Starring: Willeke van Ammelrooy, Els Dottersmns Director: Marleen Gorris Rated: MA Distributor: Madman Antonia has long been marked out as a black sheep but when she returns to her Dutch hometown after the end of World War 2 she does so with a mission to stake her claim as self-appointed matriarch. As she marches down …
Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Rated: PG Distributor: Fox What more could a film buff want than this true treasure in their DVD collection? It stands as a monument to the power of cinema with performances by an ensemble of actors virtually on fire, each one delivering …
Starring: Klaus Kinski Director: Werner Herzog Rated: PG Distributor: Umbrella World Cinema DVD If you view the colonisation of native countries like the intrusion of a foreign virus into a pristine body then Aguirre is one of the most virulent kinds. German auteur Werner Herzog created the character from historical facts surrounding the Spanish invasion …
Starring: Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk Director: John Cassavetes Rated: M Distributor: Shock (Distinction Series) Mabel Longhetti is a little unusual. At first she comes across as just another excitable suburban mother of three but her inner monologue soon bubbles over into strange tics and gestures that prompt strangers to give her a wide berth. When …
Starring: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelly Winters Director: George Stevens Rated: PG Distributor: Paramount Golden Classics Uncomfortable insinuations about abortion are not the sort of things you’d expect to hear in a movie from the early ’50s but A Place In the Sun has this and much more: lust, murder and a dead man walking …
Starring: Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guiness Director: David Lean Rated: PG Distributor: Fox There are some wonderful observations on the nature of colonialism in David Lean’s screen adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel A Passage to India, and some truly marvellous visions like painted elephants transporting English ladies up a rock face that’s …
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimee Director: Federico Fellini Distributor: Umbrella entertainment Rated: M 15+ It was supposed to be his ninth film but Federico Fellini was grappling with dilemmas of an auteur on the brink of a major life crisis so he chose to use the medium to explore his own state of …
Starring: Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins Director: David Hugh Jones Rated: PG Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures International Somewhere in my bookshelf there is a well worn copy of Helene Hanff’s best seller 84 Charing Cross Road, documenting a trans-Atlantic correspondence that verged on a love affair between the New York based author and one Frank Doel, …
Working in television can go to your head. It certainly has to mine. Stay tuned for the latest interviews with Quentin Tarantino and Ang Lee. Still feeling the vibes from the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, the Moon Walk and MJ’s ascent