Nostalgia

Moulin Rouge! is based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, kind of. It’s also based on the opera La Bohème, but again, only kind of. It’s been compared to the opera La Traviata, the novel Nana, and the...

Looking back at Trainspotting, which was released 25 years ago this week, one of its most striking qualities is the sheer amount of its young talent. While they probably would all have found success had...

One successful franchise. Three iconic films. A straight-to-DVD spin-off, a reality TV show, and a series of books. A concert tour, a stage musical, and a production on ice. It has been adapted into foreign...

Ten years on from its release, True Grit has settled firmly into the middle ground of Joel and Ethan Coen’s filmography. It's well-respected in the Coen canon but doesn’t seem to be many people’s...

Tangled has always had a bit of a mixed reputation. Although cinema-going audiences treated it fairly kindly, it struggled to make back its mammoth budget. Critics shrugged at it - complaining it was a little...

“I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.” For Charlie Chaplin, making people laugh was part of who he was. Having made his...

All About Eve, which turns 70 this year, is mostly remembered for two things: its precise, acerbic screenplay, and its star, Bette Davis, who gives the ultimate Bette Davis performance in the ultimate Bette...

“Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.’ I agree with the second part.” So concludes Morgan Freeman’s character in the final moments of Seven. On paper,...

“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” And so was born an instant classic, a film that’s considered one of the greatest of all time. Goodfellas explored the ultimate...

“Who would not wish to live a hundred years in a world where there are so many people who remember with gratitude and affection a little man with a frozen face who made them laugh a bit long years ago when...

Torrential rain batters against the skeleton of a half-destroyed building, where two men shelter inside. They are quiet and shell-shocked; ‘I can’t understand it. I can’t understand it at all’ is all...

Before the three protagonists of Gene Kelly’s On the Town come bounding into frame, the audience is greeted with a series of sweeping shots of the static New York skyline. We see a construction worker...

There are messy films that have aimed at greatness. Films whose evident care, visionary goal, and meticulous craftsmanship are apparent through the shipwreck of ambition. There are others that are deliberately...

Atonement was the film that made me fall in love with cinema. There had been films before and innumerable films since, but nothing has ever approached that heart-stopping, locking-eyes-across-a-crowded-room...

Horror sequels are no new phenomenon. Returning four years after the original Frankenstein, 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein was early proof that it takes more than an angry mob to keep a good Monster down....