Robert Redford, always a political activist, bought the rights to the book written by the two reporters who exposed Watergate, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. He knew in his gut […]
Sidney Lumet’s lacerating black comedy, ‘Network’, which is also a cautionary film about the power of television seemed to see far into the future with blistering clarity, exploring how reality […]
The old fashioned credits begin and over them we hear solemn music, then a solitary horn, lonely and mournful, foreshadowing what J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) will feel by the end […]
Sitting down to explore the finest films directed by Martin Scorsese, most might think his seething black and white boxing biography ‘Raging Bull’ (1980) might top the list. Visceral, bloody, […]
Do film buffs truly understand just what a groundbreaking film Alfred Hitchcock’s terrifying ‘Psycho’ was? This was a monumental film, breaking fresh ground for a tried and true genre, and […]
I had just turned sixteen the first time I saw ‘Jaws’ (1975) not knowing the film and work of the director would alter the course of my life. The film […]
When Clint Eastwood stepped in to direct the film, there were bowls of protest. Bruce Beresford and Steven Spielberg both toyed with directing the picture, Beresford going so far as […]
There are seven great plays of the 20th century that remain as fresh, as powerful and as urgent as the first day they opened on Broadway. They are ‘Death of […]
Great films that have failed to find an audience have been around since the silent era, so it is no surprise, that in the fifties, the same event took place […]
When Tennessee Williams wrote ‘The Glass Menagerie’, he drew heavily on his own life, his past and the result was the birth of the neorealistic American theatre. ‘A Streetcar Named […]
The first time I screened this film was the second day of its run at the Carlton Cinemas, an Art house theatre in downtown Toronto. Sherri and I braved the […]
The first time I saw ‘Raging Bull’ (1980), I was with my friend Kevin McDonald who went on to great fame as one of The Kids in the Hall comedy […]
Nominated for ten Academy Awards, ‘Gangs of New York’ was thought to be the film that was finally going to land Martin Scorsese his long-overdue Academy Award for Best Director. […]
In 1976, I was aware of Martin Scorsese as a filmmaker having seen Mean Streets (1973) and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), and certainly a fan of the actor […]
