By John H. Foote 11. FIGHT CLUB (1999) “There is one rule about fight club. You do not talk about the fight club. The second rule is YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB.” – Tyler Durdan (Brad Pitt) in Fight Club (1999) So says Tyler Durden in laying out the rules for the strange…
By John H. Foote 12. THE CRUCIBLE (1996) Twice I have had the pleasure of directing productions of Arthur Miller’s extraordinary play The Crucible, which might always be the most relevant work ever written. Both times were among the most exciting times I have building a play with two exceptional casts. Each time they were…
By John H. Foote 13. APOLLO 13 (1995) I swear this was purely coincidence, that number 13 on the list of the nineties greatest films was Ron Howard’s great space epic Apollo 13. Truly. Making a film about a historical event can be problematic to say the least. Making a film about a historical event…
By John H. Foote Not all our revisits of films are about the great ones, the ignored masterpieces or misunderstood films. No, sometimes we go back and explore a huge flop. This is one of those revisits. Burt Bacharach was one of the greatest song writers of the sixties and very early seventies. Hugely successful,…
By John H. Foote 14. BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (1994) The surprise hit of the 1994 movie season was Woody Allen’s excellent comedic farce Bullets over Broadway set during the Great Depression in the grand world of old Broadway in New York City. Unlike his previous films, his best ones, this one is less about relationships…
By John H. Foote 15. A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN (1992) How is it possible that a film as fine as this, bathed in warm nostalgia of a time gone by, focusing on the great American pastime when America was at war, so beautifully acted, directed, written and created did not receive a single Academy…
By John H. Foote 16. DEAD MAN WALKING The argument for capital punishment, the death penalty, remains one of the most controversial conversations in modern government. If a person is found undeniably guilty of taking a life, planned it out and killed a human being, shouldn’t they pay with their life? I believe so, as…
By Craig Leask Note: The racial terms used in this article are included solely as reference to their use in book titles and poem lyrics as they were used in Christie’s book in 1939. The name Alfred Hitchcock became synonymous as the “Master of Suspense”, a well-earned title obtained through his direction of over 50…
By John H. Foote 17. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998) When Harrison Ford strode to center stage to present the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1998, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) had already won Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Best Sound Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Director, so naturally everyone in the audience and…
By John H. Foote 18. FORREST GUMP (1994) The leaf that blows away from Forrest (Tom Hanks) at the beginning of the film, carried by the wind through the air, coming to light on various objects and places in its unpredictable journey is a direct metaphor for Forrest Gump himself. Like that leaf, he is…