By John H. Foote (****) Each year great films slip through the cracks, often to be discovered on Blu Ray or rep cinemas, though the latter has become less frequent. Queen and Slim was such a film for me, and one I regret not seeing sooner. If I had, the film would have cracked my…
By John H. Foote (***) Alcoholism has been portrayed truthfully on screen since The Lost Weekend (1945) won the Academy Award for Best Picture during the war years. Through history great actors such as Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick in Days of Wine and Roses (1962) and, perhaps best of all, Nicolas Cage in Leaving…
By John H. Foote In a shocking move, just days before its release, the new James Bond film No Time to Die has been moved to November. The move sent shock waves through the film industry as it means the spring box office will suffer immeasurably. The title song has already been released and is…
By John H. Foote James Lipton, host of the long running program Inside the Actors Studio, which he created and hosted, has passed of bladder cancer. He was 93. The kindest and most professional things I can say about James Lipton are that he loved the art and craft of acting with a passion very…
By John H. Foote (***) Clint Eastwood once stated that half of his job was done with casting, that once the actors were in place, he could relax and just let them do their job on set. He believes that actors are very creative people, hired to do a job and he expects them to…
By John H. Foote In a shocking move that will send shockwaves through the film industry, two-time Academy Award winning Best Director Steven Spielberg has withdrawn from directing the upcoming fifth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise. The move caught everyone associated with the series off guard, most specifically star Harrison Ford, who had announced…
By Nick Maylor On this episode, John and I talk Spielberg. Need I say more? Check out our YouTube channel for more shows. Nick MaylorNick is an actor/writer/comedian/musician from Hamilton, ON Canada. Having been a film nut since the early days of his life, Nick has had an obsession with cinema and popular entertainment. Nick…
By John H. Foote Comedy is a genre all its own consisting of ten subgenres, and they evolve and expand as the years slip past. It is also, along with horror, the single most personal of the cinematic genres. I saw Monty Python’s The Life of Brian (1979) with my wife, howling as the film…
By John H. Foote (**) Jack London wrote the great adventure novel “The Call of the Wild” in 1903 to great acclaim and it has been filmed many times since, both for the big screen and television. The best-known version is still the 1935 film starring Clark Gable as Jack Thornton, though that might change…
By John H. Foote Sequels achieved their greatest popularity through the seventies and eighties and beyond, though in fairness they have existed since the thirties and the Universal monster series. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) stands among the greatest sequels ever made, a wonderful film that preceded a series of increasingly bad films meant to…