Aka: The Spaceman and King Arthur; A Spaceman in King Arthur’s Court Alongside their more famous and ground-breaking animated feature films, Disney has long had a strand of live-action films that rarely quite captured the public imagination like the animations. Some, notably Treasure Island (1950) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) remain excellent and … Continue reading
Before he became involved with the Star Wars franchise and managed to split that particular fandom right down the middle, Rian Johnson made this arresting and clever time travel drama. It mixes genre tropes, stirring elements from westerns, gangster films, action movies and a soupcon of satire into a science fiction plot full of big … Continue reading
Edgar Selwyn’s Turn Back the Clock is a time-travelling comedy that features a classic wish fulfilment fantasy plot that delivers a moral tale about the dangers of greed and a warning that money can’t make you happy. Simplistic is the only way to describe Selwyn and Ben Hecht’s naive screenplay. 1 It’s 6 March 1933 … Continue reading
“Apes exist! Sequel required!” 1 That’s allegedly how screenwriter Paul Dehn learned that a third Planet of the Apes film was in the works after receiving the four word telegram from producer Arthur P. Jacobs following the box office success of Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). It presented Dehn with something of a … Continue reading
Director/producer Charles Band was synonymous with the rise of low budget, direct-to-video genre films in the 1980s, initially through Wizard Video (through which he gave American fans their first chance to see the likes of Zombi 2/Zombie Flesheaters (1979), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Day of the Woman/I Spit on Your Grave (1978) in … Continue reading
Chris Marker’s extraordinary short masterpiece is made up almost entirely of still images, a photo montage (a photo-roman) with narration, a few whispered voices and a low key score. Made this way out of necessity – Marker could only afford a movie camera for a single afternoon and used it to shoot the one, brief, … Continue reading
Whenever someone posts a piece listing “unappreciated”, “obscure” or “less well known” films, chances are that there’s a good percentage of the readership snorting derisively, exclaiming “Really? I’ve always known about that one!!” Which is fair enough. We’re all at very different stages in out explorations of film history and what’s obscure to one person … Continue reading
