Knights of the Round Table The fantasy genre has probably become the dominant genre of movies of the 21st century. Whether it be prehistoric dinosaurs running amok, Marvel super heroes saving the universe, the world of Harry Potter, the never-ending Star Wars franchise, or even films based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, fantasy rules…

Guv’nor After a weeks’ sorjorn in Auckland New Zealand visiting family, I’m back to resume my weekly film post. The gangster genre has been a staple in cinema ever since the medium begun. In America, the emphasis tended towards the Mafia and other various ethnic origins, but in the UK the genre was never quite…

Come and play with us Danny When it was released in 1980, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining did well at the box office (after the relative failure of his previous film Barry Lyndon) but it perplexed critics and reviews were generally mixed. But over time, like so many of Kubrick’s films, it has been reappraised and…

God Save the King ! Historical dramas have long been a staple of cinema, whether based on fact or fiction, they have provided a countless sources of topic/plots over the years. One of my particular favourites is the film Cromwell starring Richard Harris as Oliver Cromwell and Alec Guinness as King Charles I. The film…

Beyond the Infinite I vividly recall the day I first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey, way back in 1976. It was on a fine Saturday afternoon and the soccer team I was playing for had a bye so along with a few of my teammates we decided to go and see the film which was…

And All That Jazz Cinema’s ability to produce top class musicals has been in decline for many decades now. I’ve seen numerous commentaries that public tastes have changed and they no longer desire to see musicals. However, I disagree with this view. Given the numerous musical stage shows that are continually being released and the…

A miracle of a film Lawrence Of Arabia was first released just under 60 years ago on December 10th, 1962. The film depicts T.E. Lawrence’s experiences during World War I in the Ottoman Empire provinces of Hejaz and Greater Syria where he united the warring Arab tribes in their fight to rid the Turks from…

Is it safe ? A great anecdote in regards to the filming of Marathon Man, released in 1976, is the often quoted exchange between its two stars, Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier concerning their different approaches to acting. Hoffman, a disciple of method acting, is purported to have prepared for a scene where his character…

My Wicked, Wicked Ways Born on June 20th, 1909 in Battery Point, Tasmania, Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn became one of cinema’s greatest movie stars who achieved everlasting fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood with numerous roles in swashbuckling adventure films that still endure today as the benchmarks for the genre. Never one for taking…

Bring me my Chariot of Fire Composer Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou, or more commonly known as Vangelis, died only a couple of months ago. A Greek composer mostly of electronic orchestral music, he was most prolific in the scoring of movies. His most best known score, and arguably his most beloved, was for the wonderful 1981…