By John H. Foote (****) Opening night of The Shining, 40 years ago this weekend in 1980. My brother and I had been fans of the book and both appreciated Stanley Kubrick, though the big draw here for both of us was Jack Nicholson. My girlfriend of the time, Steve and I headed out to…
By John H. Foote (****) Once upon a time, 40 years ago in a theatre in Oshawa, in a galaxy far, far away, sat 500 people. They were there to see the single most anticipated film of the year, the first sequel to Star Wars (1977) entitled The Empire Strikes Back. I was among that…
By John H. Foote (****) For this film, Marlon Brando won Best Actor awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle for his punishing, gut wrenching performance as Paul, an American adrift in Paris after the suicide of his Parisian wife. There is little doubt Brando deserved the…
By Craig Leask In this fifth and final section in my series on Corruption in the Movies I am focusing on movies about reporters – reporters at a time when the news had integrity – not the biased one sided opinion circus that journalism has now become. Reporters were trained that the truth in their…
By John H. Foote (****) There were three films released in 1989 that dealt openly with the racial tensions between blacks and whites. Spike Lee’s explosive Do the Right Thing, the epic Civil War drama Glory, and the most conservative and gentle of the three, Driving Miss Daisy. Lee’s film was incendiary, a scalding study…
By Craig Leask In this fourth installment in my series on Corruption in the Movies I’m focusing on movies about real life whistle blowers. A whistle blower is a person who discovers a wrongdoing within an organization and anonymously or secretly reports it to the authorities or to the media. In so doing, a whistle…
By John H. Foote (****) After each decade ends, film critics usually debate which film was the finest of the previous 10 years, which we did with the first 10 years of the 2000’s. Nearly every critic I encounter places this film in the top three of the decade, most placing it number one, which…
By John H. Foote (***) Indulge me. Sit in a chair, hands folded in your lap, sitting erect, head slightly tilted to one side, staring off into space, connecting with no one, making no eye contact with anyone. You gently rock back and forth and speak in a nasally voice. Continue rocking gently, looking at…
By John H. Foote (*) The great classic film King Kong (1933) has been remade twice, once brilliantly in 2005 by Peter Jackson who gave audiences a three-hour adventure with magnificent visual effects and a poignant and heartbreaking Kong. Jackson wisely set his film in the thirties, and recreated the New York of that era…
By Craig Leask In this second in a series on “Corruption in the Movies” I am focusing on movies about Economic Corruption. Economic corruption generally results from the misuse of public power to benefit big business and private interests – generally at a detrimental cost to the average citizen. Although there are countless movies pertaining…