Category Archive: FILM
The Manchurian Candidate
"...when I take power they will be pulled down and ground into dirt for what they did to you and for what they did in so contemptuously underestimating me."
(Dir. John Frankenheimer) (1962) This is a nifty thriller, based on the intriguing brain-washing novel of 1959 by Richard Condon. While not entirely satisfactory, it features a wild, paranoid but plausible plot, great narrative drive and top drawer performances. Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is given a Congressional Medal of Honour and general acclaim after his return from the Korean War, which is passing strange, since his entire unit hates him and there are several gaps in the story. Meanwhile, his vicious Mum and his churl of a stepfather, Senator John Iselin, a Joe McCarthy facsimile, have designs on the…
Continue Reading →Citizen Kane
"I'd make my promises now...if I wasn't so busy arranging to keep them"
(Dir. Orson Welles) (1941) The Most Famous Best Film in the World. Stunningly modern, stunningly Big, even today: when the RKO Radio signal and production credit fades, there it is in silently screaming faux neon: CITIZEN KANE. No film has ever made good on such immense ambition, no film has ever been so radically fresh in structure, tone, staging. It may take another art form to produce something as pure in its radical and daring arrogance. The opening is a morbid montage right out of S.T.Coleridge & Hammer Horror films – a “No Trespassing” sign, unofficial thematic emblem; an ascending cyclone fence, some iron tracery and…
Continue Reading →A New Leaf
"..rich...that's all I ever wanted to be."
(Dir. Elaine May) (1971) Henry Graham (Walter Matthau) has a big problem: his sizeable inheritance has dried up and as his disdainful uncle tells him, he is “an aging youth, with no prospects, no skills, no character.” The confrontation with Mr. Graham’s solicitor, Mr. Beckett, is a classic. After explaining with some difficulty to his client that he is broke, Beckett declares that “I have given you $550 of my own money for only one reason. Disliking you as intensely as I do, I wanted to be absolutely certain that when I looked back upon your financial downfall, I could…
Continue Reading →The Maltese Falcon
"You may have the Falcon but we certainly have You..."
(Dir. John Huston) (1941) Best film noir ever – even the colourised version seems shot in glorious black and white – the morality of the characters, on the other hand, reflect all 50 shades of grey. Humphrey Bogart is tough, wily, cynical detective Sam Spade, engaged by Mary Astor, pretending to be a damsel in distress. Spade is being circled meanwhile, by an unholy trinity: Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), Kaspar Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) and Gutman’s henchman Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr). They are all interested in an artefact originally chosen by the Knights Templar as a gift for King Phillip of Spain, known as the…
Continue Reading →Alexandra’s Project
(Dir. Rolf de Heer)(2003) A remarkable film, though hard to watch at times. Its creepy, claustrophobic plot device is so potent that it has been widely parodied: Alpha Male Gary Sweet has had a few beers at the office on his birthday and slides home (he lives in an attractively sinister cul-de-sac) to find that his put-upon wife (Helen Buday) has arranged a birthday surprise. From the moment Gary settles in to watch the video Mrs Gary has assembled to catalogue his various faults, we can quickly conclude that this couple makes George and Martha seem like Mike and Carol Brady. An…
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