Midnight Cowboy
Released to mixed reviews in 1969, Midnight Cowboy is a landmark film that examines the then toxic topics of male identity, intimacy, sexuality and trauma.
Tag Archives: Martin Scorsese
A Man Escaped
Robert Bresson’s masterpiece is a perfect example of less is more; natural acting, minimal music, off-screen sounds and restricting yourself to a 50mm lens.
Last Tango in Paris
There are several good reasons to watch Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial Last Tango in Paris, but not all of them make for palatable viewing.
Heat
Ever since its release in 1995, Heat has been held as the greatest ever heist movie. But it has another, completely different film living… and dying inside of it.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Werner Herzog’s hallucinatory telling of a Conquistador’s search for El Dorado etches a landscape of greed on the human face.
The Godfather Part II
The Godfather Part II is less a sequel and more a cloak that wraps itself around the original, leaving Michael Corleone haunted by the memory of his dead father.
The Godfather
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.
Saturday Night Fever
While most audiences only remember John Travolta in his white suit, Saturday Night Fever also features misogyny, racism, homophobia and gang rape.
Die Hard
What makes a classic film? The plot’s originality, director’s vision, or the star’s magnetism? Paradoxically, any, all, yet none of the above. It’s the audience.
2001: A Space Odyssey
For all of 2001’s groundbreaking special effects and narrative innovation, Stanley Kubrick owes a bit of debt to a romantic fantasy and a Soviet propaganda film.
The Cook the Thief his Wife & her Lover
First seen as an eviscerating critique of Thatcherism, 30 years on it belongs with the MeToo and Time’s Up movements.
The Marriage of Maria Braun
In The Marriage of Maria Braun, Rainer Werner Fassbinder mixed Hollywood melodrama, historical drama and political indictment.
Peeping Tom
Reviled upon its release and long out of circulation, the influence of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom is now to be found in the most unexpected places.
Bicycle Thieves
Many films enjoy exaggerated reputations, but it is almost impossible to underestimate the beauty, truth and importance of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves.
The Gospel According to Matthew
How did a blasphemous, homosexual, Marxist, atheist manage to make the greatest film about the life of Jesus Christ?
Un Chien Andalou
Un Chien Andalou is barely seventeen minutes long, features mutilation, dismemberment and lots of insects. Yet, it is one of the most influential films ever made.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
With his Palme d’Or winning masterpiece, Jacques Demy wove more than a musical. He delivered a story worthy of tragic opera.
The Leopard
All countries have troubled histories they would rather forget. The Leopard is a masterpiece that admits to those troubles as well as the failure to fix them.
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver was written in ten days by first-time screenwriter, Paul Schrader as a means to exorcise his festering, masochistic, narcissistic anger.
Vertigo
Is Hitchcock’s Vertigo really the greatest film ever made? Certainly, it is a compilation of his many themes and tropes, as well as a critique on cinema itself.
Deliverance
When we think of American cinema in the seventies, all too often we all too quickly think of the great directors. But what of the cinematograph-auteurs?
Miller’s Crossing
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.
8 1/2
Fellini’s masterpiece is often described as a film about not being able to make a film. But really it is about responsibility, liability, lying, loving and living.
Great Openings – Part Two
What makes for a great opening? Character? Conflict? Poetry? Hopefully, more than something we’re supposed to just look at.
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Steven Benedict (StevenBenedict2)
Award-winning filmmaker. Podcaster, broadcaster, author and lecturer. I'm downloading the universe one app at a time.
Dublin, Ireland
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Tweeting since August 22, 2012
