Category: Classics & Hitchcock

Back in Dear Old Blighty in 87 when I was a cherubic-faced schoolboy half-mesmerized by Tracey Sharpe’s swaying pigtails, a jobless loner in a nearby market town killed his mum, burned their house down and strolled around with an arsenal of high-powered weaponry slaughtering whoever he could find. Ho hum. Guess we all have days…

Toxic masculinity. It’s a term bandied around by Nancy-boy progressives designed to make pumped-up, no-nonsense guys think twice about their actions. Bollocks, I say. What’s wrong with piling into a battered Ford with your mullet-headed mates and screeching round corners at breakneck speed while yelling abuse at passersby? Are you seriously saying I don’t have…

3 hours 22 minutes, R for numerous murders Fair Value of The Godfather Part II : $18.00. It’s overlong and the pacing can drag, but it’s an immaculately acted film with several stunning set pieces. Focus on the Family: The first Godfather was a study in the parallels between Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) and his…

2 Hours 57 minutes, rated R for Gangland Violence Fair Value of The Godfather: $30.00. It is essential American Cinema. Fundamental to an entire genre of movie. But How Good Is it? The first time I saw the Godfather was on a date when I was sixteen years old with my first girlfriend, whom I…

In movie jargon, the words “classic” and “masterpiece” are accolades that are tossed around quite a bit. Sometimes they are well deserved, sometimes not, and often the status is indeterminate. In the case of 12 Angry Men, there is no reasonable doubt at all about the verdict. This classic is a masterpiece and one of…

In a Lonely Place (1950) and Bigger Than Life (1956), two of Nicholas Ray’s finest films, are about two men made to feel “ten feet tall” in order to survive. For Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) in Place, it happens in a war; World War II, to be precise. For Ed Avery (James Mason) in Life,…