Infinitely Polar Bear (2014)

There’s something incredibly endearing about Infinitely Polar Bear’s unostentatious simplicity. Constructed on familiar indie tropes – a hand-made, whimsical aesthetic, a period setting, a family unit defined equally by conflict and closeness – the film sidesteps cliché to conjure an utterly charming experience. Infinitely Polar Bear’s impossibly twee title is paraphrased from Faith Stuart’s (Ashley…

Shampoo (1975)

This satirical take on the degradation of ‘60s counter-culture contains genuine insight, positioning Nixon’s election – seven years prior to filming – as the death knell for hippies. The narrative uses the election as backdrop rather than focus, however, centring its story on the collaborations and copulations of lothario hairdresser George (Warren Beatty; the synchronicity…

Randy Quaid, Jack Nicholson and Otis Young inThe Last Detail (1973)

The Last Detail (1973)

The Last Detail finds a couple navy lifers – Buddusky (Jack Nicholson), better known as “Badass,” and Mulhall (Otis Young), better known as “Mule” – accompanying a young man called Meadows (Randy Quaid) to a prison in Portsmouth. Meadows is eighteen years old facing eight years in the brig. The length of his punishment is…