Named #1 film of all time by just about every list of repute, Citizen Kane’s impact is almost impossible to overstate. And much like its protagonist, the film’s history is ripe with stories of intrigue and sabotage. Ostensibly the life story of millionaire newspaper man Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), Citizen Kane is a series of… Continue reading The Missing Pieces of Citizen Kane
In 2016 it seems almost antiquated to refer to a piece of fiction as dangerous. Words like “shocking” or “disturbing” have become so overused that they’re now only good for adorning horror movie posters. But there are still films like Salo or The 120 Days of Sodom that retain an aura of real power, a fear that… Continue reading The Contaigous Evil of Salo
Watching a bad movie can be an incredibly depressing experience. You’re watching paper-thin characters spout inane dialogue while perusing some ill-defined McGuffin when a horrible realisation dawns on you: you have paid for this feeling. If not with money, then at the very least with your time. At the end of a ninety-minute bad movie… Continue reading What Makes a Good Bad Movie?
Every now and again, a film will come along that changes the way I look at cinema. When I was still in my teens, I attended a cinema on Bourke Street late one evening to see a motion picture I had long been curious about: Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), adapted from the 1962… Continue reading A Clockwork Orange
Given the world’s ever-increasing obsession with technology – the way gadgets control us more than we control them; as these technologies, supposedly designed to make our lives easier, only lead to further reliance on technologies – Modern Times (1936) is now more timely than ever before. The promised future of a world where machines do… Continue reading Chaplin Greats
There is a tendency for less enlightened film viewers to classify old motion pictures as “dated” due to superficialities such as quaint anachronisms present in the dialogue (“Groovy, daddy-o!”), wardrobe choices that haven’t been fashionable for decades (turtlenecks and bell bottoms, to name just two), archaic production design (loud wallpaper, mirror balls), right down to… Continue reading 1973: A Great Year For the Future
Several years ago, I attended the Melbourne leg of a national speaking tour by Australian ex-pat journalist and humourist Clive James; back Down Under to promote his latest book, Cultural Amnesia. For some obscure reason that I cannot recall, during the audience interaction at the event, the subject of actor Michael Caine cropped up for… Continue reading Acting Without Acting: On Michael Caine and Lee Marvin in Sunday’s Crime Drama Greats
I’ll begin this review with a confession: I have never read The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel that serves as the basis for King Vidor’s 1949 motion picture of the same title. Honestly, I’ve better things to read than Rand’s rather hefty tome, 700 pages in length, and I’m sure it isn’t much different to… Continue reading Taking on The Fountainhead
Victoria “Vicky” Page (superbly performed by Moira Shearer) is a young ballerina from an aristocratic background who wants nothing more in life – not even life itself – than to dance. Joining an established ballet company she is first taken on as a student and for some time is passed over as just another in… Continue reading The Red Shoes
Nicholas Waxman reflects on what Die Hard (1988) means to him… I was only 6 months old when Die Hard blasted onto movie screens around the world and raised the bar to an unreachable height for all action movies to come. Die Hard is arguably the best action film ever made, it is most certainly the greatest… Continue reading Always Die Hard
The Astor Theatre Blog 