A Woman Under the Influence (1974) is an impressive study of madness and conformity, serving as one of the benchmark films of American independent cinema. The film’s maverick director, John Cassavetes—best known for Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Dirty Dozen (1967)—often shot his films in a hand-held style known as cinema[Read More…]
Film and TV
Film Review: Spectre
When Skyfall came out in 2012, it gave the James Bond franchise a 21st century upgrade, focusing on modern issues and distancing itself from the goofiness that defined the brand in the more recent films. Under the direction of Sam Mendes, Spectre, the 24th addition to the collection, attempted to[Read More…]
Past vs. present: Jane Eyre vs. Crimson Peak
Warning: Spoilers The mansion in Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak is a character in itself. It breathes, bleeds, and moans. It’s rotting and sickly, yet simultaneously vibrant and beautiful; it’s also an accomplice to the brutal murders that have plagued its inhabitants for decades. With an ancient manor, a mysterious[Read More…]
What’s new on Netflix
The combination of Netflix’s vast selection and terrible search capability makes it easy to forget the titles that aren’t at the top of the page. To rectify, here are five titles that have been added recently, or will be soon. With Bob and David (Premieres November 13th) In many ways,[Read More…]
Pop Rhetoric: Narcos, Netflix’s capitalist critique of capitalism
Treading the line between documentary and crime thriller, Netflix’s newest original series Narcos—short for the Spanish ‘narcotraficante,’ or drug trafficker—tells the tale of Pablo Escobar’s rise to power and the blood of Colombia shed along with it. Faithful to history, the show gives a fairly accurate depiction of the rise[Read More…]
Cocksucker Blues travels from Super 8 to the Silver Screen
It’s rare for a band like The Rolling Stones to be embarrassed or even scandalized by anything, but the footage in Robert Frank’s documentary Cocksucker Blues was evidently too much for the band to reveal to their public. Despite the liberal atmosphere of the early ‘70s, which saw the explosion[Read More…]
Embracing feminism in Hollywood: Jennifer Lawrence and the A-list wage gap don’t have to be unrelateable
When Jennifer Lawrence wrote her open letter against the wage gap, she added in one particular clarification about her position as a “working women” in the hollywood paygrade. “I can safely say my problems aren’t exactly relatable [….] I didn’t want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly,[Read More…]
Flashback: 3 Women (1977)
3 Women is an understated wonder by the iconoclastic director, Robert Altman. The film itself unfurls like a dream, most likely because Altman first dreamt of the film before proceeding to shoot something that he was still figuring out. Altman was known for his almost laissez-faire filmmaking philosophy; he was[Read More…]
Pop Rhetoric: Mental health and the ‘less serious’ celebrity’s conundrum
As John Oliver noted in a segment on gun violence in Last Week Tonight, the fact that mental health is invoked only in a sombre context and only with a negative connotation is disturbing and unfounded. Mental illness becomes the scapegoat for tragedies which in reality may have had absolutely[Read More…]
Pan, dreamlike and worrisome
In the search to escape adult life, look no further than Pan, Director Joe Wright’s latest film that brings back the wonderful world of childhood imagination. Pan is the magical telling of the origin story of J.M. Barrie’s children’s literature hero Peter Pan (Levi Miller), as he travels from an[Read More…]
