Given the success of the James Bond franchise and John le Carré’s novels and films based on his works, espionage thrillers were the hot genre of the ‘60s and ‘70s. In 1973, director Michael Winner brought together Three legendary actors—Burt…
Roar is truly one of those films that has to be seen to be believed. The brainchild of actress Tippi Hedren (The Birds) and then-husband Noel Marshall, Roar plays out like an episode of Wild Kingdom gone terribly, terribly wrong….
An unemployed construction worker, Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier) is traveling west when his car breaks down in the Arizona desert. When his car begins to overheat, he stops at a ranch in search of water. As it turns out, the…
The first time I heard Amy Winehouse single, “You Know I’m No Good” on the radio, I couldn’t believe she was only in her early twenties. Her voice, deep, blues and world weary, sounded like something straight out of the…
Released in 1954, Broken Lance addressed the growing concern of “race relations” “race relations” from the standpoint of the Old American West. A reworking of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s House of Strangers (1949), the film addresses the issue of so-called ‘half…
Though Robert Redford had some big screen success with films such as Inside Daisy Clover (1965), This Property Is Condemned (1966) (both with Natalie Wood), and 1967’s big screen version of Barefoot in the Park with Jane Fonda, his breakout…
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is based on the memoir of the same name by British journalist Toby Young. The story chronicles his failed attempted at becoming a successful contributor at Conde Nast Publications’ Vanity Fair magazine. Though…
Attempting to produce an extensive documentary on such a well known figure as Frank Sinatra is a herculean task. Alex Gibney’s Sinatra: All or Nothing at All is an impressive effort. Divided into two parts and running just north of…
First published as a four-part serial in The New Yorker, beginning with the September 25, 1965 issue, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, was an immediate sensation. In what Capote coined a non-fiction novel, the story which details the murders of…
Produced by Stanley Kramer (Inherit the Wind, Judgement at Nuremberg, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner), written by Abby Mann (Judgement at Nuremberg) and a rare studio effort from director John Cassavetes, A Child Is Waiting is a fascinating look at…