American Beauty: Beyond Italian Upholstery

Mena Suvari. Photo: DreamWorks The story of how American Beauty, one of the most celebrated films of the 1990s, was made is the story of how a struggling TV writer…

On the Waterfront: The End of Mob Rule

Marlon Brando. Photo: Columbia In 1949, investigative journalist Malcolm Johnson won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles he had written for the New York Sun. Titled "Crime on…

12 Years a Slave: Land of the Unfree

Michael Fassbender and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures The historian Sue Eakin was born in Louisiana five decades after the end of the Civil War and she specialized in…

Gravity: More Science, Less Hollywood

Sandra Bullock. Photo: Warner Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and the most famous person working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, was surprised the other day to…

Amour: In Sickness and in Health

Photo: Les Films du Losange Welcome to the ever-fascinating journey of the cinema of Michael Haneke. When I started writing this review I began by comparing the film with others…

It’s a Wonderful Life: Wing and a Prayer

James Stewart, Donna Reed, Carol Coombs, Jimmy Hawkins, Larry Simms and Karolyn Grimes. Photo: RKO This Christmas I decided to catch Frank Capra's last masterpiece again. Having seen it several…

Raging Bull: Fists of Fury

Robert De Niro. Photo: United Artists Martin Scorsese doesn't really care about sports movies. The idea of making a film about Jake LaMotta would probably never have hit him were…

Bonnie and Clyde: Love on the Lam

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Photo: Warner The term most commonly used to describe Bonnie and Clyde (1967) is probably "landmark film". It may seem a little odd to begin…

Saving Private Ryan: Spielberg in Combat

Tom Sizemore and Tom Hanks. Photo: DreamWorks Steven Spielberg directed several masterpieces over the years, but this one might be the most controversial. The general sentiment expressed by snobs is…