Films @ Dave’s Info Cafe

Well, I did watch it again with my wife this time. It is a film that bears watching again and I appreciated much more the good points of the film. However, I still stand by my comments about the ending. The beginning scenes give you all the clues to the film in a really cinematic [...]

I watched Atonement on DVD for the first time last week. I was curious to see why there was so much fuss and Oscar buzz about a British period piece set around the second world war. I also had a local interest as the much-heralded, one take scene of the beach at Dunkirk was filmed [...]

No, I’m not talking about his drunken rants against Jews but the dark side of his more recent films. Has any one noticed that you have to have a fairly strong stomach to watch the films directed by Mel Gibson? Of course you have. You have to wade through a lot of gore. It obviously [...]

1999 was one of my favourite years. I studied film and the cinema for a year at John Leggott sixth form college in Scunthorpe and ended up with an “A” Level in Film Studies. For years I had avidly watched movies at the cinema and on the television and more recently on video. I had even [...]

We all know a great film when we see one don’t we? Well not always. What is a great film to someone may be awful to someone else. Films are very subjective. Citizen Kane leaves film critics in raptures but today’s teenager will wonder what all the fuss is about (and probably hate it to [...]

In the last couple of weeks I have been musing again about maybe starting some screenplays. Being the person I am, I do like to prepare everything beforehand and have everything I need before I start. (This is also a convenient excuse when I don’t start or finish something – “I haven’t got the right [...]

Ken Loach is one of the most successful and feted British film directors of all time. He has won 64 film awards and been nominated for 38 others. Yet he has never made a “commercial” film nor had box office smash hit. And he always struggles to get finance for his films. He is the [...]

I bought a boxed set of the recent Clint Eastwood movies about the battle for Iwo Jima earlier this week from the local supermarket. I had wanted to see them at the cinema but missed them because there was such a short theatrical release for them particularly in the North East of England. First and [...]

One of my favourite film directors is Akira Kurosawa. Sadly, he is no longer with us but he has left a fantastic legacy of fine films which have had so much influence in the film world. Most people will know of him as the maker of “The Seven Samurai” – a film that told the [...]

Ever since cinema began Hollywood executives and screenwriters have been looking for the holy grail – a story structure that will work over and over again in different environments, across different genres and with different characters to lay the foundations for a successful screenplay. If you had this formula it would be like pure gold [...]