By 1976 Clint Eastwood had become the biggest film star in the world courtesy of a range of movies which are now considered to be classics: Play Misty For Me, High Plains Drifter, Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Beguiled. He played roles in films gravitating between 19th century United States and the modern day, often …
Continue reading “The Outlaw Josey Wales – subverting the Western genre”
Film maker George A Romero had made two stand-alone Zombie flicks – Night of The Living Dead and Dawn of The Dead – both genre setting and crown jewels in the contemporary horror category. Such was the caustic wit and satirical brilliance of Dawn of The Dead that Romero seemingly had the last word in …
When it was announced that the Dark Knight was coming to the silver screen, there was a lot of excitement. Going back to the late 1980’s, fans of comic book heroes were recovering from Superman IV and the will they/won’t they? rumours about a Spiderman movie with Charlie Sheen spinning the webs. The Avengers fans …
Continue reading “Batman, the ’12’ rating, Jack, Prince and all that…”
When Tim Burton opted not to direct the third Batman film, you felt the series was losing its identity. Then Michael Keaton departed from the lead role. Yet Warner Bros dusted themselves down and Batman Forever did well at the cinema. The toys I mean – if any middle-aged fanboys are reading – figurines…were selling …
The main problem with the Batman films made by Warner in the 1990’s was that they were obsessed by introducing more and more characters from the comic books into the franchise rather than developing Batman/Bruce Wayne. Similarly, they were in a constant state of flux regarding their actors and artistic direction. Following director Tim Burton …
It would be easy, in the early moments of the sequel, to think that Beneath the Planet of The Apes is merely a direct copy of the original. Astronauts crash land on a planet (the one the audience now know to be Earth) on a rescue mission to find those from the first film. They …
After the 1960’s, Michael Caine had become arguably the most bankable British actor around. What with the Harry Palmer trilogy, Alfie and The Italian Job, he was a household name. But one senses, even 50 years on, that he knew his onscreen persona needed reinventing. The latter in particular had framed him as a cheeky …
At some point in 1980’s Hollywood what had formally been considered B movie fare suddenly mutated. Expletive heavy, violent, testosterone laced action pictures, short on plot and dialogue, big on explosions and muscular leading men. One might argue this was the natural progression from Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry films or the Westerns of John Wayne. …
Hotel suite room, empty but one can hear some whistling coming from the bathroom. Enter Cubby Broccoli who frowns on hearing the whistling. Cubby – Roger? Is that you? Roger – (his voice from the bathroom) Hello Albert, just finishing up. A flushing sound can be heard and a few seconds pass before Roger emerges …
Having kicked off the Timothy Dalton era with the satisfactory The Living Daylights, Bond makers Eon apparently wanted to further drill down further into 007’s gritty side as touched upon in that film and move the series on from the quip laden and outlandish Roger Moore entries. With few if any reliable Ian Fleming plots …
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