Anne Rees-Mogg was born in 1924 and died in 1984. She studied at Bristol Art School and Central School of Arts and Crafts before becoming an inspiring and dedicated teacher herself at the Regent Street Polytechnic from 1951 and Chelsea School of Art from 1964 to 1984. She was a committed advocate of artist’s filmmaking and was Chair and Director of the London Film-makers’ Co-operative between 1981 – 1984.Read More »
A fast-paced western with a romantic twist, this was one of the last films pairing director Budd Boetticher and popular cowboy hero Randolph Scott before Scott’s retirement. John Hayes – Scott – left the Civil War behind him when he took on the job of managing the Overland Stage Lines out of a small Colorado town. Clay Putnam has not forgotten that the Confederacy lost and he plans on robbing Hayes Overland Stage of one of its gold shipments from California to the North. He wants the gold to stay in the South to revive the Confederate cause. Meanwhile, his wife Norma -Virginia Mayo – complicates matters since she was Hayes’ old flame, and Putnam’s cronies want the gold for themselves.Read More »
The omnibus film New York Stories is the product of three powerhouse filmmakers, with the best saved for last. The film is divided into three stories, each exploring a different aspect of life in the Big Apple. Life Lessons, directed by Martin Scorcese, is a Dostoevsky-like tale of the rarefied Art World, with Nick Nolte as a self-indulgent abstractionist who loves Rosanna Arquette, but can’t bring himself to lie to her about her negligible artistic talents. Life Without Zoe, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is more than a little reminiscent of Kay Thompson’s Eloise stories, with 12-year-old Zoe (Heather McComb) running amok at the Sherry-Netherland hotel while her parents are embarked upon a world-girdling vacation. The last and (as we said) the best is Woody Allen’s Oedipus Wrecks, wherein a schnooky Jewish lawyer (guess who?) inadvertently “creates” the Jewish Mother From Hell: thanks to a misguided magic trick, Allen’s mama (the incomparable Mae Questel) becomes a huge spectral vision on the New York skyline, telling everyone within earshot about her son’s inadequacies! The cinematographer lineup on New York Stories includes Nestor Almendros, Vittorio Storaro and Sven Nykvist, whose very different photographic styles blend with for more harmony than the three directors’ approaches.Read More »
The most famous passage from Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s self-proclaimed “experiment in film-truth” (i.e., cinema verité, a term the directors coined) involves a young woman prowling the streets of Paris with a microphone and a simple question: “Are you happy?” This was a bold prompt to put to any face in 1960, let alone a working-class one; “quality of life” wouldn’t become a quantifiable concept in the social sciences for another decade. But what precedes this vox-pop set piece enhances its ambition even further; in a brief, seldom-discussed scene, the young woman glances bashfully at the camera while the directors determine her willingness to participate in their film. Read More »
You are mistaken. I will be here
after you are gone, Mr. Peasant.
Plot Synopsis
In Argentina, Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) wins money at dice and is held up; but Ballin Mundson (George Macready) rescues him with a sword-cane and recommends a gambling club. Johnny goes there and wins at blackjack. Ballin is the owner and tells him to leave, but Johnny hits back at his thug Casey (Joe Sawyer) and asks for a job. People celebrate the end of the war, and Ballin puts Johnny in charge while he is away…Read More »
Cosmos remains one of the best-known and best-loved descriptions of our universe. Seen by over 700 million viewers in 60 countries, this multi Emmy Award winning series is arguably the most popular and stunningly influential science programme ever produced.
Through a combination of special effects and Dr Carl Sagan’s enthusiastic narration every fantastic episode is an awe-inspiring cosmic journey that appeals to a mass audience. Cosmos covers a range of intriguing and fascinating topics including the origins of life, the search for life on Mars, the infernal composition of the atmosphere of Venus and the “greenhouse effect”, the lives of stars, interstellar travel and the effects of attaining the speed of light and the danger of mankind technologically self-destructing.Read More »
In 1876 Dawson wants to prevent a train from getting to Tomahawk CO on time, to keep it from competing with his stage coach line. Kit, who must get the train to its goal, forces Johnny aboard as the needed passenger. Madame Adelaide’s showgirls (including Marilyn as Clara) ride along and, en route to Tomahawk, join Johnny in Oh, What a Forward Young Man You Are.
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German-language documentary on the actor. Numerous excerpts.
(A conventional companion piece to Herzog’s My Best Enemy).
42 min 40 sekRead More »
California Split
By Roger Ebert / January 1, 1974
They meet in a California poker parlor. One wins, despite a heated discussion with a loser over whether or not a dealt card hit the floor. They drink. They become friends after they are jointly mugged in the parking lot by the sore loser.
They did not know each other before, and they don’t know much about each other now, but they know all they need to know: They’re both compulsive gamblers, and the dimensions of the world of gambling equal the dimensions of the world they care anything about. It is a small world and a flat one, like one of those maps of the world before Columbus, and they are constantly threatened with falling over the edge.Read More »