The Big Picture Magazine
Cinema’s backlot is simply littered with severed fingers. They’ve been tenderised with hammers in Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995) and Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011), become the natural stage one amputation in such Torture Porn tours de force as Hostel (Eli Roth, 2005) and Wolf Creek (Greg McLean, 2005) and have been bloodily obliterated in the urban shoot-outs of Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) and Robocop (Paul Verhoeven, […]
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love is unabashedly romantic. The film has a wide-eyed, almost naïve belief in the power of love told through the story of the child-like Barry Egan (Adam Sandler), and the symbolic use of an obscure instrument. When Barry finds an old harmonium outside his office, it’s somewhat unexpected. Landing on […]
First of all, there is still an Art House in Champaign, IL. When I saw My Own Private Idaho there in 1991 it had been called the “New Art” theater since around ‘87, when it was resurrected from its seedy past as a 70’s porn venue. The theater has been in existence since the early […]
Hammer Films’ second foray into the world of gothic horror, Dracula, changed the fortunes of both the studio and the film’s two stars forever, making each in their own way indelibly linked with the sinister Count and his tenacious nemesis. Until the late 1950’s Hammer had remained a low key studio producing small budget potboilers […]
“Just a rubber ball,” says magician Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) after a member of his audience has inspected it prior to the first public performance of his new trick. “No, not a normal rubber ball. It’s magic.” Said trick is The Transporting Man, in which Borden begins to bounce the ball across the stage before […]
Picture this: it’s been a long day and you’ve been driving since early morning. Suddenly, just off the highway, you notice a motel and decide to stop for the night. After booking in and passing the time of day with the young owner (he seems a little odd but, as he’s alone, it would be […]
As a tie-in to the print issue’s theme of ‘Winter’s Discontent’, Neil Mitchell looks at an object that carried just as much physical weight as it did metaphorical baggage in Courtney Hunt’s frosty, border-crossing thriller. Brief as its appearance in Courtney Hunt’s taut, downbeat thriller it may be, but the duffel bag that’s dumped and […]
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (or Chitty as she was affectionately referred to) was quite simply the most ‘fantasmagorical’ vehicle ever seen on the silver screen. Though the film’s cast and locations were equally crazy it was the eponymous Edwardian racing car, from which the family favourite Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) took its name, which […]
Like Pandora’s Box, the Lament Configuration Box had the power to unleash Hell on Earth. Unlike that particular casket of secrets however, this one held little hope at the bottom for those unfortunate enough to open it. The box, which made its screen debut in Hellraiser (1987) and is to all intents a variation on […]