Thunderball was a huge commercial success, but suffered from its formulaic plot. Fearing that the rot was starting to set in, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman sought to make On Her Majesty’s Secret Service as the 5th franchise film, but weather conditions meant production was shifted to You Only Live Twice instead. Released … Continue reading
By 1965, Bond was unstoppable. Goldfinger had made EON a lot of money and solidified the Bond formula; at this point, the series was well established as a franchise, and audiences wanted more. What they got was Thunderball. On paper, Thunderball could have been perfect. Ian Fleming wrote the book with the movie in mind, … Continue reading
Already it’s clear that the 2010s will be seen as an important time for LGBT rights, with LGBT issues playing out prominently across the recent world media. We’ve had legalisation of gay marriage here and in the USA, reports of the atrocities being committed in Russia and debates over treatment of gay athletes, primarily in … Continue reading
Some forty years ago, director Bernardo Bertolucci made Last Tango in Paris, a taunt and claustrophobic movie focusing on the obsessive and heavily sexualised relationship of its leads, Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider. It was a great controversy in the early 70s, but became something of a critical benchmark, leading to Bertolucci shot up as … Continue reading
Of all the canonically accepted Disney classics, Sleeping Beauty remains one of the most divisive. The movie is seen by some as the creative pinnacle of Disney’s Silver Age; a bold and beautiful fairy tale, with sumptuous animation and several iconic scenes. Others consider the movie to be rather flat and uninvolving – it was … Continue reading
Older movies have a different style to them, a different means of editing and at times, a different kind of acting, which can make them seem very strange for modern viewers. But they also tend to be more focused on story and character, with perhaps more in common with plays than today’s cinema. La Piscine, … Continue reading
Whilst Dr No and From Russia with Love were excellent spy movies, they only served to foreshadow elements of the Bond template – it was the third movie, 1964′s Goldfinger, which really cemented the character and series as cinematic icons. Goldfinger is where Bond began. It’s where the formula first came into play, where the … Continue reading
Though Dr No had been a huge success, the Bond franchise wasn’t yet fully formed. And whilst the second movie, From Russia with Love, didn’t quite set the future Bond template (that would come with the third film, Goldfinger) it did go some way to securing the franchise. From Russia with Love is a considerably more complex and more confident film … Continue reading
The James Bond franchise is one of the great cinematic staples. It’s been around forever and almost everyone has seen at least one Bond movie. It’s one of my favourite franchises and has been since childhood, and it seemed time to take a look at the series as a whole. This retrospective will run through … Continue reading
The Birds is widely considered to be Hitchcock’s last great movie, and like Psycho, it’s a movie which has been endlessly unpicked since its release in 1963. It’s a movie which has fascinated critics and influenced movie-makers for numerous decades, with iconography well established within pop culture; even people who haven’t seen The Birds will feel like they have. … Continue reading
