Jean-Jacques Annaud’s adaptation of Umberto Eco’s novel, The Name of the Rose, is an engaging tour-de-force with a fantastic cast, an intriguing mystery, and a fantastic setting. Amazingly, Sean Connery’s career was in a bit of a lull when he lobbied for the part, one which, it seems, much like Bond, and Indy’s father, he…
Tag: desires
Imaginary Friend (2019) – Stephen Chbosky
Stephen Chobsky, perhaps currently best known as the author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, gets his Stephen King on with his latest novel, Imaginary Friend, a tale of horror that pits a small town against itself in a battle of good versus evil. At the heart of the story is young Christopher, and…
Ugetsu (1953) – Kenji Mizoguchi
The next title recommended by the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book for my screening of Ran, is this brilliant film that follows the fortunes of two peasant families during a civil war. Operating a kiln, and making wares, Genjuro (Masayuki Mori) sees a chance to get rich with the selling of his…
Aladdin (1992) – Ron Clements and John Musker
The next recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book following my screening of The Lion King, is yet another modern Disney classic, and once again like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid features music by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. Featuring a wonderfully manic performance by Robin Williams as…
Saturday Night Fever: The Director’s Cut (1977) – John Badham
Paramount Pictures takes you back to the dance floor with the blu-ray and DVD release of the Director’s Cut of the now iconic Saturday Night Fever, which helped to catapult John Travolta, a Sweathog from Welcome Back, Kotter, to super-stardom. It’s easy now to think of the film as a time capsule of the 70s…
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) – Jack Clayton
The Sci-Fi Chronicles book (and I am enjoying it so much) next brings me to Ray Bradbury, and the screenplay he wrote, which he adapted from his own classic story. Dark and moody, this one is definitely a family horror movie, this came from the period in the 1980s, when Disney started to play…
The Mind Reels 