Films @ Dave’s Info Cafe

I thought I would just put down a few thoughts about what I call “The New Epics” – films with scope, ambition, flair, scale, and energy – that tell gripping stories of the human condition in a way that grabs the eyes and senses. You won’t find these at the cinemas regrettably but on TV. [...]

I watched Elizabeth on the TV the other night. Again. It must be the third or fourth time that I have seen the film. It never ceases to amaze me. It is the ultimate political thriller and still manages to rack up the tension even though you know she survives and thrives in the final [...]

The western as a genre was dead until 1989 but was revived by, of all things, a made for TV mini series directed by an Englishman. That series was Lonesome Dove, a four part drama, that rekindled an American love for the western. It was made for the small screen but it had epic ambitions [...]

John Ford’s westerns have influenced so many directors throughout the world so it was not so much of a surprise when “westerns” started being made outside the Hollywood system. The most famous mutation of the traditional western was the spaghetti western. These were films made largely in Europe (Spain being the most believable location to [...]

Westerns have been around since the  era of silent film. They have been the staple of early cinema and early TV. I can remember watching many western series on the box during the sixties such as Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Rawhide and many more. But the western started to become more of an art form in [...]

I haven’t really posted anything about genres so far so I thought I would start with one of my favourite genres – the western. Genres are a way of categorizing films that have a loose set of similar characteristics. They are inevitably vague with flexible boundaries but include sets of conventions that recur in many [...]

To pigeonhole it, I suppose you might call it a revenge thriller. You have to admire its bravado and confidence in the cinematography and acting.

This film has always intrigued me. I am drawn to it like a moth to a flame. It is quite intoxicating in a very strange way. Its origins are from a book by the acclaimed science fiction author, Robert Heinlein, but, after seeing the film, you might think it came from a comic book or [...]

Many people have read the books by Thomas Harris that introduced the serial killer, Dr Hannibal Lecter, to an unsuspecting world. Who can forget Anthony Hopkin’s performance in Silence of the Lambs when that story was transferred to the silver screen. However, his first appearance was several years earlier in a small but pivotal cameo [...]

As you can see from the first part of this I am a fan of the old style epics which are usually historical stories with universal themes involving large scale conflict, and where no expense is spared, either on the costumes, settings or numbers of extras to fill the screen. However, apart from Gladiator and [...]