★★★★★ The premise of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 unassailable Cold War satire, Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, is deceptively simple: Russia and the US, deadlocked in the threat of mutually-assured- destruction, are a […]
★★★★☆ Along with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs was one of the most important and influential writers of the so-called Beat Generation, best known perhaps for his novel Naked Lunch. As with so many of his contemporaries, […]
★★★★★ ‘There never was a woman like Gilda‘, proclaimed the poster for Charles Vidor’s classic 1946 film noir, and indeed, the mark that Rita Hayworth’s character left on cinema is indelible. The woman who once sent the inmates of Shawshank […]
★★★☆☆ Adapted from the stage play, Heaven Can Wait, Alexander Hall’s 1941 Here Comes Mr. Jordan is notable mainly for its numerous remakes and its position as arguably the first supernatural comedy. Following his untimely demise, boxer Joe Pendleton (Robert […]
★★★★★ Now celebrated as a masterpiece of Italian cinema, Michaelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura was booed during its first screening at the Cannes film festival before going on to win the Jury Prize, an apparent paradox that reflects the tonal and thematic […]
★★★★★ Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place is the newest addition to the Criterion Collection, a magnificently dark noir thriller comprising one of Humphrey Bogart’s signature roles. Bogart plays Dixon ‘Dix’ Steele, a grouchy, hot-tempered Hollywood screenwriter who finds himself […]
★★★★★ Dennis Hopper’s counter-cultural classic, Easy Rider, is not only emblematic of independent American cinema, but, released in 1969, is the definitive statement on the death of the 60s. Indeed, as this year’s darkly farcical presidential primaries currently threaten to […]
★★★★☆ In a tearful and candid interview, Dustin Hoffman once explained his impetus to make Tootsie: expecting himself to be a beautiful woman in make-up test, he was shocked not only to discover that he wasn’t, but also realised that […]
★★★★★ Up there with It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night is one of the preeminent director’s most beloved and finest works. It’s also anomalous – the film is romantic of […]
★★★★★ Albert and David Maysles’ cult documentary Grey Gardens evokes horror, humour, disgust and pathos, often all in the same moment. It finds its subjects, former high society ladies and would-be stars Edie Bouvier Beale and daughter ‘Little’ Edie (aunt […]
