Tag: film
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…
Guerra Civil: The Spanish Civil War on Film
From 1936 until 1939, Spain was torn apart by a bitter civil war. This almost forgotten conflict was the precursor to the world war that soon followed, and was one of the bitterest, and cruellest civil wars in modern times. You would need to read a book, and there are many to choose from, for…
Sunset Cinema: 30 superb directorial feature film finales
One of the best things about writing a blog is that it gives my family an excuse to talk to me. And so, when I recently put up a piece about great directorial debuts, I heard from a lot of them. Usually they were telling me, in the politest possible terms, how many titles I…
Religion in the movies: The Kendrick case study
God is making a comeback in movies, and this time, it’s personal. After several years free of biblical cinema, 2014 may well be remembered as the year that Hollywood found religion again. First up is Son of God, produced by Touched by an Angel’s Roma Downey and her husband, Survivor mogul Mark Burnett (perhaps the…
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 –…