Ticket to Heaven (1981)
Some spiritual journeys are healing and empowering. Some aren’t. CBC Radio’s excellent Sunday afternoon series Tapestry covers the former very well. R.L. Thomas’ 1981 film Ticket to Heaven is about the latter. One of the best English-Canadian productions of the Eighties (winner of 1982 Genie awards for Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor), […]
To Sleep With Anger (1990)
My doorknob keeps on turnin’ It must be spooks around my bed My doorknob keeps on turnin’ must be spooks around my bed I have a warm, old feelin’ and the hair risin’ on my head –Robert Johnson Trust me. The paragraph which follows was not cribbed from an old sociology paper of mine from […]
Scarlet Street (1945)
One of these years, I’ll get my timing right. It’s just occurred to me that reviewing Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street (1945) in the same month as Valentine’s Day is about as apropos as writing about Lang’s M for the Christmas season. Unfortunately, I only have to time to check out one classic film a month, […]
The President’s Analyst (1967)
[Author’s Note: This is the second half of my January 1998 column, which covered three films. The first film was The Scent of Green Papaya. The second and third are included here, although my follow-up focus only covers the second film.] What would life be without a couple of good paranoid fantasies to liven it […]
The Scent of Green Papaya (1993)
The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), by the Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung, and the first Vietnamese film to be released in the U.S., is the cinematic equivalent of a Japanese bonsai. Just as a bonsai tree manages to capture the beauty and depth of its real-life model on a breathtakingly reduced scale, The Scent […]
Richard III (1995)
“The Rat, the Cat, and Lovell the Dog / Rule all England under the Hog.” Richard III was not the most fortunate of the English kings. His name has been carried down in history as synonymous with villainy in its vilest forms. But had Richard been friends with either Conrad Black or Brian Mulroney, things […]
Zebrahead (1992)
I can remember sitting in the Civic Theatre in Nelson on a Friday night in 1984, eagerly awaiting the Kootenay premier of one of the most anticipated movies of that year–David Lynch’s $45 million Dune. Frank Herbert’s original novel was part of that great Sixties trinity of epic science fiction / fantasy that also included […]
Housekeeping (1987)
“Now it’s just my luck to have the watch, with nothing left to do But watch the deadly waters glide as we roll north to the ‘Soo,’ And wonder when they’ll turn again and pitch us to the rail And whirl off one more youngster in the gale.” –from Stan Roger’s “White Squall” Bill […]
Out of the Past (1947)
[Sam] Spade pulled his hand out of hers. He no longer either smiled or grimaced. His wet yellow face was set hard and deeply lined. His eyes burned madly. He said: “Listen. This isn’t a damned bit of good. You’ll never understand me, but I’ll try once more and then we’ll give it up. Listen. […]
Mr. Baseball (1992)
[Author’s Note: This is the second half of one of the rare monthly columns where I covered more than a single film. The first half featured Ben Hecht’s Specter of the Rose, which is referenced in the opening line below.] “We’re not athletes, we’re baseball players.” –Tom Selleck, in Mr. Baseball Where Hecht and company […]