The Driver (1978) ***
Blasphemy I know but I went to see this back in the day not because of director Walter Hill, certainly not for star Ryan O’Neal, but for the wonderfully edgy Bruce Dern (Smile, 1975). You never knew what Dern would do next. Even his hairstyles tended to be offkey. Without having the choleric demeanor of,…
Behind the Scenes: The “Coming Soon” Business
I used to buy a British monthly movie magazine called Films and Filming, a cut above Photoplay and ABC Film Review but not as hoity-toity as Sight & Sound, and the first pages I always turned to were two particular sections. One was called “New Productions” and the other was “Premieres.” Unlike now when movies…
Behind the Scenes: “Supernova” (2000)
With both Walter Hill (48 Hrs, 1982) and Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, 1972) involved, you wouldn’t have expect this to emerge under the directorial aegis of one Thomas Lee. For the simple reason that Thomas Lee, at least in the movie directorial world, doesn’t exist. The name superceded that of Allan Smithee, the name…
Supernova (2000) ***
Under-rated for sure but still light years ahead of such sci fi nonsense as The End of Oak St (2026). Doesn’t hang around either, story told in 82 minutes flat. And instead of wasting time and stretching credibility just comes straight out and says the crew on this space ship and the audience for that…
The End of Oak St (2026) ** – Seen at the Cinema
Truly terrible. When your standout scene is two dinosaurs humping each other or having their snouts covered in ice cream or a slithosaurus slithering through a house your picture is in dire trouble. Basically, it’s like a random selection of Steven Spielberg offcuts – the dazzling overhead light from Close Encounters of the Third Kind…
My Five-Star Picks, 2020-2026
Since I’m in celebratory mode and let’s face it everyone doing a blog has an educational bent, wanting to push subscribers into favoring the movies I favor, I thought I would crave your indulgence a little more and remind you of the films I think you should see. I was going to add, “if that…
Three-Quarters of a Million Views… and Counting – You Don’t Mind, I Hope, If I Give Myself A Pat On The Back
It took me five years to reach the half a million mark and less than a year since then to hit the 750,000 mark. Add to that another 110,000 from referrals to various of the social media – primarily X and Facebook – that have also come completely out of the blue. For my first-ever…
Behind the Scenes: The Imax Phenomenon
Imax is making box office waves again thanks to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026), which has garnered about 20 per cent of its receipts from that format, and media seem obsessed by how long the movie can keep running in Imax, especially 70mm Imax. Quiz question: what connects King Kong (1933) to Cinerama? Follow-up quiz…
Behind the Scenes: An Exhibitor’s Story – Allan Webb, Regent Cinema, Te Aroha, New Zealand 1973
Several years ago, I received a wonderful surprise in the post. The package had come all the way to Scotland from New Zealand, a mere 11,000 miles, and it contained the ledgers of cinemas run by legendary New Zealand exhibitor Allan Webb, whom I had befriended online. Not only did it contain lists week-by-week and…
Behind the Scenes: Selling Sex Plain and Simple, “The Vampire Lovers” (1970) Pressbook
These days you’d call The Vampire Lovers a genre mash-up. The main problem with mixing up the genres is explaining to the audience what they’re going to see. The marketeers solved the issue of selling this to both the horror audience and those who didn’t care in what form female nudity and sex came at…
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The Magnificent 60s 