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…
The Vampire Lovers (1970) ***
Should have a lot more going for it. Female empowerment for a start. This would also, in today’s terms, be called a reboot of the Dracula legend, though it does originate from a different source than Bram Stoker. Or you could look at the bold exploration of lesbianism, none of the angst of The Killing…
Behind the Scenes: “The Guns of Navarone” (1961)
It’s time to celebrate the 65th anniversary of The Guns of Navarone – world premiere on April 27, 1961, in London and New York opening on June 22, 1961. Although the picture set a new benchmark in high-octane entertainment, a fast-moving war thriller packed with twists and a genuine all-star cast, it was far –…
The Guns of Navarone (1961) *****
To celebrate this film now streaming on Netflix I thought i’d re-run a previous review. Stone-cold action classic that blazed a trail for the big-budget men-on-a-mission war picture like The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Where Eagles Dare (1968). Brilliantly structured, written and directed, and featuring a sea battle, storm, shipwreck, mountaineering, chase, interrogation scenes, infiltration…
Borderlines / The Caretakers (1963) ****
Two sequences set this apart from the mini-cycle of films Hollywood was temporarily producing on the theme of mental illness and the institutions set up to treat it such as the Frank Perry’s empathetic and occasionally lyrical David and Lisa (1962), Robert Rossen’s Lilith (1964) – both essentially romances – and Sam Fuller’s more brutal…
Two Gentlemen Sharing (1969) ***
Shelved was a polite term for what happened to this picture. It was funded by Paramount but they didn’t like the look of the finished article. It could have gone straight into the bin, but it was reprieved, sold onto AIP which was looking to shift away from horror and biker movies into mainstream productions.…
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The Magnificent 60s 