 Just two years after his re-election to the Presidency with the largest margin of votes in American Presidential history, Richard Nixon would resign in 1974 amidst the Watergate scandal. The actions of the President and his White House staff left the nation reeling, a corruption of trust from which they might never have recovered to this day. Vice President Gerald Ford would pardon Nixon, an act which might have cost him the election which saw Jimmy Carter become the President.
Movies were never better than they were in the seventies. With taboos gone, filmmakers were free to create films about anything they desired, thus drug addiction, divorce, prostitution, mental illness, homosexuality, impotence, psychosis, and Vietnam found their way into films through the decade. Nudity and profanity became common place in film, replicating life. Read more on Best of the Decades: 1970s…
 A star was born at TIFF in 2003.
Part of one of the cinema’s most famous families, the Coppola’s, she had been brutalized by the critics for her performance in The Godfather Part III (1990), which in my world simply does not exist. Frankly she was not even the major problem with the film, thus I found the attacks on her to be downright cruel. However Francis’ little girl learned one thing from her famous father, do not let them get to you, follow the passion, find a good story.
Read more on TIFF Golden Moments Part 4…
Categories: Article Tags: American film directors, Bill Murray, Director, Francis Ford Coppola, Lost in Translation, Oscar, Paramount films, Peter Jackson, Picture, Scarlett Johansson, Sofia Coppola, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the New York Film Critics Award
 Francis Ford Coppola wrote the screenplay to the Jack Clayton directed film The Great Gatsby (1974), a banner year for cinema with some of the greatest films ever made. For those who hail 1939 as the greatest year in film history, I suggest they look hard at 1974 which is infinitely stronger. All in ’74 were The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, Lenny, The Conversation, Young Frankenstein, A Woman Under the Influence, Badlands, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Phantom of the Paradise were just some of the American films released in that single, miraculous, year. One of the most anticipated films of the year, and subsequent failure was the film adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby (1974) with Robert Redford as Gatsby and Mia Farrow as Daisy. Redford was at the zenith of his career, a major box office star after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973) and respected as an actor in films such as Jeremiah Johnson (1973) and Oscar nominated for The Sting (1973). Farrow was less known but had enjoyed both box office and critical acclaim in Rosemary’s Baby (1968). In many circles she was better known as Frank Sinatra’s wife. Many felt she lacked the acting chops to play the role believing Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton or Ali McGraw to be better choices. Read more on Re-visiting Gatsby (1974) Brings High Hopes Luhrmann’s adaptation…
Read more on Re-visiting Gatsby (1974) Brings High Hopes Luhrmann’s adaptation…
Read more on Circuit Round-Up (Week Ending 10/09)…
Categories: Weekend Openings Tags: Best Actress, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, dancing with the stars, Dolphin Tale, Dream House, Francis Ford Coppola, Hugh Jackman, Margaret, Martin Scorsese, oscar predictions, pet peeves, Real Steel, Scre4m, Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, Take Shelter, The Ides of March, The Way, What’s Your Number?
There's still room at the table for the masters!
One can easily imagine Paul Thomas Anderson, the Brothers Coen, Kathryn Bigelow, David Fincher, Darren Aronofsky or Alexander Payne sitting in theatres in the seventies and eighties and watching the work of the masters of their generation, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, William Friedkin, Terence Malick, or Francis Ford Coppola. The aforementioned artists revolutionized American cinema, paving the way for new fresh ideas and younger directors to emerge in the business and work their magic. Just a few years earlier, Coppola, Allen, Scorsese, Spielberg, and Friedkin were students themselves in cinemas, enjoying the works of john Ford, William Wyler, Chaplin, Elia Kazan or David Lean. The previous generation always impacts the generation to follow, but the impact of the directors of the seventies has been staggering. During TIFF this year George Clooney referenced the work of Alan J. Pakula and Sidney Lumet as having been hugely influential on his career, both as an actor and a director. Many films of the last few years have felt like seventies pictures, in their daring and storytelling, in the manner they allow the actors to evolve the story, giving us substance over style. Read more on Directors of the 70′s: Still Showing ‘Em How It’s Done…
Categories: Article Tags: Clint Eastwood, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Hugo, Killer Joe, Martin Scorsese, Midnight in Paris, Roman Polanski, Steven Spielberg, Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life, Twixt, war horse, William Friedkin, Woody Allen
Talented actress/director Sarah Polley disappoints with second film "Take This Waltz"
Sunday was a day of disappointments at the festival. I mean serious letdowns, folks: one from a promising young lady experiencing a sophomore slump, the other a former world-class director who gave us something downright juvenile.
Take This Waltz (**) is the second feature from gifted actress/director/writer Sarah Polley and though she swears it is not autobiographical, she went through a divorce last year, has remarried and is three months pregnant with her first child.
After the masterpiece that was Away from Her (2007), Polley turns her camera on a much younger married couple this time, though no less troubled. Where Away from Her gave us a palpable insight into the love that Grant (Gordon Pinsent) had for Fiona (Julie Christie), not once through Take This Waltz did I ever get a sense of that depth of love and devotion.
Read more on John’s TIFF Diary: Day Four…
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