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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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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Brooklyn, 1957. British-Russian Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) is arrested and charged with being a Soviet spy. In order for him to receive a fair trial he is assigned a defence lawyer in the form of James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks). Donovan has no choice but to accept the case, despite it being a guaranteed lose for him – the judge already calls Abel “The Russian” and has no qualms with admitting he has decided Abel is a spy before the case has even begun – and the case also puts a strain on Donovan’s personal life, with his family being attacked and Donovan being shunned in public. Even the police who respond to the call from the attack threaten to fight Donovan, yet he continues and pursues the case even deeper. After the case is over, American pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down using a secret spy plane, photographing key areas of the Soviet Union. When Powers is imprisoned within the USSR, Donovan is once again called upon to resolve the situation.
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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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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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Jake LaMotta (Robert DeNiro) was a middleweight boxer in 1940s and 50s New York. Known as something of a brawler both in and out of the ring, his animalistic tendencies, relationship paranoia and microscopic fuse often found him at odds with his brother Joey (Joe Pesci), second wife Vickie (Cathie Moriarty) and pretty much everyone else he met along the way.
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This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.
Today is Jack’s birthday, he is five years old. To him, the whole world is Room, an 11×11 foot enclosure outside of which he has never been. He lives with his mother, Ma, plays with Egg Snake under Bed, eats with Meltedy Spoon and sometimes, when Old Nick visits, Jack has to sleep in Wardrobe, counting the groans before Old Nick falls asleep. The stuff on TV is all fantasy, things that don’t exist in real life. Jack’s world ends at the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the skylight and the heavy metal door, locked with a keypad combination. Beyond that, there is nothing.
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When she is forced to babysit her infant half-brother Toby, selfish teenager Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) invokes a goblin magic spell that summons Jareth, the Goblin King (David Bowie) to snatch Toby and take him to the Goblin Kingdom. Sarah has just thirteen hours to make her way through Jareth’s labyrinth to save Toby, or he’ll be turned into a goblin and will stay there forever.
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Whilst attending a carnival, well-to-do surgeon Mr. Treves (Anthony Hopkins) sees John Merrick (John Hurt), a 21-year-old man born with such severe physical disfigurements that he is displayed as “The Elephant Man”. After Merrick receives another in a series of beatings from his “owner” Bytes (Freddie Jones), Treves takes Merrick into the hospital and cares for the man, slowly uncovering the person behind the appearance.
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Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) is the head, or Godfather, of his family and crime syndicate in 1940s New York. He receives a request to move into narcotics by up-and-comer Sollozzo (Al Lettieri), but when Vito declines, the Tattaglia family, with whom Sollozzo is in business, attempt to kill Vito and break the Corleone family apart. With Vito in hospital, it is up to his children – headstrong firebrand Sonny (James Caan), simple Fredo (John Cazale), newly married Connie (Talia Shire), war veteran Michael (Al Pacino) and adopted Tom (Robert Duvall) to resolve matters.
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Life Vs Film 