Category Archive: FILM
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(dir. D.A. Pennebaker) (1960) (Redux 2013) Very slight and grainy documentary by today’s standards. Clearly an outsider’s view, despite the intimacy of the footage. Hubert Humphrey was the only candidate heard discussing policy: hence you knew he was doomed.
Continue Reading →Picnic at Hanging Rock
(dir. Peter Weir) (1975) St. Valentine’s Day, 1900. The young ladies of Appleyard College are treated to a picnic at Hanging Rock, a volcanic pile in the heart of the Victorian countryside, near Mount Macedon. There is twittering around the teacups, too much cake and Australian sunshine, and whilst the party are having an al fresco siesta, people go missing. But while the film has aspects of a whodunit or a thriller, it cannot be categorised because it simply transcends classification. As F.R Leavis said of Wuthering Heights, you can call this a sport. Totally magical,…
Continue Reading →Klute
(dir. Alan J Pakula) (1971) Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) aspires to act. John Klute (Donald Sutherland) is a hick who comes to N.Y. to find his missing friend, who may have availed himself of Bree’s services. Together, they make a strange town-and-country team, each taming the other. This very nifty thriller has a fine look and feel to it. The ‘hooker with a heart of gold’ is a (venerable) Hollywood cliché but Jane Fonda’s performance gives you a real person. Amongst the rest of a fine cast, Charles Cioffi as the sinister boss is a standout.
Continue Reading →I Know Where I’m Going!
(dir. Powell & Pressburger) (1945) A fey Scottish romance even the chaps will enjoy. Joan Webster needs to get on the boat to the island of Kiloran, in the Scottish Hebrides, in order to marry her much older former employer, Sir Robert Bellinger.. Bad weather foils her, but during the wait, she befriends a young naval officer home from leave. He wants to get to Kiloran as well… Rich performances abound, with Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey entirely perfect as the two stranded travellers. Hiller, in particular, totally convinces, as a haughty lass who dissolves in the face of the unstoppable force of…
Continue Reading →His Girl Friday
(Howard Hawks) (1940) High speed comedy with no feelings spared. Cary Grant’s and Rosalind Russell’s finest hour. Hilde has left Walter and the newspaper business behind, or so she thinks….
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