Category: Articles
WHICH SHALL IT BE?: The 80th Anniversary of Things to Come
If you’re like me, chances are that you have a list of films in a certain favourite genre that came out long before you were born, which left a benign scar engraved in your grey matter the first time you saw them. For me, there are plenty, but there is one that is particularly unique…
Musicians In Film: 10 Great Musical Talents We Lost In 2016
I hesitate to draw conclusions before all the facts are in, but let’s face it. 2016 has sucked. And not just in the land of cinema, where precious few gems have risen above the extraordinary wave of mediocrity we have witnessed. As the world at large retreats from communality, decency and fact, we need artists…
The Blue and The Grey: The American Civil War on film
So many films have been made about this long and tragic civil war that I would not attempt to examine them all in one post. However, it is interesting to see how film-makers have dealt with the subject over the more than one hundred year history of cinema. As long ago as 1915, D.W. Griffith…
There Can Be Only One: 30 Years of Highlander
“From the dawn of time we came, moving silently down through the centuries. Living many secret lives, struggling to reach the time of the Gathering, when the few who remain will battle to the last. No one has ever known we were among you… until now.” This prologue, superimposed in bright red against black, begins…
Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Celebrating 60 Years
It’s odd how sometimes, out of commercial considerations rather than artistic ones, great pieces of art can be forged that leave a lasting impact on the human psyche. Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture”, for example, was a contractual piece written without warmth by the composer. David Lean chose to make Lawrence of Arabia over Gandhi because he…