Giacchino got me hooked harder on his score than any Gotham drop-dealer ever could.
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Batman Returns 1992
It’s wild how Tim Burton seemingly strapped hundreds of tiny rockets to actual penguins and used them in the final act of Batman Returns. This same man went on to insist his crew train dozens of squirrels to expertly listen to, crack, and discard walnuts instead of using CGI in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. If that isn’t commitment to storytelling then I don’t know what is. Burton’s morose delight in relishing those practical and preposterous elements bring his earlier…
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Wolf 1994
Mike Nichols is often remembered as one of the American masters of 20th Century cinema. With Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate (both firm favourites of mine) he stated his case as an auteur to be reckoned with. But his 40 years of filmmaking that followed yielded such an eclectic crop of hits and misfires. Many underwhelmed like The Fortune, many are now regarded as underrated like Catch 22, and some are simply, understandably confounding like Wolf.
The…
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being 1988
“Take off your clothes.”
Easily the sexiest film to ever be set against the backdrop of a Soviet invasion. Day-Lewis is astoundingly suave as our lead sharing the narrative with Binoche and Olin who are just as seductive. Each bring an individual dimensionality to their parts as they traverse the continent in a flight from persecution toward oblique contentment. Many diminish the adaptation for losing the brilliance the novel held, but as an onscreen offering this more than earns its keep as a scenic and sensual tale of love amongst the ruins and lust never quite satisfied.
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Cabaret 1972
Cabaret is classic with a capital C. It’s ubiquity within the culture endures. It is two-handed in its influence: it is iconic, acclaimed and adored, but also crucially it innovated cinematic language. It rewrote the rule book. In fact, it tore it to shreds.
Fifty years on and it’s easy to take such a seismic work for granted by way of the musicals we have seen since. But all you need to do is take a look at the decade prior…
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Muriel's Wedding 1994
Back in the day, my go-to 'hottest take' was that Muriel's Wedding was the definitive ABBA Musical. Sure, Mamma Mia is fun, but Muriel's Wedding encapsulates the unbridled hope of ABBA's discography. It epitomises growing up on the optimism of ABBA and looking beyond your bedroom walls to the dazzling freedom awaiting you. Yet a fundamental part of freedom is the weight of expectation that follows. To succeed, to prosper, to marry: All come to ground our wonderment in reality.…
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Metropolitan 1990
“It's a tiny bit arrogant of people to go around worrying about those less fortunate.”
We glimpse the life for a young New York debutant edging his way into high society. In his rented tuxedo, Tommy Townsend finds himself ingratiated into the highest echelon of the Manhattan elite. His ambitions have laid dormant, draped beneath a veil of self-proclaimed Fouriesrian socialism, but quickly his ideological convictions give way to the allure of the bourgeoisie. Tom gravitates into the orbit of…
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Pastoral: To Die in the Country 1974
Unforgettable for every great and garish reason imaginable. Aesthetic wonderment presenting demented, absurd and violent acts as if they it were all some candy-coated concoction. It is notably if only for its irreplaceable tone that will leave you stunned and cinematically seasick.
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