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The Darkest Hour

I came to this film late and was determined neither to be influenced by the favourable reviews nor the more negative critique of this  organ and several friends. The one scene that the latter did not like was that of Churchill on a tube. I liked the scene and would say it was pivotal to the film. [...]

January 30, 2018 // 0 Comments

View from the future

It’s always interesting to see a film set in the past but also produced in a different time as it tells you about both epochs. With this in mind I revisited this week Oh What a Lovely War! (1969)  and The Day of the Jackal (1973). Although no expert like Henry Elkins I am confident in [...]

January 25, 2018 // 0 Comments

Veteran film stars

In the week I had lunch with a film buff who spoke highly of  All The Money In The World and in particular  of Christopher Plummer who, aged 88, turned out a stellar performance. The interesting thing about Christopher Plummer is that he is best known for Fritz von Trapp in The Sound of [...]

January 20, 2018 // 0 Comments

Not nearly as good as the advance media verdicts would have it

Being an admirer of Winston Churchill – for all his faults, regarded by some who should know enough to judge these things as one of the all-time greatest Englishmen – and having listened to the media jungle drums over the past month or two, I had made a decision earlier this week to break the [...]

January 14, 2018 // 0 Comments

And now for something completely different

Last night I watched a recording that I’d ‘organised’ of a BBC television documentary called A Life On Screen about Michael Palin that was first broadcast at some point last weekend. It was both fascinating and entertaining. When Monty Python’s Flying Circus first hit the television [...]

January 13, 2018 // 0 Comments

Three American film classics…and one not so

Like our Rusters journeying to and from the Antipodes I do not enjoy a long haul flight. My way of passing the time is to watch classic movies by genre. Thus on a long haul flight recently I watched 3 American classics. The first two were Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Seven Year Itch. Whilst [...]

January 12, 2018 // 0 Comments

A tour to Weta Studios

Today we went to Weta (the weta is an ugly New Zealand insect) to see the film studios of New Zealand’s most famous son and native of Wellington, Sir Peter Jackson. These are to be found in a suburb that is a mix of light industrial and residential. It’s not like the imposing Hollywood [...]

December 20, 2017 // 0 Comments

We are free to believe what we believe

Scribes contributing to the Rust have previously offered their opinions upon perception and reality as we find these in the world – whether the subject be ‘fake news’, politics, or the prospect of great movie or music stars being resurrected years after their death and having new [...]

December 1, 2017 // 0 Comments

Hollywood alcoholics

Watching Discovering William Holden on Sky Arts made me think of the great actors we lost to alcoholism: Richard Burton, Errol Flynn, Robert Walker, Veronica Lake and William Holden. One never knows, let alone understands, why anyone falls victim to the bottle and this is certainly  the case with [...]

November 11, 2017 // 0 Comments

The Cincinnati Kid

One of the most enjoyable screen tests is when a big star pits his ability against a great actor. I’m thinking here of Dustin Hoffman v Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man and later on Tom Cruise v Dustin Hoffman in the Rain Man or Michael Caine v Laurence Olivier in Sleuth. In those films the [...]

November 2, 2017 // 0 Comments

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