Articles by Neil Rosen
Last night I was divided at 9.00 pm between the Sky Arts series The Directors and Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema. I decided to record the first and watch the latter. I admire Mark Kermode but find his personality too obtrusive. He was examining the genre of Super Heroes which does not hold [...]
Midway (1976)
We have all our own ways of self-amusement in these extraordinary times and mine is to work my way through my stack of unwatched DVDs. Midway tells the story of the June 1942 naval engagement between the US and Japanese Imperial fleets arguably the most important naval battle of World War Two. The [...]
The Directors/Sky Arts
This excellent series has continued with Peter Weir and John Schlesinger. The Rosen test of a great director is the legacy of at least 4 memorable films. I found Peter Weir’s breakthrough film Picnic on Hanging Rock slow paced. Gallipoli was more for Australians and New Zealanders. Witness is [...]
Table talk
…. And now here’s a list to keep Ruster movie fans everywhere reflecting over their bacon and eggs this morning: Tim Robey and Robbie Collin – film critics for The Daily Telegraph – make their selection of the 100 best British movies of all time – see here, courtesy of [...]
Uncut Gems and Ernst Lubitsch
Two film buffs I know well recommended to me Uncut Gems. One described it well as a New York Jewish Del-Boy film. Howie Rayner is a gem dealer living life on its edge. Up to his knees in debt because of his gambling he acquires a rock from an Ethiopian mine with an opal in it. A top basketball [...]
The Directors/Joseph Mankiewicz
Although I was not that impressed by the first choices of directors in this new SKY ARTS series – Sydney Pollack and Otto Preminger – I certainly was by the third Joseph Mankiewicz. From this distance of time I do not recall when why or where I saw his masterpiece All About Eve [...]
Kirk Douglas, Otto Preminger and Paul Gambaccini
My favourite Kirk Douglas movie was neither Spartacus nor Paths of Glory but Cast a Giant Shadow (1966). This was the true story of David Daniel “Mickey” Marcus and it’s an inspiring one unlike the loosely strung “based on a true story” of many a contemporary film. Mickey [...]
The Personal Story of David Copperfield
The controversy over this film is the degree of diversity in the casting where virtually every family seems to be of mixed parentage. My own view is to quote Oscar Wilde: “There is no such thing as a pornographic book: it’s either good or bad.” In my view this was a good film, well paced, [...]
The Longest Day (1962)
We resourceful Rusters have various ways of getting though the festive period, mine was the film The Longest Day. I had seen the 1962 movie but it was some time ago. Various attractions led me to select it from the World War 2 section of my DVD box. The first was the cast: virtually every major [...]
Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker
The latest Sky Wars movie attracted poor reviews and I for one was pleased. There are those critics and viewers who hail the 1975 original film produced by George Lucas as the turning point of Twentieth century cinema. If that is so I would cite three reasons why the effect was negative: (1) After [...]
