In her first two films, Elaine May uses her keen comedic eye to craft enduringly human stories of what a romantic relationship can be.
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LFF 2022 REVIEW: A Baumbachian Descent into Calamity Culture and Disaster for ‘White Noise’
“As Baumbach satirises consumer culture, he in turn finds dignified meaning to the lives of Delilo’s terrified counterparts” The notes I made during Noah Baumbach’s screen talk following his new film’s premiere at the London Film Festival range from abstract at best to unintelligible at worst. Sitting across from my favourite director of modern times,…
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In ‘Coming Home in the Dark’ (2021), Revenge Is Nothing More Than a Continuation of Violence
A film less concerned with trying to force viewers to sympathise with its characters than simply presenting them, Coming Home in the Dark is a brutal film about institutional abuse and the part its subsequent lifelong pain plays in the cycle of violence.
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‘Less Than Zero’ at 35: The Great Debate of Unfaithful Adaptations
In 1985, at the tender age of twenty-one, an unknown writer named Bret Easton Ellis sold his first novel for five thousand dollars. Named after the Elvis Costello song, Less Than Zero follows the icy hearts of its over-privileged young characters in sunny Los Angeles. It paints a vivid picture of the disastrous effects of…
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From ‘Bly Manor’ to ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’: The Comfort of Quietly Queer Horror
“Not only are each of these projects situated within specific subgenres of horror, they also feature very queer, very human protagonists. What makes this fact even more notable is the fact that none of them were marketed to audiences on the basis of queer content, instead placing the focus on their genre.”
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‘Revenge of the Cheerleaders’ (1976): Rewinding Back to a Simpler Time
Revenge of the Cheerleaders, filmed in 1974 and released in 1976, is evocative of a time that was considerably looser and freer than today. For one thing, there was far less of a negative stigma against the portrayal of sex/nudity in film. In fact, many popular film genres of that time included such depictions. There was also…
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How ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors’ (1987) Defied the Sequel Curse
Why the third Nightmare on Elm Street film is the best in the franchise
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Autumnal Poetry in Motion and Its Subsequent Feelings as Seen in Film
From familial relationships and the underlying meaning of garments to making the most of life while still alive, these films convey the whole spectrum of arguably the most poetic season of all.
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Music in Film: The Velvet Goldmine #1 – Enigmatic Chronicles of a True Artist in ‘Moonage Daydream’ (2022)
Being a Bowie fan first and a person second, it feels only right to start my first column entry with perhaps the first art-minded documentary made ‘about’ him. Chronological talking heads taught me about the man who fell to earth, in particular Jarvis Cocker-narrated The Story of Ziggy Stardust (2012), which depicts Bowie’s mime choreography…
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Psychological Patriarchy and Covert Submission in ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ (2022)
Major spoilers for ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ ahead! “Psychological patriarchy is a “dance of contempt,” a perverse form of connection that replaces true intimacy with complex, covert layers of dominance and submission, collusion and manipulation. It is the unacknowledged paradigm of relationships that has suffused Western civilization generation after generation, deforming both sexes, and destroying the…
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