By John H. Foote (**) Steven Spielberg, by 1984, was easily the most celebrated, successful film director on the planet and despite three Academy Award nominations as Best Director, and one unforgivable snub, he had still not won an Oscar. Spielberg considered the Academy Award to be a form of acceptance in Hollywood that he…
By John H. Foote Harrison Ford, by 1985 had portrayed two of the most iconic characters in moves, the near superhuman archeologist Indiana Jones who made his first of four film appearances in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and space pirate Han Solo in the Star Wars Trilogy. Though fabulously successful, there was still the question as…
By John H. Foote (****) There is, in Warren Beatty’s remarkable film Reds, a moment that defines journalist John Reed. While covering Pancho Villa in Mexico, he rises during a battle and chases a horse drawn wagon, reaching out to touch it, but does not quite do so. That was John Reed, forever chasing history, forever wanting to…
By John H. Foote (****) The American western was a rarity in the New Millennium, but those made tended to be created with care and absolute love and respect for the genre. Thought to be extinct after the debacle that was Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980) the genre bounced back with two Academy Award winning Best Pictures. The…
By Clarisse Tenreiro Anthology films have always been appealing to my need of narrative variety. The concept of offering the viewer a combination of short stories that, within their differences, see themselves connected through a common theme or premise is without a doubt an exciting prospect. Additionally, when directed by various individuals, it gives the…
By Alan Hurst If you watch The Quiet Man through the filter of 2019, it could easily be dismissed as being a broad and overly sentimental comedy, hopelessly dated and filled with misogynism and superficial stereotypes. But to do that, you would deprive yourself of one of the most perfect movies director John Ford ever made,…
By Nick Maylor (***) With the news that Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot has entered production, I decided that it’s time to look back on this raunchy classic. The new film (despite the title) is a sequel to this 1999 ensemble wherein Smith promises to one-up the celebrity cameo factor now that he…
(***) By John H. Foote This massive, flawed epic was delayed a full year after 9/11, Miramax believing it was immoral to release the film at Christmas, just four months after terrorists brought down the World Trade Centre. Those towers figure prominently in the films’ closing moments, so the delay made sense. However who knew anything about the…
(***) Chilling Today Because of Plausibility By John H. Foote Though dismissed by some critics upon release in 1983, through the years Martin Scorsese’s rather chilling, cautionary tale The King of Comedy (1983) has gained in prominence and is now recognized as one of the director’s best films. Released three years after a fan shot John Lennon dead outside…
By John H. Foote He rides into the meadow, blocking the escape route of the four cutthroat outlaws he seeks. High above on a ridge, the Texas Ranger has got the young girl, she is safe. The outlaws ride into the meadow and see the lone man on a horse in their escape route, they size him up,…