Friedkin: The French Connection (1971)
By the time he arrived at The French Connection, William Friedkin had already mastered cinematic naturalism – a considerable achievement, given that his previous three [...]
June 2020
Friedkin: The Boys in the Band (1970)
William Friedkin’s fourth film was another amazing theatrical adaptation – this time, of Mart Crowley’s groundbreaking play, The Boys in the Band, which deals with a [...]
Kubrick: Fear and Desire (1953)
Stanley Kubrick’s first feature as director was a remarkably fully-formed debut – an abstract war film about a group of soldiers who “keep our country and our time, but [...]
Friedkin: The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1969)
William Friedkin’s third film, The Night They Raided Minsky’s, was billed as being a period piece about the origin of striptease, but it’s really a broader tribute to [...]
Friedkin: The Birthday Party (1968)
William Friedkin’s second film was an adaptation of The Birthday Party, one of Harold Pinter’s first plays, making this a watershed moment in the career of both artists. [...]
Friedkin: Good Times (1967)
William Friedkin’s first film was Good Times, a Sonny and Cher vehicle that plays as two quite distinct films. The first is a series of mild, inoffensive parodies of [...]
Wilson: Blast from the Past (1999)
One of the biggest traits of 90s Hollywood was the trend towards hermetically sealed, slightly sci-fi visions of 50s domesticity. From Edward Scissorhands to Pleasantville, [...]
Mankiewicz: All About Eve (1950)
All About Eve is one of the most enigmatic and elliptical films of classical Hollywood – a paean to obsessive fandom, and to the allure of the actress, that never quite [...]
Soderbergh: Contagion (2011)
Contagion is the spiritual sequel to Outbreak, responding to the rise of coronaviruses in the early 2000s much as Outbreak responded to the rise of ebola and haemorrhagic [...]