The Big Picture Magazine
They are men who are staring down death as they are flying dangerous missions over treacherous mountain terrain, come rain, shine or fog. The short landing strips are no less hazardous. They have poor navigational equipment and makeshift planes, but they are hard-shelled and have an unconquerable spirit. It’s an electrifying, fast-paced, past-the-edge-of-yourself world, one […]
“The living room was still stuffy from last night’s cigars. The windows were closed and the sunshine coming in through the Venetian blinds showed up the dust in the air.” The only time when Fred MacMurray’s Walter Neff is shown in broad daylight in Double Indemnity (1944) is when the flashback begins, right before he meets Barbara […]
She rips the sleeve off of a denim shirt and makes herself two bandanas to wear around her neck. She’s dressed in washed-up blue jeans, white cowboy boots and white tank top. She then sits next to an old man with a beat-up white cowboy hat on. She takes off all her jewellery, her earrings, […]
In 1980, Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo launched Giorgio Armani’s career. The designer went on to revolutionize fashion, and menswear and womenswear have never been quite the same. A decade later, when Armani heard that the director was going to film The Comfort of Strangers (1990) in Italy, he reportedly called and asked: “Can I give you […]
A blockbuster in the 1970s meant an entirely different thing than it means today. Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) is, plain and simple, a great adventure movie and one of the most effective thrillers ever made: the kind that keeps you on the edge of your seat, getting you to identify with the characters and ask […]
The trench is the opposite of a statement piece. It’s equally embraced by men and women, molding itself to the wearer. And it couldn’t reflect two more different characters than those of Meryl Streep’s Joanna and Dustin Hoffman’s Ted in Robert Benton’s Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). But before getting into his and her trench, there is […]
During the making of La Chinoise, Jean-Luc Godard – the renowned pioneer of the Nouvelle Vague – fell in love with actress Anne Wiazemsky and later married her. She was his muse and his wife for 12 years. Adapted from Anne’s own memoirs, One Year After, Le Redoutable is structured around Wiazemsky and Godard’s marriage, but set largely […]
Less than a month since the release of Blade Runner 2049, and thirty-five years after the premiere of Blade Runner, I am still celebrating the original. Set in a dystopian 2019, Ridley Scott’s film envisioned a decaying Los Angeles, bleak and neon-lit, with overpopulated streets and striking cityscapes of dark buildings soaring up into smog-covered […]