Spotlight on Film

Back to School: 10 Incredible Films

This is a list of ten great films that are set at school or academic environment. It is in no particular order. I. The Browning Version [1951] This film is based on a 1948 acclaimed play The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan (The Deep Blue Sea (1952)). Michael Redgrave gives a touching and memorable performance…

“March of the Penguins” Review

March of the Penguins (La Marche de l’empereur) (2005) “Penguins are living lessons in caring for the earth and its creatures, in all their beauty and vulnerability.” Charles Bergman This beautiful documentary, narrated by Morgan Freeman, gets close and personal with emperor penguins, marvellous, unique animals that reside in one of the harshest environments found…

15 Great World War II Films

Schindler’s List (1993) The Pianist (2002) Life is Beautiful (1997) The Bridge on the River Kwai (1953) Fires on the Plain (1959) Downfall (2004) Ivan’s Childhood (1962) The Red Thin Line (1998) Hacksaw Ridge (2016) Come and See (1985) Dunkirk (2017) Rome, Open City (1945) Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) Saving Private Ryan (1998) The…

“Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” Review

Downfall (2022) I love scrupulously-put-together documentaries that deal with criminal or social justice issues, and Downfall is one of them. It shows the rise and fall of the engineering company Boeing in the context of two airplane disasters that happened in October 2018 (Lion Air Flight) and March 2019 (Ethiopian Airlines Flight) and involved the…

“Titane” Review

Titane [2021] – ★★★★ 🔥 Titane hypnotises and mystifies as it repels and shocks, delivering not only a story, but also “an experience”. Titane is the second feature film of French director Julia Ducournau (Raw (2017)) and the Palme d’Or winner of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The film is not for the faint of…

Film Scene Spotlight: Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata

This will be the first in my series of posts where I discuss individual scenes in films. Ingmar Bergman’s film Autumn Sonata [1978] centres on the relationship between a mother, a self-centred concert pianist Charlotte Andergast (Ingrid Bergman), and her already grown-up and married daughter Eva (Liv Ullmann). One of the greatest film scenes in…

5 Foreign Films That Should Have Been Nominated for an Academy Award (Part II)

This is the second part of my list of foreign films that should have been nominated for an Academy Awards. As my previous list – 5 Foreign Films that Should Have Been Nominated for an Academy Award (Part I) – I am listing only those films that were officially submitted by their respective countries for consideration. I….

Soviet Winter Animation: The Mitten (1967)

This sweet stop-motion animation from the Soviet Union titled The Mitten (“Варежка“) was directed by Roman Kachanov (director of The Mystery of the Third Planet (1981), but who also worked on such animations as The Snow Maiden (1952) and The Scarlet Flower (1952)). The 10-minute silent animation is about a girl who longs to have…

5 Foreign Films That Should Have Been Nominated for an Academy Award (Part I)

The Academy Awards have always had a very difficult relationship with experimental and artistic films or with films d‘auteur, but, nevertheless, below are five films that should have received at least a Best Foreign Film nomination by the Academy (if not a win) and were unjustly ignored. I am listing only the films that were…

“The Power of the Dog” Review

The Power of the Dog [2021] – ★★★★1/2 “Deliver my soul from the sword/My darling from the power of the dog” (Psalms, Preface to Thomas Savage’s novel The Power of the Dog (1967)). The Power of the Dog centres on two very different brothers Phil and George Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons) living on…

Actor Spotlight: Montgomery Clift

Today, 17 October 2021, marks 101 years since the birth of American actor Montgomery Clift (1920 – 1966). This talented actor was a four-times Academy Award-nominee and is known for such films as The Search (1948), From Here to Eternity (1953) and Judgement at Nuremberg (1961). He often played smooth-talking, melancholy and mysterious men who…

“The Last Black Man in San Francisco” Review

The Last Black Man in San Francisco [2019] – ★★★1/2 “There is no place like home”. Housing is an important but often overlooked topic in films (see my discussion of two notable films about housing here). The Last Black Man in San Francisco, which first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2019, tells…

When Film Posters Mean Art: 10 Eye-Catching Alternative Designs

Designing film posters is an art in its own right and some films come up with rather ingenious ways to entice the public to watch their films. Cinematic fan art is also making some amazing contributions, and below I present ten film posters that have captured my attention recently; see also my posts Alternative Film…

“Wings” Review

Wings [1966] – ★★★★★ Larisa Shepitko was a Soviet film-maker who made only four full-length films (her film Ascent won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival 1977) before her untimely death in a car accident at the age of 41 in 1979. Shepitko’s film Wings tells the story of a decorated…

Salvador Dalí-Disney’s Short Animation “Destino”

Destino is a Salvador Dali-Disney (John Hench)’s collaboration on an animation that first started in 1945 and only finished in 2003 when Walt Disney’s nephew Roy E. Disney found the unfinished project materials in 1999. The surrealist animation was eventually directed by Dominique Monféry, and the music was written by Armando Domínguez and performed by Dora…

Soviet Animations: The Mystery of the Third Planet, The Golden Antelope & Brothers Liu

I. The Mystery of the Third Planet [1981] – ★★★★ Based on a book Alice’s Travel by Kir Bulychev, The Mystery of the Third Planet was directed by Roman Kachanov and tells of the interplanetary travel of one spacecraft on board of which there are: a ten year-old girl Alice, her father biologist Professor Seleznev…

“The Mauritanian” Review

The Mauritanian [2020] – ★★★★ Based on a memoir Guantamano Diary (2015), this film tells the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi (played by Tahar Rahim), a man from Mauritania who was arrested on heresy some time after the 9/11 terrorist attack and then spent 14 years (from 2002 to 2016) in the notorious Guantanamo…

5 Great Films Never Made

I. Tim Burton’s Notre Dame de Paris What is it all about? In 2011, it was announced that Tim Burton was working on his version of Notre-Dame de Paris with Josh Brolin, but the project never moved beyond the early stages. This film was supposed to be an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel Notre-Dame…

Childhood in Cinema: 10 Unforgettable Films

I. Ivan’s Childhood [1962] Country: USSR Andrei Tarkovsky’s film is a beautiful, powerful story set during the World War II. At its centre is a twelve-year old boy Ivan (Kolya Burlyayev) who has taken on the job of an adult, the dangerous job of spying on the Nazi forces that are invading his country. Tarkovsky…

“Luca” Review: Endearing, but also Generic & Plotless

Luca [2021] – ★★1/2 Disney-Pixar’s Luca is an Italian Riviera-set animation that tells a story of a merman Luca and his family living underwater and having a hostile relationship with people living on land. Luca is a boy curious about the outside world, though, and soon becomes very interested in the “land” people. He meets…