The Big Picture Magazine
William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives concerns the fraught homecoming of three servicemen at the end of WWII, and the difficulties they encounter reintegrating into American society. One of the many things that made this film special was the casting of Harold Russell as Homer Parish, a sailor who has lost both his […]
As the MacGuffin powering the plot of the film that at last brought Jackie Chan and Jet Li together onscreen, The Forbidden Kingdom’s magic staff was destined to be an evocative object for fans of martial arts movies – but it merits consideration as more than just the emblem of that unprecedented pairing. The main […]
Of all the James Bond films, The Man With The Golden Gun may well be the one that most inspired those definitive spy spoofs, the Austin Powers films. Everything in it is incredibly camp: there’s a villain with a private island, an enormous laser and a midget manservant (who Bond battles in his – and, […]
It started with a green sock with ping pong balls for eyes. Years later some of the creatures to feature in Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s dark and scary children’s fantasy epic The Dark Crystal were about as cuddly as a monster cactus wrapped in razor wire. Hide your eyes children: here come the Garthim! […]
Throughout Boogie Nights we are aware we are watching a movie that is about pornographic movies but that is not itself pornographic. The film features sex scenes. It features the sex industry. It even features sex positive spokesperson and long-standing porn star Nina Hartley. It is a film about sex, but that does not show […]
In Issue 10 of The Big Picture Scott Jordan Harris explains how events behind the scenes of 1950’s Winchester ’73 changed film forever. In this online companion piece, he examines the glorious gun that dominates the movie’s onscreen action. Among the evocative objects identified as Screengems, the most elite are those that are eponymous. Iconic […]
In Issue 10 of The Big Picture, we look at the significance of the cheroot smoked by Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name. In this online companion piece, Scott Jordan Harris examines another of Eastwood’s famous onscreen items: the .44 Magnum wielded by ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan. Many of cinema’s most evocative objects are guns – […]
Up in the Air overflows with evocative objects. There is the sleek hand luggage that Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) calculates saves him a week a year (a week’s worth of hours being what anyone who flies as often as he does would waste checking in a suitcase before each flight). There is the almost mythical […]
First impressions count, and William Canfield is about to be disappointed. Beset by the empire-building intentions of a rival Mississippi paddle steamer boss, Canfield – known as Steamboat Bill – receives a telegram telling of the impending arrival of his son, Willie (Buster Keaton). It will be the first time Canfield has seen his offspring […]