Film #116: Begone Dull Care and Film #117: Neighbours

"I was inspired to make Neighbours by a stay of almost a year in the People's Republic of China. Although I only saw the beginnings of Mao's revolution, my faith in human nature was reinvigorated by it. Then I came back to Quebec and the Korean War began. (...) I decided to make a really strong film about anti-militarism and against war." --Norman McLaren The Scottish-born McLaren had been

Yes, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS excites me very much.

Am I wrong, or am I sensing a massive Tarantino backlash afoot? I've seen some very dismissive things written about his upcoming release Inglourious Basterds, and I have to say: I don't get it (could it be leftover hate from the not-well-received Grindhouse?). Sorry, naysayers, but Tarantino is one of our greatest, most vivacious filmmakers. I mean, every Tarantino movie is an absolute

Film #77: Catch-22

Joseph Heller's now-classic 1961 novel was rejected by publishers 15 times. It started out as Catch-14, then Catch-11, Catch-17, and finally, upon publication, Catch-22. In the novel, Yossarian is a nervous WWII pilot who's fed up with risking his life and, by feigning insanity, wants to get drummed out of the force. In Buck Henry's college-try adaptation of this impossible-to-film novel (or

Film #64: M.A.S.H.

1970's M.A.S.H. had a bottomless effect on me long before I actually got to see it. Imagine being an intelligent nearly seven-year old movie addict and going with his extra-cool parents to the Atlanta's space-agey North-85 Drive-In concession stand around, oh, say, 1973. And, week after week, as you wander amongst the Alice Cooper and Kung Fu pinball machines while your dad orders the movie

Film #50: The Killing Fields

British documentarian Roland Joffe made his narrative filmmaking debut in 1984 with The Killing Fields, a devastating and suspenseful film about a real-life friendship. Sam Waterston plays Sidney Schanberg, an obsessive New York Times reporter stationed in Cambodia during the last days of the Vietnam War. Dr. Haing S. Ngor, in an Oscar-winning performance, plays Dith Pran, Schanberg's trusted

Film #39: Full Metal Jacket

Maybe it's bizarre to start this review off with such an observation, but the problem with Oliver Stone's pre-emptive achievement with 1986's Platoon lay in that it, in effect, was Stone's (but perhaps not Hollywood's) simple way of glitzing over the true state of affairs during the Vietnam conflict, all in the name of good, clean, All-American storytelling. Stone's musculature was admirable;