By John H. Foote (****) Watching Steven Spielberg’s melancholy, mesmerizing Lincoln for the first time, you can’t help but be struck by the extraordinary performance of Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th President of the United States. We hear Lincoln before we see him, speaking in a surprisingly high, reedy voice, instead of the deep, powerful…
By John H. Foote (****) Criterion Blu Ray Release “…in dreams, I walk with you…” – Roy Orbison, “In Dreams” The first time I saw David Lynch’s darkly hypnotic, nightmarish Blue Velvet it felt like I was in someone else’s dream. This haunting, surreal nightmare of a film cannot merely be watched. Like all great works of…
By John H. Foote (**) Sitting shocked and livid with anger, I watched as Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi (1982) the “biography” of the man who fought for the independence of India from British rule collected eight Academy Awards, including Best Actor (Ben Kingsley), Best Director (Attenborough) and Best Picture. 1982 was a very strong year…
By John H. Foote (****) There is something deeply melancholy about watching this film after the passing of Robin Williams seven years ago, and the fact it includes the shocking suicide of one its promising young men. I slipped the Blu Ray in after having not seen the film since the late nineties. I remember…
By John H. Foote 2. GOODFELLAS (1990) Ten years after his dark masterpiece Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese unleashed the film that has come to be known as his absolute masterpiece, GoodFellas, a journey through the inner workings of organized crime. In the years between the two films, Scorsese focused on the kind of films he…
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 ago this…
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 the words…
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 his first…
By Craig Leask In the early 1980’s a rash of new films were released focusing on the teenage demographic in hopes of establishing a new market. The success of Porky’s (1981), which earned $7.6 million on its opening weekend on its $2.5 million budget, launched a rash of teen sex comedies including The Last American Virgin…
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 year to…