Of all the film styles in all the world, Steven Soderbergh chose in 2006 to adapt Joseph Kanon’s novel The Good German as a faux- noir, emulating the techniques and styles of Hollywood’s golden age, with no modern concessions. It wasn’t exactly pitched that way to Warner Brothers though. He told Empire, “I said, OK, [...]
Today marks the birthday of one of the giants of 20th Century cinema, Orson Welles. True, he had a hit and miss career, but his influence is far reaching, if only for his masterpiece, Citizen Kane. In 1991, BBC’s Arena strand made this in depth documentary on the film, which you can watch below (source: [...]
Judge Minty, the long in development labour of love fan film which has recently been touring comic festivals, has finally been released on line, and we have it for you below. The film, about an over the hill Judge who takes the long walk into The Cursed Earth, stars artist Greg Staples in a cameo [...]
Has ever a film had more of a 360 degree critical turnaround than Michael Powell’s 1960 psychodrama, Peeping Tom? Possibly Heaven’s Gate, although at least Powell wasn’t blamed for the perceived ruin of a whole studio. Dilys Powell of The Sunday Times described Peeping Tom as “essentially vicious”. It seemed the director was wilfully flaunting a daring approach, horror as complicit voyeurism, [...]
Last Saturday at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Steven Soderbergh delivered the keynote speech, pulling no punches about studio executives, indie vs blockbuster marketing, and his idea of the difference between cinema and movies. We have the video and full transcript of the speech below. A few months ago I was on [...]
The opening of Apocalypse Now is a phantasmagorical fusion of imagery and sound, a strange glimpse into the mind of its hero Willard (Martin Sheen); as The End by The Doors opens, helicopter rotors swoop slowly, hypnotically in from the corner of the audience’s perception, then behind, over a jungle canopy that bursts into flame, like a deadly flower. [...]
The best heroes get the best villains. In Indiana Jones’s case, not just Nazi’s, but the smooth, urbane French archaeologist who works with them to uncover the lost Ark of the Covenant; “a shadowy reflection” of himself. Rene Belloq, played by Paul Freeman, is a wily character, letting Indy (Harrison Ford) do all the hard work [...]
The latest sci-fi film from Tron Legacy director Joseph Kosinski is another stunning example of world building (or should that be destroying?) on an epic scale – seamless model and CGI blending with vast Icelandic ash scapes, as Tom Cruise and Andrea Riseborough, “an effective team” together watch over giant hydro mining machines needed for off planet resources. [...]
On location in steamy Mexico, the terrain is so uneven that cast and crew have long forgotten the last day they stood up straight while filming. Today is the day the fearsome alien creature that has been stalking and picking off Arnold Schwarzenegger’s band of alpha-male hard-asses makes its debut. Only when the suit is [...]
“You don’t crucify people! Not on Good Friday!” Like its London gangster anti-hero Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), The Long Good Friday, completed in 1979 but not released until the next year by Lew Grade’s nervous lackeys, straddles the tired old Britain of Labour and the brash, unfeeling new Conservatism of the upcoming ’80′s. Harold, an old [...]
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