All posts tagged review

Cesare Celli (Vittorio De Sica), at the funeral of a good friend, is kidnapped by a group of thieves intent on stealing $50,000 from the former gangster. To his embarrassment, Celli has no money, but merely relies on his long-standing reputation. It’s because of this reputation that he encourages the thieves, led by Harry Price…

There’s a lot of Alibi (1929) in the opening frames of The Big House (1930). There’s the silent marching feet with sound effects overdubbed, the silhouette framing, the long shots of authoritative figures in their cavernous rooms. This aesthetic extends to later scenes, symmetrical with deep blacks in windows, doorways, even on clothes, giving the…

There is no shame in watching a movie because it’s aesthetically beautiful. King David, the 1985 Biblical epic directed by Bruce Beresford, is just such a beautiful film, exciting and epic in scope. But, as Vincent Canby wrote in the New York Times, it is not a good film. The Australian Beresford, whose Breaker Morant…

Beginning in the late 1980s, the newly-launched TNT network, owned by Ted Turner, began to produce their own original programming. Early examples included several documentaries of actors and directors, frequently using clips from the thousands of films Turner owned after his enormous, $1.5  billion purchase of numerous archives and film libraries in 1986. TNT, in…