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WolfmanOz at the Movies #28
liberté, égalité, fraternité Before I begin on my weekly post, I thought I’d let everyone know my YouTube channel was deleted a couple of days ago care of retrospective copyright strikes against a couple of Laurel & Hardy shorts that were uploaded approximately 11 months ago ! I was initially devastated, as 11 months of…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #27
Bogie Born on Christmas Day in 1899, Humphrey DeForest Bogart, affectionately known as Bogie, is probably the ultimate American movie icon, and, in 1999, the American Film Institute selected him as the greatest male star of classic American cinema – few could disagree. What makes Bogart so unusual is that he became a major star…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #26
Frankenstein Mary Shelley famously wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus which originated in 1816 when herself, her lover and future husband Percy Shelley and Lord Bryon had a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After a number of days, Mary Shelley was inspired to write this great novel after imagining a…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #25
Audrey Born Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4th, 1929 in Ixelles near Brussels, Audrey Hepburn spent her childhood in Belgium, England and the Netherlands. She experienced the ravages of Nazi occupation of Holland during WWII where she witnessed many traumatic events including the transportation of Dutch Jews to concentration/extermination camps plus her uncle was executed…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #24
I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore ! Paddy Chayefsky is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for screenplay writing (both adapted and original), and it’s his third Academy Award winning script for the brilliant film Network, released back in 1976, that is the focus…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #23
The Socratic Method I, and I’d imagine, quite a few on this site, went to university in those long distant years ago when it used to be place of learning and having great fun. I certainly look back at my time at uni (I want to Auckland University back in the late 70s/early 80s) with…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #22
Operation: Daybreak (Anthropoid) Tomorrow, May 27th, will be the 80th anniversary of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague, the Nazi commander of the Reich Main Security Office and the acting governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Although not initially killed in the attack on May 27th, Heydrich died of his wounds on…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #21
In space no one can hear you scream One of the downsides (I’m sure there’s many others) of the internet is that the surprise element in movies is very much negated. In addition, releases are now pretty much worldwide, especially as so many films are then released onto a streaming service within weeks of their…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #20
Broadsword calling Danny Boy Post WWII, one of the most popular genres for approx. 30 years was the war adventure/action film where, whether it be land, sea or air, the films would provide escapist entertainment reinforcing the image of the Allied victory against both the Germans and the Japanese. The anti-war messages tended to be…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #19
1970s Disaster Movies I’d imagine a fair percentage of Cats would be Baby Boomers and would probably recall the huge popularity in the 1970s with the disaster movies genre. Invariably featuring a large cast of Hollywood stalwarts the plot device was mostly a natural disaster with the focus then on the numerous characters’ attempts to…