By Alan Hurst Last month the musical Funny Girl was revived on Broadway for the first time in 58 years. Fittingly, opening night was on April 24, Barbra Streisand’s 80th birthday. I say fittingly because the legend of Streisand is irrevocably tied to this musical. Any actress who attempts to play Fanny Brice is inevitably…
By John H. Foote (****) In theatres The greatest group of actors to emerge through the 80s includes Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, Daniel Day-Lewis and Nicolas Cage. All have won Academy Awards and countless critics awards; each has in some way elevated the films they have been in. Among that notable list, Nicolas Cage stands…
By John H. Foote (****) In theatres Robert Eggars made a stunning directorial debut in 2015 with his haunting horror film The Witch, set during the early Puritan days around 1690. It was easily one of the greatest debuts in modern cinema. An actors’ director with a fanatical eye for detail, Eggars followed that sensational…
By John H. Foote (****) William Hurt’s passing this year took me back to the period in the 80s when he towered over most other actors as the finest of his generation. Exploding into American cinema with Altered States (1980) after a solid Broadway career, he and Kathleen Turner burned up movie screens in Body…
By John H. Foote (***) In Theatres Michael Bay has been the target of much scornful film criticism the last few years because his movies have, frankly, sucked. Though he is a master technician, capable of creating stunning action sequences, massive bits of chaos onscreen, and overwhelming visual effects, character development has never graced his…
By John H. Foote Now streaming on Prime / Available soon on Blu Ray (****) The first time I screened this film I liked it very much, but it did not knock me out as most of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films tend to do. The second time, it blew me out of the room. Was…
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 John H. Foote (BOMB) In Theatres My late colleague Nick adored super hero movies, I mean he loved them. Watching the latest Spider Man – No Way Home (2021) I could almost hear him beside me giggling like a school girl when Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire, both former Spider Men, showed up in…
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 Craig Leask Originating with the stresses surrounding the Post WWII Cold War, which was hitting an apex in the early 1980’s, self-proclaimed activist and gun collector John Milius was inspired to develop a “what if” scenario surrounding the premise of a Russian attack in middle America. That story became the film Red Dawn. In…