By John H. Foote (****) The first thing I wanted after seeing this astonishing film about addiction was a shower. How I wanted that hot steamy water to wash away the horrors I had just witnessed on the screen in this harrowing, ultra realistic film about addictions, not just to drugs, there are so many…
By John H. Foote When he exploded, and it was an explosion of seismic proportions, onto screens in the seventies he was instantly the biggest star on the planet. Overnight. Oscar nominated for his first leading role in Saturday Night Fever (1977), Travolta was both actor, blazing with talent, and movie star, burning bright. Over…
By Marie-Renee Goulet The movie opens with an impromptu encounter between beautiful socialite Lily Bart (Gillian Anderson) and attorney Lawrence Selden (Eric Stoltz). Their attraction for one another is palpable, but Selden’s social status is at odds with Lily’s ambition: to marry money, a great deal of money. He does very well for himself, but…
By John H. Foote (*** ½) Revered as a filmmaker for almost his entire career, there is no debate as to the genius of Stanley Kubrick. Though he made just 11 films in the years spanning 1957 until his passing in 1999, at least four of them are among the 30 greatest films ever made.…
By John H. Foote (***) Director Brian De Palma earned his true breakthrough with this film, a rock and roll version of the famous Phantom of the Opera, filmed three times before this wild version, before the long running Broadway play and subsequent film. Cleverly merging the work with Faust, and The Picture of Dorian…
By John H. Foote (****) There are several love stories weaving their way through the narrative of this superb Civil War drama, each unique in its own right, each with a profound impact on the characters and the story. Directed by Academy Award winning director Anthony Minghella, who won his Oscar for the wildly overrated…
By John H. Foote It should come, really, as no surprise that the great Martin Scorsese has five of the fifteen films on this list, while Francis Ford Coppola has two within the top three. Each man revolutionized the gangster genre with their films through the last near 50 years. While Quentin Tarantino arrogantly declared…
By John H. Foote (***) During our podcast for the fifties, which we recorded a couple of nights ago, Alan professed deep affection for the John Huston adventure The African Queen (1951) one of the last classics to come to Blu Ray and DVD. Shot on location in the African Congo, which was not common…
By John H. Foote (***) In the shadow of the success of Batman (1989), Warren Beatty brought his long awaited live action film of the famous comic strip “Dick Tracy” to the screen for the summer of 1990. With the same eye for detail he brought to his Oscar winning film Reds (1981), Beatty had…
By John H. Foote There was a time not so terribly long ago when the mainstream cinema emerging from Canada was something of a joke. Films were horribly written and directed, the acting was high schoolish, and nothing about the films truly appealed. So much has changed, yet so much remains the same. I remember…