On it’s opening night, a 138-storey skyscraper is having a celebratory party on the 135th floor. However, due to corners being cut during production a fire breaks out on floor 81. It is up to the building’s architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) and Fire Chief O’Hallorhan (Steve McQueen) to try to save as many people as possible as the blaze intensifies.
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Category Archives: 1001
Chariots of Fire
In 1919 several young men develop and nurture a passion for running, and all aim to compete in the forthcoming Olympics in Paris in 1924. Amongst them are the Jewish Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and his friends at Cambridge (Nicholas Farrell, Nigel Havers) and a Scottish former rugby player turned Christian missionary Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson).
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Young Frankenstein
Ashamed of his family history, Fredrick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder, and it’s pronounced Fronk-un-steen) attempts to distance himself from the work of his infamous grandfather, but finds the pull too great when he inherits the family estate in Transylvania and discovers his ancestor might have been onto something. With the help of his sporadically hunchbacked assistant Igor (Marty Feldman), the voluptuous Inga (Teri Garr) and terrifying housekeeper Frau Blücher (Cloris Leachman), young Frankenstein attempts to recreate his grandfather’s work, re-animating a gigantic corpse (Peter Boyle).
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Gilda
This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.
Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is a small time hustler and card shark, saved from a potentially nasty end by illegal casino owner Ballin Mundson (George Macready), and employed as an enforcer and eventual floor manager after gaining Ballin’s trust. All that might count for nought however, when Ballin returns from a trip with a new wife on his arm, the flirtatious and ravishing Gilda (Rita Hayworth), who Johnny seems to recognise from his past.
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The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
After the death of one of their partners, three cabaret performers accept a job playing at a hotel in Alice Springs, two weeks drive away from their Sydney home. Equipped with a tour bus they christen Priscilla, the trio set out across the barren wastes of Australia, dealing with prejudice and other obstacles along the way.
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The Marriage of Maria Braun
This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.
After getting married during a bombing raid in Germany in the midst of World War II, Maria and Hermann Braun (Hanna Schygulla & Klaus Löwitsch) are able to spend half a day and a whole night together, before Hermann returns to the front. Maria faces the struggles of life at home during wartime, surviving with her mother and sister, even in spite of news that Hermann may not be returning.
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Hour of the Wolf
Johan Borg (Max von Sydow) is a painter who mysteriously vanished from his home on the Frisian Islands, off the coast of Germany. Via testimony from his wife Alma (Liv Ullmann) and Borg’s own diary, this film attempts to portray the days leading up to the disappearance.
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The Godfather Part II
In 1900’s Corleone, Sicily, a young Vito Andolini is left the only surviving member of his family after his father, brother and mother are all killed by the local mafia head, Don Ciccio. Vito flees to New York and adopts the new surname Corleone, and eventually finds that perhaps the best way of life for him is similar to the one that led to his family’s demise. Inter-cut with this story and following on from the events of The Godfather, a now in-charge Michael (Al Pacino), Vito’s youngest son, struggles to maintain his power with threats on many sides, including possibly one from within the family.
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Blind Spot: A Clockwork Orange
In a semi-dystopian future London, Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) and his gangs of droogs (James Marcus, Warren Clarke and Michael Tarn) spend their nights terrorising the town, fighting with other gangs, beating up drunks and breaking into people’s houses, stealing valuables, and crippling and raping the inhabitants. When the gang turns against their leader, Alex is left injured at the scene of his latest crime and is sentenced to prison, wherein he attempts a new form of treatment set to “reprogram” him against his former behaviour.
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The Color of Pomegranates
Dear reader,
Don’t seek in this post the review of the film The Color of Pomegranates, a film claiming to not be a biography of the poet Sayat-Nova, but is in fact merely striving to convey, by means of cinema, the pictorial world of that poetry. This post strives to convey not a review of the film, but merely a feel, by means of rambling words and poorly planned introductions, of how much the writer didn’t care for it one bit.
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