Exploring the City and the Self in Jeune Femme
Whether you're a Francophile or not, we’ve all seen and experienced at least one version of the streets of Paris. In 1951’s An American in Paris, Vincente Minnelli turned the Parisian streets into an...
Annihilation and the Terror of the Uncanny
Even if you saw Annihilation when it first hit Netflix a month ago, you probably haven’t been able to forget its most powerful scenes. Ostensibly a sci-fi mystery about a meteorite and the strange shimmering...
Tiny Rebels – Wes Anderson’s Quiet Revolution
Wes Anderson is the most polite filmmaker in punk rock, but that’s probably what makes him the most effective, too. Notorious for his meticulousness and specificity, the Texan philosophy graduate’s...
Remembering Morvern Callar: A Forgotten Gem of British Cinema
You Were Never Really Here, only Lynne Ramsay’s fourth feature film as director, comes nearly 20 years after the sensation of her debut release, Ratcatcher (1999). That trickle of productivity has its...
From American Werewolf to Fish Man – Practical Effects in Cinema
The Shape Of Water is fairytale master Guillermo Del Toro’s latest film offering romance, fantasy horrific injury detail and weird and wonderful creatures. His practical effects in many of his films make his...
Greta Gerwig vs. the Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Raised on a diet of Penny Lane, Ramona Flowers and Summer Finn, boys do not stand a chance when it comes to perceiving the unseen depths and desires of the women in their lives. If every girl who hangs with...
Daniel Day-Lewis: Humility and Collaboration in Phantom Thread
As, quite possibly, the greatest actor of his or any generation, it’s tempting to think of Daniel Day-Lewis as someone who stands alone. To imagine him towering above his colleagues in terms of both his...
The Last Jedi and the Real Resistance
One of the best moments in Star Wars: The Last Jedi comes early on. During one of many desperate, skin-of-their teeth escapes, victory or death for the Resistance (the new moniker for the Rebel Alliance) ...
Vintage Movie Magic in Star Wars: The Last Jedi
This post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Imagine getting to make a Star Wars movie. Imagine the millions upon millions of dollars Lucasfilm would leave in your lap. Imagine the stellar...
The Brothers Bloom – The Art of Good Exposition
Spoiler Warning: The Brothers Bloom is best watched with little foreknowledge. This article explicitly discusses the ending. The Last Jedi should provide Rian Johnson with an interesting balancing act. The...
What The Dickens! Cinema’s Love Affair With Charles
Films based on popular source material often perform well at the box office; therefore, it makes sense that Charles Dickens – one of the most iconic English language writers of all time – has drawn in his...
A Matter Of Life And Death: Grief and Hope
Matters of life and death were not hard to come by when Powell & Pressburger’s classic love story was released in 1946. Every family across Europe and beyond had become far too familiar living their...
Can’t Get Out: The Rise of Single-Setting Cinema
In theatre, the one- or two-person show can be an incredible crucible for claustrophobic action. It offers opportunities for showcasing intense chemistry, developing unrivalled suspense, or interrogating...
Caught in a Trap: Blood Simple and the Coens’ Inescapable Cycle
It’s always weird going back to the beginning. So many great directors seem to arrive fully-formed, but that’s usually because by the time they break out and hit the spotlight, they already have a solid...
Gender, Observation and the Fourth Wall in Sally Potter’s Orlando
Death. Love. Poetry. Politics. Society. Sex. Birth. These are the visual chapters of Sally Potter’s enchanting third feature Orlando. A loose adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel of the same name, the...