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WolfmanOz at the Movies #97
That zither music. “I never knew the old Vienna before the war, with its Strauss music, its glamour and easy charm. Constantinople suited me better. I really got to know it in the classic period of the black market.” And with that brilliant opening voice over narration (actually spoken by director Carol Reed) we are…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #96
The degeneration of Oscar. Well it’s been over a year since I last posted – a severe case of writing block re movies. But somehow I have managed to rise from my slumber and have conjured this up. In Jean Cocteau’s marvellous 1950 film Orphée the poet asks what he should do. “Astonish me”, he is told.…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #95
The Man from Malpaso (Part 2). Following on from last week’s post on Clint Eastwood where he had just starred and directed the superb western Pale Rider (1985). He followed this up in 1986 with directing and starring in the war drama Heartbreak Ridge where he played a U.S. marine gunnery sergeant nearing retirement. The next few…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #94
The Man from Malpaso (Part 1) Clint Eastwood turns 94 on May 31st and he’s still making films as he’s currently directed the film Juror No.2. His career has spanned over 65 years whilst being movie superstar for close on 60 years whether it be acting in over 60 films, directing over 30 films, producing…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #93
Music was his passion. Survival was his masterpiece. The Pianist (2002) is an account of the true life experience of Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman during WWII. This is a truly heart-wrenching story of one man whose family perishes in the Holocaust and about his survival over solitude, deprivation, starvation and terror whilst in hiding in…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #92
Jack. Jack Nicholson is one of cinema’s all-time greatest actors. Now retired, he has throughout his five-decade career, appeared in 80 films, for which he has received numerous accolades, including 3 Academy Awards (including 12 nominations) 3 BAFTA Awards (including 7 nominations) and six Golden Globe Awards (including 17 nominations). He has also received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #91
Post War British comedies. To kick off 2024 I thought I’d discuss something a bit more cheerful given the doom and gloom that pretty well surrounds us all in the world today (the topic was suggested by SandyK in an earlier post from late last year). With the end of World War II, Great Britain…
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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…