Classic Cinema
Blu-Ray Review: Paths of Glory
If there was ever a quintisential anti-war film, it would be Paths of Glory. Stanley Kubrick doesn’t leave much to the imagination, deciding to faithfully adapt Humphrey Cobb’s novel of the same name. Based on a true story of four French soldiers during World War I who were executed as an example to the rest …
DVD Review: The Glass Key
Dashiell Hammett was a prolific writer of hard-boiled crime fiction in the 1920s and ’30s. His most famous creation was undoubtedly Sam Spade, famously portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon. However, many of his works were adapted for film and television. Stuart Heisler brought Hammett’s favourite of his own works, The Glass Key, …
DVD Review: The Samurai Trilogy (Criterion Collection)
Japan has a rich history and reputation for being one of the most significant, diverse and thought-provoking countries when it comes to cinema. In terms of film-making, the socio-economic climate and political landscape are never far away. The 1950s were undoubtedly the golden era, with the films of Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa and Masaki Kobayashi …
DVD Review: A Kind of Loving
Up until the late 1950s ‘serious’ British cinema was solely the preserve of the middle and upper classes. The only time working-class directors got a look-in was for comic relief. That all changed with the advent of the kitchen sink drama which became the primary British cinematic voice for the best part of a decade. …
Classic Film: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
What do you get if you take the hottest actor and hottest actress in late 1950s Hollywood with the most atmospheric and angst ridden of Tennessee William’s plays, and shake it all up to make a movie? You get Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Based on Tennessee William’s play of the same name, the movie …
Classic Film: Gypsy
The BBC pitched it right this Easter Monday. Instead of people venturing outside into the lovely Bank Holiday sunshine, they were watching the television for a screening of a well-loved musical, tweeting the lyrics or trying to get the fact that they’d performed a near perfect rendition of Rose’s Turn into 140 characters. Such is …
Not Forgotten At Christmas: Elf
There are a handful of Christmas films I always aim to see every year. High up on my list of must-see festive movies is Elf, so when I got a chance to see it on the big screen this holiday season, I recruited a friend and packed the mince pies for the screening. Honestly, there …
Not Forgotten At Christmas: Die Hard *
*for the purpose of this review and in homage to my cinema companion, Bruce Willis will be referred to as Bruiser throughout. It was a stroke of genius that caused Cineworld Sheffield to put Die Hard in their schedule of classic movies on a cold, dark Monday night in December, a stroke of genius that …
Not Forgotten: Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society
When Robin Williams died in August this year there was a genuine public sense of sadness and disbelief that he had gone. The legacy of his film career displays the breadth of his genius as an actor, both in terms of his undoubted comic talent, but also in performances that could provoke such strong emotions …
Not Forgotten: Cameron Crowe – Almost Famous
First released in 2000, Almost Famous was the first of Cameron Crowe’s films that I saw at the cinema. Drawn in by the strange concept of a young teenager on the road with a rock band in the 60’s, it was certainly one I wanted to see. This started my love of Crowe’s movies, one …