The Big Picture Magazine
The lengths people go to when seeking fame and fortune has been a prime target for many comedians, not least Woody Allen. Celebrity (1998) gives a broad and characteristically cynical take on the lives of the rich and famous, as well as the not-yet-rich and the not-quite-famous-enough, undoubtedly drawing on the director’s own long Hollywood career. […]
Taxi Driver’s portrait of ’70s downtown New York, complete with neon signs and porno theatres flashing through the night, is an image that sticks with you like no other. Never before has a film so full of sexuality, rage and loneliness been kept at boiling point for so long, and Travis’ final howl of violence […]
Anyone who thought Billy Wilder’s savagely cynical noir about a disgraced journalist’s search for a career-rejuvenating scoop was too sensational need only recall 2010’s media circus surrounding the plight of the 33 trapped Chilean miners. The sight of hundreds of rubberneckers flanked by publicity-hungry officials and hordes of reporters dowsing the crisis at ‘Camp Hope’ […]
Have there ever been two artists more different from each other than director Abel Ferrara and singer Madonna Louise Ciccone in Dangerous Game? Although Madonna is an icon of artificiality and calculation, Ferrara is one of brute sincerity and bedraggled aesthetics. Even Ferrara’s occasional forays into the exploitation market also belie any interest in genre […]