By John H. Foote Never say to me John Wayne could not act. Ever. The great film historian John Milius once said, “I think John Wayne in The Searchers is the greatest performance in the history of cinema.” It certainly is one of them. Wayne believed in planting his feet and telling the truth, that…
By John H. Foote The art of acting evolved slowly throughout the 1940s, but in 1947, it was forever altered when Marlon Brando stepped onto the New York stage as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. His gritty, explosive performance changed the very fabric of acting more than it had been changed in 30…
By John H. Foote The art of film acting was evolving in the 30s and did not reach its peak until the 50s with the explosive arrival of Marlon Brando. With the introduction of sound, Hollywood began looting the Broadway stage for actors with effective voices such as Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, James Stewart, elevating…
By John H. Foote The year 1950 marked the beginning of an age-old war with the small box, television. Television became the greatest enemy of cinema, a war that exists to this day, now led by streaming services. Ironically, COVID made TV necessary for the film industry’s survival when audiences were forced to stay home.…
By Alan Hurst It’s a little surreal realizing that 1972 was 50 years ago because it was the year movies really became a part of my DNA and I can’t really be that old, can I? At the cusp of hitting my teen years in 1972, I was finally allowed to bypass the latest Disney…
By John H. Foote The 1940’s marked the second full decade of movies with sound, and this new form of entertainment continued to evolve, often for the better. The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 drew the United States into World War II which altered the face of American cinema. Many of the films covered…
By John H. Foote The first of a nine-part series exploring the greatest ten films of each decade over the last ninety years, I have agonized over my choices for the films to be included, and (Alan will be pleased) did not slip up to 15 as I often do. Discipline kept me at 10…
By John H. Foote 2022 could be a very exciting for film with new movies coming from no less than Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, David Fincher, Sir Ridley Scott, Wes Anderson, Damien Chazelle, Darren Aronofsky, Sarah Polley, Terrence Malick, Robert Eggars, Matt Reeves, Andrew Dominick, David Cronenberg and Baz Luhrmann. Undoubtedly, at least some of…
By John H. Foote And to be clear, it is not always because I did not care for the performance, but more often than not that there were better performances that lost! So often the industry decides that an actor is “due”, it is “their time for an Oscar” and come hell or high water…
By John H. Foote Admittedly I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Kristen Stewart was nominated for Best Actress for her haunting performance as Princess Diana in Spencer, a performance actually better than the film it is in, one that elevates the film to a greater level. After emerging from film festivals in Venice…