HEAVEN’S GATE – A LOOK BACK; A LOOK TODAY By John H. Foote It was never as bad as the critics made it out to be. They were out for blood, after being lied too and betrayed by director-writer Michael Cimino and blood they got. Cimino made it easy for them given his irresponsible behaviour…
By Nick Maylor While Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) was released after Avengers: Infinity War (2018), the film’s plot largely deals with the fallout of Captain America: Civil War (2016) as it pertains to Scott Lang’s situation. Lang (Paul Rudd) is under house arrest due to his involvement in the Avengers battle in Germany (as…
By John H. Foote How can I properly do justice to one of the greatest American films of all time? A film that was brilliantly directed by Czech Milos Forman, using his documentary style to bring to the screen a new realism that was startling? Can words truly do justice to the breathtaking, and there…
By John H. Foote There are I am sure other films that display American patriotism, that wave the flag, that celebrate America. However, is anyone really in the mood to celebrate a country run by a complete buffoon? A man who in less than eighteen months has ruined the office of the President, has proven…
By John H. Foote How did it lose Best Picture, Best Director? In 1989, at the end of the decade, Premiere Magazine, that wonderful now defunct movie magazine polled the nations top film critics to ask them what was the best film of the eighties? To no ones surprise, they voted Martin Scorsese’s searing boxing…
Rumble Fish (1983) Criterion Special Edition Blu Ray (****) By John H. Foote Smarting from the critical bashing he took on One from the Heart (1982), Francis Ford Coppola took the advice of a teenaged fan and read The Outsiders, then immediately bought the rights to it for a film. On the heels of The…
By John H. Foote COMING HOME (1978) (****) Hal Ashby was a bonafide free spirit, a hippy who hated the system that held the power of making movies. He loved making movies, loved it with an unbridled passion, but he hated the suits that held the power to making those movies. During his most fruitful…
TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (****) By John H. Foote My wife was very close with her mother. Best friends. They could spend an entire day together, then call each other at night to chat some more. Ellie often went with us to various events, movies, plays, fairs, to hear the folk group Tanglefoot, and of course…
By John H. Foote This might be the biggest surprise of the summer, that this sequel to the superb Sicario (2015) is as good as it is. The previous film, directed by Denis Villeneuve was a superb study of drug trafficking across the Mexican border, where US agents routinely encounter major Mexican cartels and their…
By John H. Foote SNUBBED ENTIRELY, BUT MASTERFUL NONETHELESS… Kevin Costner won an Academy Award for Best Director for his western epic Dances with Wolves (1990), which won six other Oscars including Best Picture, and saw the likable star nominated for Best Actor. This was very near the beginning of his career, when his baseball…