western
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by Oscar O’Sullivan Monday – Octopussy Let us consider, if you will, a climactic action scene from the film Octopussy. Roger Moore’s Agent 007, having tumbled from a train while chasing down the villains, has rushed across Germany by hitchhiking and stealing cars. Upon finally reaching the military base that is soon to be obliterated…
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by Oscar O’Sullivan Monday – For Your Eyes Only Much as I love the elevated tone and casual irreverence of most of the Bond films so far, watching one suddenly take itself completely seriously was a real eye-opener, especially right after the series reached the absolute pinnacle of camp fun with Moonraker. For Your Eyes…
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by Oscar O’Sullivan Before we get into this week’s reviews, I’d like to point you in the direction of another piece I wrote recently for the wonderful UCC Film Writers Blog. Have you ever wondered what the deal is with the Wachowski Sisters? Good news! I’ve slapped together 3000 words of a whirlwind beginners guide…
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by Oscar O’Sullivan Monday – Whisky Galore and The Spy Who Loved Me I’ll generally concede that the British make great comedy, but this wasn’t it. Whisky Galore should be an anarchic good time, and is advertised as a subversive anti-authority piece, but it feels too entrenched in the sensibilities of its time to work…
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by Oscar O’Sullivan Monday – North by Northwest Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller is good clean fun with a thin but obvious layer of underlying innuendo that gives the central romance some much-needed bite that the airy-fairy political plotline inevitably lacks. The vague Cold War reveals of what’s really going on don’t matter as much as…
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by Oscar O’Sullivan Monday – Police Story Sometimes the most difficult films to discuss are the most self-evidently brilliant. What can I say about the film that isn’t obvious just from looking at it? Directed by and starring Jackie Chan, Police Story is far from your average cop procedural. From the very first scenes it…
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by Oscar O’Sullivan The town of Horizon is burning. We’ve watched for minutes now as Native Americans descend upon the settlers and mow them down, setting every structure aflame and battering down the barricades of the last survivors. It’s brutally violent without being graphic, lighting and tasteful angles concealing gore without blunting the impacts. Families…
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by Oscar O’Sullivan Monday – His Name Was King and Joe Kidd It’s easy to be romantic about a genre when all you’ve seen of it is the best examples. Is it strictly necessary to dig into the cast-off excrement of the medium? Once in a blue moon, maybe. Even a turd can contain something…
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by Oscar O’Sullivan Monday – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid As the 1960s drew to a close and the writing was seemingly on the wall for the Hollywood Western, there was a sense that any Western released was a farewell tour. While some directors chose to put the genre to bed with deconstructions that…
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By Oscar O’Sullivan Monday – The Magnificent Seven This remake of the Japanese classic Seven Samurai is a strong case study in the fundamental similarity of the Western and Samurai genres, as well as their key differences. Both films follow a mismatched group of seven warriors who come together to protect a poor village from…
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