Films

African Queen
When Humphrey Bogart accepted the Academy Award for Best Actor as the boozy, endearing Charlie Allnut, he admitted that he much preferred being onstage at the Pantages Theater to the Belgian Congo. Difficult as the remote location work must have been, director John Huston's African Queen is an absolute delight. It's the story of two hopelessly mismatched people, a gin-drinking river trader (Bogart) and a prim missionary spinster (Katharine Hepburn). who set in out in 1915 on a boat trip down a dangerous river.

The Big Sleep
It all begins when Philip Marlowe (Bogart), Raymond Chandlers cynical but charming private eye, is assigned to investigate the gambling debts of General Sternwoods younger daughter. From there, Marlowe is plunged into a nightmare world filled with blackmail, deception and violence. Several murders later, he finds that he has fallen in live with her elder sister (Lauren Bacal).

Casablanca
A classic example of an effort in which everything could have gone wrong but instead went perfectly right, to become the most splendidly romantic picture ever made. Set against the backdrop of espionage in wartime French Morocco, the story of enigmatic Casablanca nightclub owner Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and his unwitting reunion with an old flame (Ingrid Bergman) unfolds. The iconic performances from the three leads (Bogart, Bergman, and Paul Henreid) are genuinely wonderful, and not just famous. And the supporting cast, which includes Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre, is nothing less than heaven sent.

Schindler's List
Anything but a typical Spielberg film. The remarkable script by Steven Zaillian (based on Thomas Keneally's nonfiction novel) explores the mystery of goodness, and, more specifically, the paradox of a corrupt businessman in league with the Nazis who ended up saving 1,100 Jews from extermination during the Second World War. Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as Amon Goeth, the commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp, and Ben Kingsley as the Jewish accountant, Stern, all contribute stunning performances. Shot on location in Poland in gritty black and white, the film achieves a remarkable sense of authenticity.

Always
A remake of A Guy Named Joe. Richard Dreyfuss plays a recently deceased devil-may-care bush pilot called back from the Great Beyond to oversee and encourage the relationship between his former girlfriend (the fabulously lovely Holly Hunter, with that 'die for' voice) and an awkward young flyer (Brad Johnson). A sunny innocent tone is sustained by the amiable presence of the leads and Audrey Hepburn's brief appearance, in her last film, as Dreyfuss's guardian angel.

It has happy ending, but bring the hankies anyway ...

Groundhog day
The film begins with a simple premise, a man finds himself repeating the same day over and over and over. Bill Murray plays a Pittsburgh weatherman trapped on Groundhog Day in the idyllic town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. A jerk, who at first try's to exploit the situation, but then, driven to despair by the repetitivity of it all, tries to commit suicide. But every morning, he reappears in his bed, alive, and at least physically, healthy. Through his suicides, he is reborn, and uses his repetitive day to learn and grow.

The film also features a gorgeous piece of music, Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Variation 18. The music was also used in the film 'Brief Encounter', and the film add's a new twist.

Silence of the lambs

The Great Escape
Based on a true story, a group of allied escape artist type prisoners of war are all put in an 'escape proof' camp. Their leader decides to try to take out several hundred all at once. The first half of the film is played for comedy as the prisoners mostly outwit their jailers to dig the escape tunnel. The second half is high adventure as they use boats and trains and planes to get out of occupied Europe

Dr Strangelove; or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
A mad USAF general launches a nuclear attack on Russia, and when recall attempts fail, and retaliation is inevitable, all concerned sit back to await the destruction of the world. Peter Sellers doing what Sellers does best, characters, plays the US President, an RAF Captain, and a mad German-American scientist. A brillent black comady directed by Stanley Kubrick. George C Scott hams it up brillently as a war mad, sex happy, US general.

The Four Seasons
Three married couples take seasonal holidays together and remain united despite various tensions.

The name is taken from the Validi's work of the same name. His beutiful music helps bind the film into a coherent structure.

Goodbye Mr Chips
An old classics latin teacher looks back over his long career, remembering pupils and colleagues, and above all the idyllic courtship and marriage that transformed his life. It was released in 1939, just as Europe was plunging into war. In the film, there's a scene, where Mr Chips is reading out a list of names killed during a battle in 'The Great War'. One he reads out, is of a German friend, and ex-teacher at the school. I always wondered how people reacted to this in light of the world war that was just starting, and with the pacifist elements protrayed in the film.

The Man Who Would Be King
This adaptation of the famous short story by Rudyard Kipling tells the story of Daniel Dravot (Sean Connory) and Peachy Carnahan (Michael Caine), two ex-soldiers in India when it was under British rule. They decide that the country is too small for them, so they head of to Karafistan in order to become Kings in their own right. Kipling (Christopher Plummer if memory serves) is seen as a character that was there at the beginning, and at the end of this tale.

The Sting
When a mutual friend is killed by a mob boss, two con men, one experienced and one young try to get even by pulling off the big con on the mob boss. The story unfolds with several twists and last minute alterations.

Twelve Angry Men
The defence and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case of murder soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the juror's prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other. Based on the play, all of the action takes place on the stage of the jury room. A Henry Fonda tour de force.

Yentl
The story of an turn of the century eastern European Jewish girl named Yentl (Barbra Streisand), who used to study the Torah when no woman was allowed to do so. After losing her father, she decides to go to a Yeshiva, the Jewish school for priests. The big problem is that only boys are allowed to study there. Therefore, Yentl decides to masqurade as a boy. Everything is fine 'till she fells in love for a study friend.

Streisand was busy on this film, having co-written, produced, directed, and starred in it. The music isn't half bad either.

It's a Wonderful Life

It's Christmas time, and things are looking black for George Bailey (James Stewart). Standing on a bridge, about to commit sucide, he's interrupted by Clarence (Henry Travers). Clarance claims he's George's guardian angel, and he shows George what the world would have been like without him.

One of Frank Capra's greatest works, it also feature the gorgeous Donna Reed as Mary Bailey, George's wife, and a suitably evil Lionel Barrymore as Mr Potter, a grizzly old tycoon