Author: Simon Hardy Butler
Group Offences: Braveheart and the future of prejudiced pictures
The worst thing I ever heard at the movies was laughter. This oft-merry sound reached me, to my dismay, at a Manhattan showing of Mel Gibson’s historical epic Braveheart (1995) nearly 20 years ago. I was watching it in the theatre, surrounded by other New Yorkers, when a scene came up in which King Edward…
A bit of background: Why the screen should be the star
Whenever I see a screen used properly in a movie, I want to jump up and down while doing the Macarena. OK, maybe that verges on the impossible. But it speaks to my love of this lowly, oft-used tool – which usually takes the form of a flat surface on which images are projected behind…
Elegy for the western: A plea for its comeback
Someone needs to resurrect the western. It’s either dead or dying now, and little is being done to give it life – True Grit (2010) notwithstanding. There was a time back in the 1980s when the paucity of films in the category, save the intermittent flick such as Silverado (1985) and Pale Rider (1985), spoke…
The action movie dilemma: My last stand against 300
Every great film is an action movie. That goes for Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II (1944 and 1958), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and My Dinner With Andre (1981). It doesn’t go for 300 (2006), its sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire (2014) or any other picture of their ilk –…
Interviewing Susan Seidelman: From Madonna to Menopause
With a perceptive eye and an ear for dialogue, Susan Seidelman has an understanding of human behaviour that might, had filmmaking not existed, have landed her in a more scientific profession. Yet she’s a director at heart, and films like Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) and Cookie (1989), as well as TV series like Sex and…