We review Laura Wandel’s sensitive portrayal of childhood shortlisted for Best International Film at this year’s Academy Awards
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New Release: Playground (Un Monde)
Author: Gabriel Solomons
Gabriel's earliest cinematic memory was believing a man could fly in Richard Donner's original (and best) Superman. Following numerous failed attempts at pursuing a career as a caped crusader (mild vertigo didn't help), he subsequently settled down into the far safer – but infinitely less exciting – world of editorial design. A brief stint at the Independent newspaper in London sharpened his skills but cemented his desire to escape the big smoke forever, choosing to settle in the west country. He set up the arts and culture magazine 'Decode' in 2003 and currently edits and art directs the Big Picture magazine. When asked by mates what his favourite film is he replies The Big Lebowski while when in the presence of film afficianados he goes all poncy and says Fellini's 8 1/2.
It was purely by accident that I was recommended a film the other day which featured the actress Sally Kellerman who sadly passed away on the 24th February at the age of 84. The film was Adrian Lyne’s Foxes (1980), starring Jodie Foster as 15 year old tearaway Jeanie juggling the unfair demands of adulthood […]
Prior to the release in 1976 of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, based on Paul Schrader’s screenplay, the popular image in movies of taxi drivers were of amiable but somewhat chatty folk — prone to waffle on about the weather, politics or state of world affairs, while passengers did their best impression of accommodating politeness. In […]
Warning: Spoilers Ahead The unlikely arrival of Diego Maradona into Naples on 5 July 1984, following a record transfer fee from Barcelona of £6.9 million, would change the fortunes of the city and those of its inhabitants who believed the footballing talisman to be no less than a God. In just three short years he […]
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The Big Picture Podcast: Licorice Pizza
In this episode Gabriel and Tom discuss Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest meandering opus, Licorice Pizza (2021). A tale of love, lust, ambition and pinball with two stellar central performances by newcomers Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman as an unlikely couple struck by cupid’s bent arrow. A sweeping, fast-paced romp through a sun-drenched and pot-infused San […]
Spoilers Ahead… Beware! It was the English screenwriter Angus MacPhail who first coined the term MacGuffin in the early 1930s while working with Alfred Hitchcock to describe objects that help to drive the plot of a story but are insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in themselves. Jane Campion’s latest film The Power of the Dog, […]
Some of The Big Picture’s regular contributors share their choices for the best films of 2021. Part 5. The Power of the Dog (Dir. Jane Campion) Jane Campion’s 1920’s set film, about two Montana ranch owning brothers whose lives change irrevocably when one of them marries, is a slow burn masterpiece that demonstrates once again Campion’s […]
*Spoiler Alert: Main plot-points revealed below. With the likes of 1980s throwback fare such as Stranger Things, Cobra Kai and the IT film series pleasing both Gen Z and X’ers, the time no doubt felt right for a new Ghostbusters movie with kids front and center. This latest instalment (effectively a sequel to 1989’s Ghostbusters […]
In this episode Gabriel and Tom are joined by Jez Conolly, co-author of a new book about the 1966 John Frankenheimer film Seconds; a nightmarish journey into sci-fi paranoia that is now considered a classic of post-McCarthy era American cinema. Part noir thriller and part body horror, the film – which initially flopped at the […]
