GoodFellas: Married to the Mob
Photo: Warner Making GoodFellas a horribly realistic film took its toll. Joe Pesci had qualms about playing such an evil character as Tommy DeVito and Lorraine Bracco started thinking of…
Brief Encounter: Politely Passionate
Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. Photo: Eagle-Lion The legendary film critic Pauline Kael didn’t seem to care much for this film. Acknowledging it as a “celebrated tearjerker”, she also called…
No Country for Old Men: Blood in the Sand
Javier Bardem. Photo: Miramax When I started reading Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”, it took a while before I was hooked, until the author’s way of conjuring a desolate, bleak future…
Amadeus: The Burden of Mediocrity
Tom Hulce. Photo: Orion Pictures Most of us recognize Antonio Salieri’s feelings. He has worked hard to achieve something, got a good education and managed to become court composer to…
Dr. Strangelove: Bombs Away!
Peter Sellers. Photo: Columbia When Stanley Kubrick decided to turn Peter George’s Cold War novel “Red Alert” into a movie, he must have thought the material was too outrageous to…
Psycho: Sins of the Mother
Janet Leigh. Photo: Universal In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock decided to shake things up after making several films that were in color, generously budgeted and featured A-list stars. His new picture…
Rear Window: A View to a Kill
James Stewart. Photo: Paramount This masterpiece from Alfred Hitchcock reunited the director with James Stewart from Rope (1948), another thriller that was set entirely in one apartment. This film has…
North by Northwest: Rushmore Rumble
Cary Grant. Photo: MGM According to one biography on Alfred Hitchcock, it was Bernard Herrmann who introduced screenwriter Ernest Lehman to the director. They hit it off and decided to…
Raiders of the Lost Ark: Meet Dr. Jones
Harrison Ford. Photo: Paramount In the beginning, before there was a movie, everybody involved did their part in contributing bright ideas to the project that would become the best adventure…
Jaws: A Whale of an Adventure
Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss. Photo: Universal In 1975, scientists knew a thing or two about sharks. The public, however, seemed to be largely ignorant. That must be…