Dir. Bryan Forbes. Starring Kim Stanley, Richard Attenborough, Gerald Sim For so much of this film, less is more. In one of the film’s early sequences, Myra (Stanley) is revealing the remade child’s bedroom to her husband, Billy (Attenborough). It’s been redone to look like a hospital room, which Billy guesses at; Myra is dead… Read More Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)
Dir. Richard Attenborough. Starring Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Ryan O’Neal In that subgenre of war movies which has to do with soldiers in battle, there’s a moment I always look for and rarely find. An officer, typically a name-brand actor, tells subordinates to move ahead on a position knowing that doing so will get them… Read More A Bridge Too Far (1977)
For a brief introduction and a running list of movies covered in this project, click here. 90) The Long Good Friday (1980), directed by John Mackenzie Bob Hoskins has too many teeth in his mouth. Where he found them all I don’t know, but they are perfect for Harold Shand, who attacks his problems… Read More Better than BFI’s Top 100: 90-86
The following is from my series of Oscar Best Picture rankings, as well as my strongly worded suggestions for what should have won from among the nominees. For an introduction to the project, click here. For a way to vote on some Oscar-related ideas, click here. If I’ve written a review on any of the… Read More Better than the Oscars: 40-36
You can read up on the basis for this series here, and also find links to other posts in the series. Movies I’ve reviewed on this site have a link in the title which you can follow to read my full review. 5) The Great Escape (1963), directed by John Sturges It all goes bad so… Read More 100 Exceptional American Movies in 10 Genres: Veterans of Foreign Wars, 5-1
Dir. Richard Attenborough. Starring Ben Kingsley, Roshan Seth, Saeed Jaffrey Two scenes in Gandhi – a movie which, at just over three hours, is less lengthy than its reputation – have always stood out to me as terribly impressive and, more importantly, as filmic blueprints for fighting back against stronger powers. One of them is in… Read More Gandhi (1982)
Dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Starring Roger Livesey, David Niven, Kim Hunter The second scene of the film, the one where Peter Carter (Niven, who will always be the guy who got off the best burn in Oscar history) descends about as slowly as possible in a crashing airplane, is surprisingly moving. The surprise… Read More A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Dir. Steven Spielberg. Starring Sam Neill, Richard Attenborough, Laura Dern As a general rule, I don’t make a habit of seeing blockbusters in theaters. Most of them don’t really interest me, and I am in deep superhero-movie fatigue; the concept of the Marvel Universe painstakingly coming to film after film after film, an idea that… Read More Jurassic Park (1993)
Seeing Things Secondhand 