By John H. Foote (****) “Everybody’s talking at me, I don’t hear a word they’re sayin’, only in the echoes of my mind.” “Everybody’s Talking” (Harry Nilsson), 1969 It seems inconceivable to me that Midnight Cowboy (1969) celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The film is a time capsule film of what New York City…
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 John H. Foote The Directors Guild Of America Awards tend to be the greatest of the pre-cursor awards and nominations that best help gauge the Oscar race. Still two weeks out from Oscar nomination nomination, with the Golden Globes having shaken everything up, the announcement of the nominations for the Directors Guild Of America Awards should calm…
(***) 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,…
By John H. Foote Did the Golden Globe Awards just become irrelevant? The Hollywood Foreign Press is one of the more bizarre award groups in Hollywood, known to accept bribes, known to be star lovers who will use their press credentials to get close to the actors. Sharon Stone gifted each of them with expensive…
By John H. Foote Before the Golden Globes weighed in with their annual hardware fest later on January 6, I decided to jump the gun and list my predictions for this year’s Oscar nominations early, two and a half weeks early. Sure, I could have waited for the results of the Globe ceremony, the SAG winners and the…
By John H. Foote (****) Shane, directed by George Stevens, might be the most mythical of all westerns, presenting us with a hero who is the personification of the great anti-hero of the American West. A man who has led a dark and dangerous life finds peace working on a farm for a homesteader, only to have his past…
By John H. Foote Ten films were nominated for Best Picture today by the PGA making their Oscar chances a whole lot better. BlacKkKlansman, Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Rich Asians, The Favourite, A Quiet Place, Roma, Vice, Green Book and the expected Oscar juggernaut A Star is Born. The nominations for Bohemian Rhapsody must be considered a…