Views: 175 By Marie-Renee Goulet Movies and music were always a source of joy, adventure and escape. However, the world being what it was from 2016 to June of last year, I completely stopped watching movies, and even listen to music. I had news channels on in the background for every waking hour, as if life depended on it. A year…
Views: 44 By John H. Foote As a companion piece to Alan’s brilliant piece on actresses who, when cast against type, had stunned critics and audiences with their work, I have explored the actors. A note to Alan, my dear cousin and colleague: knowing me, you must know why I did not have the discipline…
Views: 8 By John H. Foote 3. PULP FICTION The two bandits in a donut shop make the decision to rob restaurants, though I bet this is the last one they attempt, and draw their weapons screaming their threats. Freeze frame, the surfer guitar music comes in with a roar, the screen goes black and…
Views: 35 By John H. Foote 4. UNFORGIVEN (1992) By the late eighties, actor Clint Eastwood had established himself as a fine director, even causing Orson Welles to comment that “Eastwood is the finest director in the cinema” on the popular “Mike Douglas Show”. Having proven himself behind the camera right off the bat with…
Views: 29 By Alan Hurst For an actor or actress to play against type, they had to have had a certain amount of success in a particular genre of film or played a consistent type of character. Think of James Cagney’s gangster films, Esther Williams’ aqua extravaganzas, Burt Reynolds’ good ol’ boy comedies. Cagney and…
Views: 18 By John H. Foote 5. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998) It has been more than 75 years since Allied forces stormed that beach, dubbed Omaha, leaving it blood soaked, littered with bodies torn to pieces by heavy machine gun fire from the many nests above the beach. There are fewer and fewer veterans each…
Views: 10 By John H. Foote 6. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) From the time I first screened The Silence of the Lambs I have maintained the great strength of the story, the secret weapon if you will, is the superbly empathetic performance of Jodie foster as FBI trainee Clarice Starling. I am aware…
Views: 10 By John H. Foote Personally I enjoy remakes. People say they are unnecessary, but I pose the question, how many productions of Hamlet, Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet have there been around the world? How many productions of The Crucible or The Glass Menagerie have been staged? What about the great comedies of…
Views: 5 By John H. Foote 7. L.A. Confidential And back to the counting down of the greatest films of the nineties, we are almost there. The Oscars interrupted us! At the end of 1997, while audiences were lining around city blocks to see Titanic, James Cameron’s massive love story set aboard the doomed ship…
Views: 17 By John H. Foote For as long as I can remember, during this crazy obsession with film, at year’s end I made my own 10 best list based on the films I had seen. Understand this was a difficult feat given I lived in the country, 30 minutes from a plethora of cinema,…