Category: cinema
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Fargo and the Coen Brothers: The Undisputed Kings of Americana
Joel and Ethan, the Coen brothers, are a two-headed writing and directing behemoth that has made 20 films since 1984, and while not all of them hold together perfectly, they all have much to recommend them. And when they’re good, they’re very good indeed. The Coens share a deep love of the rhythms and patterns…
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Not a Feminist Film – His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday began life as a Broadway play called The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (both members of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of early 20th century New York intellectuals, and at least one of them a lover of Dorothy Parker’s). In the stage version, journalist Hildy Johnson makes one…
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Do the Right Thing – the Cinema of Heat, Passion and Excess
Do the Right Thing is a perfect companion piece to our upcoming feature, Twelve Angry Men. Sidney Lumet’s not-quite-a-courtroom-drama is set in a single afternoon on the hottest day of the year in a jury room in Chicago in the 1950s. Spike Lee’s urban opera is set over 24 hours on the hottest day of…
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Kind Hearts and Coronets
Ealing Studios and postwar British cinema Plot summary: Louis Mazzini is the son of a penniless Italian opera singer and a young noblewoman whose family, disapproving of her choice of husband, had disowned her. When they refuse her dying wish – to be buried in the family cemetery – Louis determines to do away with…
Not Lost For Words 