Tag: Sidney Lumet

Dresden by Marti Teixidor

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Part 1 available here.

OM: Have you thought about writing a series on films set in Francoist Spain, Chile, Argentina, and, more generally, the dictatorial regimes of South America? Would you recommend any films in this genre?

KV: I was just thinking about lifting the veil woven by egalitarian cultural dominance. You know what I mean? Everyone knows Picasso’s Guernica, but what about Dresden by Marti Teixidor? It’s the same with film. (more…)

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Before black Little Mermaid, there was The Wiz.

The Wiz was an infamous 1978 remake of The Wizard of Oz featuring an all-black cast which included Diana Ross, a teenaged Michael Jackson, and Richard Pryor as The Wiz himself. The movie was based on an outrageously successful 1974 Broadway musical that was the Hamilton of the 1970s. (more…)

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Unlike many moviegoers, I was never that enthusiastic about Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick’s response to the arms race. I remember that back in the 1980s, a girlfriend and I saw the film and she thought it made light of a serious issue. This was at the height of President Reagan’s sending more missiles to Europe, his Star Wars missile defense plan, and everyone’s lugubrious viewing of The Day After. (more…)

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Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, Network (1976) is a sardonic, dark-comic satire of America at the very moment that its trajectory of decline became apparent (to perceptive eyes, at least).

Network has an outstanding script and incandescent performances, which were duly recognized. Chayefsky won the Oscar for Best Screenplay. Peter Finch won the Oscar for Best Actor (more…)

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In the latest installment of Guide to Kulchur, John Morgan and Survive the Jive again join Fróði Midjord to talk about Sidney Lumet’s film Equus (1977), about a psychiatrist (played by Sir Richard Burton) questioning a seventeen-year-old stable boy who savagely blinded six horses with a metal spike, to find out the reason for his bizarre act. He discovers that the young man has been worshipping horses as an expression of a particularly pagan longing for the primordial forces of vitality. (more…)

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Author’s Note:

The following text is a scrap rescued from obscurity and buffed up a bit. In 2002, a reader of VNN suggested that the site’s movie reviewers post their “Ten Best” lists. I found it impossible to settle on just ten best films. So I decided to produce a “Favorites” list instead. I came up with more than thirty movies. These are films I like to re-watch and show to my friends. I think the list includes some of the best films ever made, (more…)