Articles and Lists

By Michael McNulty Why not Celebrate Good Friday with a good film? Here’s this Friday’s Forgotten Film. Written, edited and produced by Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin and Ray Ashley, Little Fugitive is a stalwart of American independent cinema. Using only their experience in photography and a miniscule budget they produced a film that was welcomed by audiences, enjoyed financial success, won a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and picked up an Oscar nomination, ultimately proving that films could...

By Linda Marric Film adaptation of well loved books haven't always had a good reaction from fans of the original source material. However, when an adaption is well crafted, it can sometimes add a whole other layer to the story and might even motivate those unfamiliar with the books to delve deeper into the writer’s other work. To celebrate the release of Ritesh Batra's brilliant adaptation of Julian Barnes’ Man Booker Prize winning novel The Sense Of An Ending, here’s...

By Michael McNulty It’s time to leave the badlands of work and turn to the badlands of the screen. This Friday’s Forgotten Film is a classic. Badlands is Terrence Malick’s Bonnie and Clyde. It went on to influence the later films True Romance and Natural Born Killers. This is Terrence Malick first film, who before dipping his toe into filmmaking had been a Rhode Scholar recognized for translated Heidegger. He directed it at the age of 30, it kick started...

By Wyndham Hacket Pain Controversial and often divisive, Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed 40 films in 14 years before his death from a drug overdose aged 37 in 1982. He was so prolific during his lifetime that even today audiences and critics are still catching up with his work that in some cases have only received limited DVD releases. The current retrospective at the BFI then represents a chance to re-evaluate a director whose work is as intriguing and important as...

By Michael McNulty With the release of Going in Style on Friday we've been thinking about the best heist scenes in film so get your team, your gloves and safe cracking tools together and settle in, here are five of the best heist and robbery scenes that film has to offer. 5. Drive - 2011 A heist is made up of many moving parts. Once you’ve grabbed the cash, merch, stash, whatever you’re calling it, it’s time to make like...

By Michael McNulty The end of another work week and it’s time to kick back in front of the box and settle into another great film. TGIFF: Thank God it’s Forgotten Film Friday. John Frankenheimer’s Seconds is a science fiction thriller with a pinch of horror delicately sprinkled over top. Released in 1966, the film never found an audience and was so poorly received at Cannes it was booed. This was the result of the commercial popularity of screen heartthrob,...

The author Agatha Christie once described a mother’s love as being like “nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dates all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.” Few other quotes so sincerely encapsulate the everlasting power that stems from the maternal connection shared between a mother and her child, but in cinema, such profound renderings are more prevalent. From children’s classics such as Disney’s Bambi, through to the more mature...

By Michael McNulty You’re in the mood for something like Turner and Hooch or maybe K-9. But it’s Forgotten Film Friday so let’s flip the switch and unearth a film that’s wholly different, here’s this Friday’s film. White Dog initially found life in 1968 as a story in Life magazine, written by Romain Gary. Gary developed it into a novel which was published in 1970. It was later adapted for the screen with Roman Polanski attached to direct, before Samuel...

By Michael McNulty Hello and welcome to this week’s instalment of Forgotten Film Friday. Dubbed the voice of Generation X, Richard Linklater’s 1991 film, Slacker, put him on the map. Helping to propelling independent filmmaking in the nineties, Linklater’s film marked the birth of Austin, Texas’s filmmaking culture and inspired Kevin Smith to make Clerks. Set in the sleepy campus town of Austin, Texas, Slacker structures itself around a series of encounters. The camera travels leisurely, tracking its characters, who...