With a railroad plot and the kind of emotionless acting that bad 1950s movies are known for, one wouldn’t expect much from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), a tiny little B-movie “weirdie,” as Variety called science fiction films at the time. Thanks to the stellar visuals from legendary special effects master Ray Harryhausen, however…
Monty Python’s Life of Brian has been called many things, including brilliant, irreverent and even blasphemous. Of the three, only the last one is incorrect. Yes, the film pokes fun at the legend of Jesus, but not directly and more mocks blind faith and people who talk a good game but do nothing. The film garnered the…
Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese’s greatest film, shows that an audience can hate a character almost from the word go and still be compelled by their story enough to keep watching to the end of the film and then watch the film again and again. The fact that it still stands as one of the greatest films of all time, and the best film of the…
It is often said that Barry Lyndon is an atypical film for Stanley Kubrick, but that is not the case. The film is very typical when considering his overarching theme of dehumanization and the ills of society. Kubrick tells his story with distance, as per his usual, but he still captures the essence of the character and the story laid out in…
The intrepid duo of Wallace and Gromit made their debut in 1989 with the animated short “A Grand Day Out,” which first appeared on the film festival circuit, then found its way to the BBC for a Christmas Day showing. Creator Nick Park had begun work on the stop-motion short in 1982 while at university, and continued working…
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may be best known for his immortal creation Sherlock Holmes, but he also created the mythos of an area of the earth untouched by evolution or extinction, a land where dinosaurs still roam the earth. It was natural that Hollywood would try to translate this novel into film and in 1925, Harry…
The critically acclaimed House of Flying Daggers, masterfully directed by Fifth Generation Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, combines romance and drama with action and adventure. A wuxia (martial arts) film in the vein of King Hu’s A Touch of Zen (1971) or Yimou’s previous film Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers uses dazzling …
Maurice Pialat’s 1991 Van Gogh is a steady, non-grandiose look at the famous painter’s final 67 days in the beautiful Auvers-sur-Oise, France. The opening shot follows the painter’s hand as he gently runs a paintbrush across a blue canvas; it is a peaceful start to a film which avoids high drama and concludes with similar …
“I hear birds can’t fly this high.” “I hear only angels can.” This exchange during the opening sequence of director McG’s Charlie’s Angels sets the tone for the entire film…
Maurice Pialat’s À nos amours is not an easy film to watch. It’s not because of his free and easy approach to storytelling that is akin to his French compatriots Francois Truffaut or Eric Rohmer, it’s because of the subject matter contained within that free and easy…