remembering the films that the audience forgot
“I didn’t read reviews earlier in my career, but I read them now as I’m older. I read them all.”
— Steven Spielberg
Killer's Kiss wasn't Stanley Kubrick's first feature length film, but it was the first he wanted anyone to see.
In 1953 Kubrick made Fear And Desire, but he wasn’t happy with how it turned out. He later denounced the film as amateurish and compared it to children’s drawings on a fridge. There are even rumours that he destroyed the negatives following the death of the films distributor. Needless to say he was happier with his next film, Killer's Kiss.
Read MoreTaika Waititi was nominated for an academy award for his short film Two Cars, One Night back in 2003 and more recently his film JoJo Rabbit picked up a number of Oscar noms and Waititi got a win for Best Adapted Screenplay. But lets go back to his first full-length feature, Eagle Vs Shark. And what a wonderful debut it was.
Read MoreThere have been some great rivalries in the history of sports and some epic battles among champions. There was the Ali v. Foreman Rumble in the Jungle, there was Aarons quest to pass Babe Ruth's career home run number, the epic 2008 Wimbledon finals between Federrer and Nadal and then there was Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell.
Read Moreif I was putting together a list of directors who have wasted their potential, D.J. Caruso would definitely be on that list. However, if the only films of his you have seen are Taking Lives, Two For The Money, Disturbia, I Am Number 4 and Eagle Eye you would probably be asking yourself, “where is the ‘potential’ in the first place?” “What is he wasting?”
Read MoreSienna Miller is the Lindsey Lohan/Paris Hilton-type celebrity actress (Katya) and Steve Buscemi is the political reporter assigned - unhappily - to interview her. That is all you need to know going into Interview. The rest is for you to discover. And what you’ll discover is a really good film with two great performances - especially the one delivered by Sienna Miller.
Read MoreWithnail & I is a British comedy about two unemployed actors living in a filthy apartment in 1969 London who decide to get away from it all and spend some time in the countryside. But things don't go as planned when the living conditions turn out to be no better than what they were dealing with in their London flat.
Read MoreEl Rey De La Montaña (King Of The Hill) begins with a man stopping to get gas. While his car fills up he goes to the bathroom. In the bathroom he meets an attractive woman and they have sex. I know, it sounds like a good thing right? Well, in this case it begins a chain of events that lead to him, and said woman, running through the woods being stalked by unknown snipers.
Read MoreThis film brings together 5 different stories that all revolve around each other and culminate with a couple car accidents that take place at 11:14pm one evening. The film is one story told from 5 different perspectives. Kind of like the filmVantage Point. But unlike Vantage Point, 11:14 is really good.
Read MoreThe Squid And The Whale is about a family breaking up in Brooklyn, New York in 1986 - and right when the film begins we see what side everyone is going to be on: The opening scene is of the family playing tennis with the dad and the older son on one side of the net and the mother on the other side with the younger boy. These are the two teams and this divide is just made more evident when the parents split up and the kids are forced to split their time between them.
Read MoreWhile photography is pretty singularly a visual medium and books are a medium very much completely reliant on the words - film is an art form that spans mediums. The words are just as important a component to the success of a film (I mean artistic success - not commercial) as is how the film looks and what it does visually, both large and small (people who talk about film tend to sometimes forget that a low-budget film, or one that forgoes large sets and special effects, is still making a visual statement).
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