By Alan Hurst The Editorial Team at Foote and Friends on Film have been asked to come up with their top five holiday-themed films before Christmas. As I started to pull my list together (hoping that it wouldn’t overlap too much with some of the other lists), I was challenged in getting my choices down…
By John H. Foote KING KONG (2005) (****) In 2005 I saw one better film than the remake of King Kong (2005) and that was Brokeback Mountain (2005). Peter Jackson had tried to remake King Kong in 1996 before his success, and Academy Awards for his sublime The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but he was…
By John H. Foote There have been three versions of A Star is Born dating back to 1937, the first with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. The concept is essentially the same, the man is a star on his way down, he discovers a young lady with extraordinary talent and helps her, in the process…
By John H. Foote (****) Nominated for nine Academy Awards, Best Actress (Jane Fonda), and Best Director (Sydney Pollack) among them, it was snubbed for Best Picture despite the second most nods of the year, just one behind Anne of the Thousand Days (1969). Easily among the best five films of the year, its reasons…
By Alan Hurst The advance buzz for the Bradley Cooper helmed remake of A Star Is Born (2018) is positive to the point of hysteria. It did well at the Venice Film Festival and is one of the big-ticket attractions for TIFF. It stars Cooper and Lady Gaga and word is that both give superb…
By Alan Hurst Sometimes you hear a name and it just sounds like the perfect movie star name – a little unusual, slightly exotic, and just vaguely unreal. Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Ava Gardner, Errol Flynn – perfect names that without effort automatically elevate the individual in the eyes of moviegoers and the general public…
By Craig Leask The Grand Hotel on Michigan’s Mackinac Island, which opened in 1887, is known for being the largest summer hotel in the world as well as housing the world’s longest front porch which extends to a length of 660 feet. If this wasn’t enough for boasting rights, it has also received iconic status…
By Craig Leask Under The Tuscan Sun (2003) is based upon the Frances Mayes 1996 memoir “Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy” in which she chronicled her family’s purchase and restoration of an abandoned villa in Tuscany. After being on the New York Times bestseller list for more than two and a half…