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WolfmanOz at the Movies #90
Strength and honour. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (released in 2000) is not a perfect film, I would think that the hardiest of fans, of which I’m firmly one, know this deep down. Yet just like Commodus in the film is keen to point out that he himself has other virtues that are worthy, so does Gladiator…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #89
Boney. With the recent release of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon I thought it might be worth paying a visit to see how cinema has treated the French emperor, who was one of the greatest military commanders in history whilst also initiating numerous political and cultural reforms many of which have had a lasting impact on France, Europe and…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #88
Wannsee. There have been a number of dramatisations of the infamous meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and the SS held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. But none have been as compelling as the 2001 TV movie Conspiracy. This chilling dramatisation of the meeting that sealed the fate of millions of…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #87
I’ll be back. It’s been a number of weeks since I last posted after an extended holiday in Europe and the UK but I’m back and reviewing a low budget science fiction classic, released in 1984, that broke box office records, and gave cinema a new superstar and a director to take notice of. In The Terminator,…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #86
It’s going to be a bumpy night. Born on April 5th, 1908 and died on October 6th, 1989, Ruth Elizabeth “Bette” Davis was one of the greatest, if not the greatest actress from Hollywood’s Golden Era in a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #85
Watch the skies. Was the working title for Steven Spielberg’s 1977 science fiction classic Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Anticipation was very high for this film as it would be Spielberg’s follow-up to his hugely successful 1975 horror thriller Jaws. Was Jaws just a one-off fluke or was a new and exciting director now…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #84
Opening Credits. Something a little different this week. There are many things I dislike about movies today and one of my pet hates is the incessant production credits at the beginning of a movie which can take around 5 minutes to unfurl. So five minutes into a movie the audience is already bored whilst they…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #83
Tears in rain. Released in 1982, there were high expectations for Blade Runner. Directed by Ridley Scott it was his next film after the hugely successful science fiction horror classic Alien. Anticipation was extremely high but Blade Runner underperformed in North American theatres and polarised many critics; some praised its thematic complexity and visuals, while…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #82
They fought like seven hundred. The Magnificent Seven (released in 1960) is an American western directed by John Sturges which is a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 Japanese film Seven Samurai, which in turn took its inspiration from American westerns. Seven Samurai is often hailed by film critics as one of the greatest films ever made but I’ll will…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #81
Feed the French. Kill the Germans. Well its been over a month since I lasted posted and I feel sufficiently refreshed and with time on my hand again to resume posting. So to start the ball rolling again I’ve selected a movie that has been requested by a number of Cats. Set during the World…