Amazon’s US$8.45 billion dollar purchase of film studio MGM was announced this week, giving the tech company the rights to literally thousands of hours of archive content as well as a number of ongoing feature film franchises. It has led … Continue reading Amazon’s MGM purchase: the franchises
It begins, oddly enough, with Gary Numan. His 1980 rendition of Erik Satie’s “Trois Gymnopédies” accompanies a stark shot of a snowfield from above. In stumbles a hysterical young woman, barely able to stand. When she falls, she convulses on … Continue reading “Mummy, there are bugs in here” | Climax (2018)
Readers should note that this essay substantially reveals the storyline of the film. When English-speaking audiences discovered Japanese cinema in the early 1950s, it was through a series of acclaimed period dramas including Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon and Kenji Mizoguchi’s The … Continue reading “Do you want me that much?” | Gate of Hell (1953)
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Universal Amphitheatre. Well, here it is, the late 1970s, going on 1985. You know, so much of the music we hear today is pre-programmed electronic disco, we never get a chance … Continue reading “We’re on a mission from God” | The Blues Brothers (1980)
I want to tell you about In the Dust of the Stars, known in its original German as Im Staub der Sterne. It is a relatively obscure science fiction film produced in 1976. The film is many things. It is odd. It … Continue reading “What kind of help do you need?” | In the Dust of the Stars (1976)
Robert Roy MacGregor was born in 1671 near Loch Katrine in Scotland’s Perthshire. As a young man, like many Scottish patriots, he was drawn to the 1689 Jacobite uprising – an armed rebellion to restore Stuart dynasty rule to the … Continue reading “Neither asked nor given” | Rob Roy (1995)
Within Japan a number of directors are widely noted as the masters of the screen arts: Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse, and so on. Internationally there has only ever really been one name: Kurosawa. In a career spanning 57 years Akira Kurosawa … Continue reading “We continue on without rest” | The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail (1945)
‘When the original Disney Black Hole movie came out,’ said astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, ‘I was in graduate school. I was so disappointed in that film. Black holes were my favourite subject coming out of the Seventies. The movie was … Continue reading “More light…” | The Black Hole (1979)
Twenty-five years ago film history was made when Walt Disney released Toy Story, the debut production from Pixar Animation Studios. It was the first computer-animated feature film ever produced, and not only was it a commercial and critical success it … Continue reading “To infinity, and beyond!” | Toy Story (1995)
This is a story that takes more than eight years to tell. It begins with a Hollywood studio electing to mount an all-new screen adaptation of a popular folkloric saga, and it ends with a loss of about $150 million. … Continue reading “I am here now because of you” | King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
