The quest for gold and a thirst for revenge sends gunslingers Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach on a collision course in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Guest writer Jeff Pike critiques the good, bad and (yes) ugly in Sergio Leone’s landmark 1966 Italian western.
Read more →Articles by: Jeff Pike
Unforgiven (1992): A Guest Movie Review
Director Clint Eastwood so thoroughly gulled me with this self-serious and anachronistic meditation on women’s issues and gun violence transposed to the 19th-century American frontier (1880 Wyoming, to be specific) that I took away a number of enduring misperceptions from…
Read more →Guest Review: Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now has always been preceded by the legendary stories of its troubled production, one of those cursed film enterprises (The Exorcist is another) whose backstories are almost as entertaining as the final product itself : in this case, weathering…
Read more →L’Avventura: Movie Review
Guest blogger JPK presents this look at a 1960 foreign film classic. Does it live up to its hype? Let’s find out: Director: Michelangelo Antonioni Writers: Michelangelo Antonioni, Elio Bartolini, Tonino Guerra Photography: Aldo Scarvada Music: Giovanni Fusco Editor: Eraldo Da…
Read more →Monkey Business (1952): Classic Movie Review
This 1952 exercise in foolishness, directed by Howard Hawks, is constructed well enough to make itself likeable, even charming. The star-studded cast doesn’t hurt anything either—Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers and Charles Coburn all get their chances to jump around and use…
Read more →Fort Apache (1948): Classic Movie Review
Movie Review of the 1948 classic Fort Apache: Director: John Ford Writers: Frank S. Nugent, James Warner Bellah Photography: Archie Stout, William H. Clothier Editor: Jack Murray Cast: John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple, John Agar, Ward Bond, Pedro Armendáriz,…
Read more →Singin’ in the Rain: Guest Movie Review
It’s interesting how some of the best Hollywood movies of the early ’50s—thinking specifically of Singin’ in the Rain and 1950’s Sunset Blvd. but several others fit the bill as well—seized the moment to look back acidly on the transition of…
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