you have been dealt a bad hand, where even your best efforts can fall apart at the seams. However, as they often say, it’s not the reason…
The Wedding Banquet (2025)
We all crave human connection, and if we are lucky enough, this will come from our relationship with our family, whether one into which we are born, adopted or a more informal structure built around lifelong friendships that are akin to actually being a part of a functional family, even without the presence of more…
Waltzing with Brando (2025)
When you think of Marlon Brando, it’s expected that the image of the overly intense, vaguely misanthropic method actor known for proclaiming “I could’ve been a contender” in On the Waterfront, shouting to his beloved Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire or planning to make an offer no one could refuse in The Godfather, all…
Lurker (2025)
As John Waters famously said, “life is nothing if you’re not obsessed” – and while we may assume he didn’t realise the extent to which obsession can genuinely become a problem when left unchecked, he, of all people, knows what it means to be fixated on a particular concept, or a person who best represents…
A Little Prayer (2025)
Family is everything, and those of us who are lucky will find that there are some people who may not be related to us by blood or through any direct legal connection, but who enter our lives and become an important part of it. The idea of the “chosen” family has been a source of…
The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025)
Music is the universal language, the common thread that connects us under a unified humanity, transcending cultural, geographical and temporal boundaries and speaking directly to our souls in a way that everyone unquestionably understands. Some of the greatest works of literature began their lives as songs or strummed, featuring stories of star-crossed lovers or perilous…
The Postmodern Pelican 