By John H. Foote Val Kilmer has given one, perhaps two extraordinary performances in a career spanning nearly 40 years. In the first he was astonishing as Jim Morrison for Oliver Stone in the film The Doors (1991) which was more a biography of Morrison than it was about the band though, in reflection, what…
By John H. Foote Having always believed Woody Allen is innocent of the accusations of child abuse leveled at him by his former partner Mia Farrow, reading his account of the events dealing with her vicious attacks, I am now even more confident of Allen’s innocence. Though her adopted son Moses spoke out against his…
By John H. Foote Is there a more polarizing figure in American cinema than director Michael Cimino? An Academy Award winner for his study of friendship in small town America, before and after service in Vietnam. He sat atop the heap in Hollywood only to fall from grace very quickly, forever ruined after Heaven’s Gate…
By John H. Foote Of the great film directors in movie history, Sidney Lumet was among the elite. Highly regarded as an actor’s director, he possessed the uncanny ability to draw Oscar nominated and winning performances from his actors in bold and magnificent films. Yet Lumet himself was a Best Director nominee just four times, and…
By Nick Maylor The best film of the year (perhaps the decade), Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman (2019) was adapted from Charles Brandt’s book I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran and Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa. The book has been analyzed and criticized for those who claim that Frank Sheeran’s first-hand accounts…
By John H. Foote Every major actor working today – film, stage or television, professional or otherwise – owes a debt to Marlon Brando, arguably the greatest actor in the history of the art form. Do I believe he has been surpassed as our greatest actor? I do, but his impact and staggering domination of…