In Contention

Tag: Marathon Man

  • THE LISTS: In Contention’s top 20 horror films of all time

    228 Days LaterYes, how trite.  Another list of the “best” horror films of all time.  But this really is the most subjective of genres, is it not?  What is scary to us all has slipped out of the realm of the universal and become much more of a personal thing.

    Certain films are inarguable, as our list certainly reflects here and there.  But across the landscape of horror filmmaking, you find perhaps the broadest range of creativity in the medium.  So it goes without saying that a list such as this ought to be varied.

    Unlike the other lists we’ve featured here at In Contention, our rundown of the 20 best horror films of all time did not spring from the mind of this writer or that, but is instead representative of the collective.  We’ve polled each of our six contributors to ascertain their high marks in the genre and, through a complicated process of tabulation that involved thorough computation, lots of late nights and perhaps an abacus as well, the list was whittled down to the 20 films you see here.

    There are mainstays aplenty, but we think you’ll be surprised by a few of the entries.  Each of us hold very different opinions, as should be expected when you get a southerner L.A. transplant, an Arkansas law professor, two Toronto natives 20 years apart in age, a north easterner who recently made the trek out west and a humble Brit.

    We hope you enjoy the list.

    (more…)

  • The under-appreciated

    (from left) John Wayne and James Stewart in The ShootistWe all know that there are brilliant films that sometimes never find an audience, slipping out of theatres long before they should and often disappearing into the void of the home market.

    In fairness, the advent of VHS and now DVD has allowed for such films to be re-discovered by future generations, and VHS was easily responsible for saving “Blade Runner” in the 1980s.  But these types of films deserved beter in their initial runs. Perhaps the studios were not clear on how to release them (often the case).  Perhaps critics did not get the film.  Or perhaps audiences just stayed away despite strong reviews.  Whatever the reason, there are often times that a great film just doesn’t catch on.

    I am currently contracted to write a study of the films Steven Spielberg has directed, and following that, I will be writing a study of under-appreciated films from the 1970s and 1980s. This has now been expanded into a decade-by-decade series, beginning with the 1980s (to be released in 2010), then the 1970s, the 1990s and the current decade, each one a year apart.  For obvious reasons, I am quite excited about them.

    For me, some of the more under-appreciated gems from the 1970s and 1980s for me have been films like “Black Sunday,” featuring an Osca-caliber performance from Bruce Dern, and still the best film ever made about international terrorism; John Wayne’s last film, “The Shootist,” in which The Duke portrays an aging gunslinger dying of cancer when he himself was being ravaged by the disease; the odd little western “The Missouri Breaks,” with Brando and Nicholson going toe-to-toe; the sensational musical “Hair,” directed by Oscar winner Milos Forman, who really does recreate the summer of love.

    (more…)

  • Peter Finch and the posthumous Oscar

    Peter Finch in NetworkPeter Finch’es wide-eyed, frantic performance as newsman Howard Beale in Sidney Lumet’s “Network” became a touchstone for North America in 1976 because we too were “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.”

    Vietnam was over, though the vets were struggling with their various personal horrors.  Nixon had resigned, leaving a mistrustful America in his wake.  And up here in Canada, we were dealing with a Prime Minister who was often more playboy than politician.  Lumet’s searing film, from an original screenplay by Paddy Chayevsky, was timely indeed.

    Whispers of a posthumous Oscar have circulated Heath Ledger’s performance in “The Dark Knight” for weeks now, bringing Finch’s seizure of the Best Actor trophy back to the forefront of discussion.  But was Finch’s win a recognition of the performance or was it fueled by his unfortunate dead in January of 1977?

    (more…)

  • 1976: a great year and Oscar blew it

    Continuing the conversation on great years for movies (1974 being my pick for the best), I thought I’d dig into a season rich with material that slipped through Oscar’s fingers.

    The American bicentennial year was loaded with wonderful films — ground-breaking works that stunned both audiences and critics with their mastery. Three of them were nominated for Best Picture, some of the others were not, yet the eventual winner was a low budget love story about a boxer that wanted to prove he wasn’t just another bum from the neighborhood.

    The true greats of 1976:

    “All the President’s Men”

    Alan J. Pakula’s superb adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about their investigation of the Watergate burglary was born out of an astonishing script by William Goldman. Making sense of the politics within a dense book, incredibly detailed, Goldman’s work had the good sense to make the film a detective-like thriller with well-defined characters.

    This could have been a dull, political film made to exploit the happenings in the United States at the time, but Pakula instead made one of the great films about journalism in the days before the Internet and e-mail. Robert Redford bought the rights to the book and produced the film, starring as Woodward, with Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein, both giving exceptional performances, but it was Jason Robards who blew them off the screen with his excellent performance as the crusty, wise, and ultimately loyal Washing Post editor Ben Bradlee.

    (more…)