By John H. Foote Despite being what audiences and critics felt was the weakest season in the history of the Emmy laden drama Game of Thrones, it dominated the Emmy nominations yesterday with a whopping 32 nominations. Other multiple nominee getters were Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel with 20, the HBO drama Chernobyl with 19,…
By John H. Foote My daughter Aurora, and her boyfriend Andrew, recently returned from Paris, a whirlwind birthday present her from Andrew, something he had planned, and executed as a complete surprise. When they returned, Andrew handed me a small jar of sand from Juno Beach. While in Paris they made the journey to the…
By John H. Foote The American Bicentennial year brought with it many great films, from both the United States and around the globe. 1976 was the year I REALLY discovered the power and art of cinema. I had my drivers license and could freely drive in my own car to Oshawa, twenty minutes from home…
By John H. Foote (****) If there is a greater American film, I have not seen it. If there is a greater film made in the history of the cinema, I am not aware of it. Francis Ford Coppola’s expansive, brilliant sequel to his Oscar-winning The Godfather (1972) actually bookends the first film, moving into…
By John H. Foote (****) Of the films Stanley Kubrick directed and wrote or co-wrote, none is more powerful or filled with the genius of A Clockwork Orange. Made in 1971, forty-eight years old, set in a dystopian future, the film still feels fresh, its future stills look like a possibility. It was an extraordinary vision…
By John H. Foote Through the years film critics and historians have written about individual years being the greatest in movie history. Those years celebrated yielded the greatest number of bonafide masterpieces, and one cannot deny it makes for an interesting debate. The greatest enemy to film is time, and as time flashes furiously past…
By John H. Foote (****) In 1969, Jane Fonda broke through with a searing performance as a bitter, caustic young woman in a dance marathon in They Shoot Horses Don’t They? (1969). Previously considered a light comedian or sexpot, no one expected this kind of depth from Fonda who had studied at the famous, or infamous, Actors…
By John H. Foote (***) Thirty years have passed since the summer release of Tim Burton’s film Batman, which in many ways kicked off the glut of films based on comic books and superheroes we are being deluged with today. Burton was a surprise choice to helm the film but after success with Beetlejuice (1988),…
By John H. Foote (***) Richard Dreyfuss gave the finest performance of his career as Ken, a sculptor left a quadriplegic after a devastating car accident. After fine work in American Graffiti (1973), The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974), Jaws (1975) and his Oscar winning role in The Goodbye Girl (1977), he was the go-to…
By John H. Foote New Criterion Blu Ray Release (****) “… in dreams, I walk with you …” – Roy Orbison, “In Dreams” The first time I saw David Lynch’s’ darkly hypnotic, nightmarish Blue Velvet, it felt like I was watching the dream of someone else. This haunting, surrealistic nightmare of a film cannot merely be…