The Big Picture Magazine
Rock bottom. While we’ve all seen it portrayed in countless movies, have any of us actually hit it? In a scene a few minutes into Sydney Lumet’s 1982 courtroom drama The Verdict, we are left in no doubt that disgraced former star attorney Frank Galvin (Paul Newman) is staring rock bottom full in the face, […]
The Union Broadcasting System took a risk when they let a visibly unwell Howard Beale on air. With his frantic demeanour and dishevelled appearance, the anchorman was in no state to present the news. What Beale does instead is denounce the social ills of 1970s America in a monologue that keeps escalating in its hysteria. […]
No doubt frazzled by the Cold War running ever hotter, it is not surprising that audiences in 1964 preferred their nuclear scare movies in the mould of the scabrously satirical Dr Strangelove, rather than the grimly portentous Fail Safe. No film before or since has played out the nightmarish endgame of Mutually Assured Destruction to […]
Earlier this year, Clint Eastwood’s 80th birthday heralded a major celebration and retrospective for one of cinema’s most cherished elder statesmen. On 25th August, Sean Connery reaches the same milestone, but it’s doubtful it will be marked with anything like the same fanfare. Connery remains eternally underrated. Forever associated with James Bond, it’s become assumed […]