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WolfmanOz at the Movies #101
All it takes is a little confidence. The Sting, evoking a bygone era of gangsters and con men, was the deserved winner of Best Picture Oscar in 1973. It also won Oscars for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay plus a host of technical awards as well. Robert Redford plays Johnny Hooker a small time grifter…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #100
Whoever saves one life saves the world entire. Given the events since October 7th, 2023, I tend to feel that Schindler’s List would not be made today, such has been the moral decline we have witnessed across Western societies, and in particular the film industry, since that fateful day. Schindler’s List is hardly the type…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #99
Shifting gears. In the 1968 police action film Bullitt, Steve McQueen plays Lieutenant Frank Bullitt who works as a detective in the San Francisco Police Department and, along with his team, is assigned to protect an important witness against the mob that is supposed to be presented to the anti-crime commission by up-and-coming U.S. Senator…
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WolfmanOz at the Movies #98
Mr. Blue, Mr. Grey, Mr. Brown and Mr. Green. Are the code names of four heavily armed men who hijack a New York City subway train and demand a ransom of $1 million for the 18 people taken hostage in the front car in the 1974 movie The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three. The…
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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…