How can Vikings bring its epic saga to a close? It began in 937 as a bloody conquest and ends nearly thirty years later on the shores of a new world. A story of ambition, love, rage and redemption, its great quest was for tranquility.
It is said a film is made three times; writing, filming and editing. In which case, editor Walter Murch deserves enormous credit for this masterpiece.
This French masterpiece avoids all the clichés of American prison films while at the same time bearing an uncanny similarity to a 1960s’ Japanese action picture.
The Palme d’Or winner in 1949, Carol Reed’s masterpiece drew on covert sources and unexpected styles and techniques to deliver a melancholic mystery.
Kenji Mizoguchi’s masterpiece owes a great debt of gratitude to Kazuo Miyagawa’s luminous, shimmering cinematography.
Sofia Coppola’s off-beat romance deftly explores isolation, miscommunication and the superficiality of modern media.
Krzysztof Kieślowski avoids all the clichés of doppelgängers, doubles and lookalikes to deliver a meditation on freedom.
Films about writers are tricky propositions but you can roughly divide the genre into two eras; pre- and post-Mishima.
Regarded as the greatest gangster picture of them all, the passing years continue to reveal new layers and meanings in Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece.
As the title to Edward Yang’s masterpiece indicates, Yi Yi is a series of doubles; narrative, thematic, visual and aural, that deliver a subtle family portrait.
Precious few films celebrate the joys of riding a bike. Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda is more than just a celebration; it is a dissection of an entire culture.
How can Vikings sustain its drama? Battles are an option but what makes a good battle? It must be more than life and death.
This is a short video-essay examining the power shift in Vikings’ Season 5. Which of Ragnar’s sons will succeed him to the throne?
The plot to Miller’s Crossing is so complex, it’s hard to even figure out where and when it is set. And that’s before we discuss the meaning of Tom Reagan’s hat.
What makes for a great opening? Character? Conflict? Poetry? Hopefully, more than something we’re supposed to just listen to.
All boring films are alike; every great film is great in its own way. Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk belongs not just to the latter but amongst the greatest ever made.
It is incorrectly assumed that Steven Spielberg turned Stanley Kubrick’s dark story into another of his child-friendly fantasies.
Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece is so influential, even if you haven’t seen it… you have seen it because you’ve seen dozens of films influenced by it.
Once considered avant-garde, slow-motion is now the mainstay of every action film. Here are some of the best and most innovative uses of the technique.
Once dismissed as The King of Kitsch, this masterpiece proved Pedro Almodovar was really a laureate of liberalism.
Is Krzysztof Kieslowski’s trilogy only about liberty, equality and fraternity? Look again and you’ll find it also addresses fate, coincidence and co-existence.
On the surface Yasujiro Ozu’s examination of family life in post-war Japan may sound simple, but what he delivered is one of cinema’s supreme achievements.
In terms of genre, few films are as influential film as Fritz Lang’s M. Where would The French Connection, LA Confidential and Se7en be without it?
Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon is celebrated for asking what is truth. Which is more than a little ironic, because that’s not what it is really about.
Formerly a podcaster, sometimes a filmmaker, frequently a lecturer, always trying to avoid bigotry and fake news.
Dublin, Ireland
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