Christopher Saunders

LATEST ARTICLES ( 659 )

• The Life of Emile Zola

  

  "Truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it."Paul Muni had a remarkable string of films in the 1930s, mixing socially conscious dramas (I Am a Fugitive fro... Read more

  Posted on 25 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• I Accuse!

  

  Critics and audiences dismissed I Accuse! (1958), director-star Jose Ferrer's rendering of the Dreyfus Affair. Comparisons to the Oscar-winning The Life of Emil... Read more

  Posted on 20 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Hannie Caulder

  

  "There are no hard women... only soft men!"Burt Kennedy's Hannie Caulder (1971) is a curious seventies artifact. Part Spaghetti Western, part feminist revenge... Read more

  Posted on 19 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• I Never Sang for My Father

  

  There's no greater human tragedy than the failure to communicate. Gilbert Cates' I Never Sang for My Father (1970) conveys this in a heart-wrenching father-son... Read more

  Posted on 18 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Apocalypse Now

  

  "I see no method at all, sir."Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) is legendary, from its nightmarish production to the mystifying end product. Read more

  Posted on 14 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Il Divo

  

  "Power wears out those who don't have it."Italian politics strikes outsiders as a wild, inscrutable circus. Perhaps that's why Il Divo (2008) is such a bizarre... Read more

  Posted on 13 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Mississippi Burning

  

  Alan Parker built his career on overwrought dramas that boil "important" issues into high-gloss exploitation. Today, Midnight Express (1978) is less shocking... Read more

  Posted on 30 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The China Syndrome

  

  The last great '70s thriller, The China Syndrome (1979) earned immortality by coming out twelve days before Three Mile Island's near-meltdown. Read more

  Posted on 28 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Go-Between

  

  "We can't expect to be happy all the time, can we?"The Go-Between (1971) marks Joseph Losey's final collaboration with Harold Pinter. After The Servant (1963)... Read more

  Posted on 28 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Quorum Call: The Godfather, Part II's Senate Committee

  

  A major portion of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Part II (1974) involves Michael Corleone's interrogation by the United States Senate. Read more

  Posted on 23 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Brotherhood

  

  Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde inspired a new wave of gangster films, which The Brotherhood (1968) nearly whacked. Martin Ritt's crime saga was a notorious flop... Read more

  Posted on 22 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Go Tell the Spartans

  

  "That's the way the US kicks ass, Charlie!"1978 saw the Vietnam War belatedly exploding onscreen, with Coming Home and The Deer Hunter competing for box office... Read more

  Posted on 21 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Sebastian

  

  By the late '60s the spy film was already overplayed, forcing filmmakers to stand out among endless James Bond clones. David Greene's Sebastian (1968) grafts Mo... Read more

  Posted on 19 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Casino

  

  Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995) lives in the shadow of Goodfellas, understandable if not entirely fair. After all, both films are sprawling gangland epics... Read more

  Posted on 15 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Lives of Others

  

  Communist East Germany provides the setting for The Lives of Others (2006), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's remarkable debut. Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Valachi Papers

  

  Dino De Laurentiis had been developing The Valachi Papers (1972) for several years before The Godfather scooped him. After that film's success, Valachi proved... Read more

  Posted on 09 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Rain People

  

  Despite mainstream success, Francis Ford Coppola has always been an experimental director at heart. His fourth feature, The Rain People (1969), is a... Read more

  Posted on 05 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Godfather, Part III

  

  Few people have much good to say about The Godfather Part III (1990). Despite generally positive reviews and several Oscar nominations, it became an instant... Read more

  Posted on 02 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Southpaw

  

  No subgenre's more predictable than the boxing movie, and Southpaw (2015) has no surprises. Antoine Fuqua's latest is an R-rated Rocky, revisiting old clichés... Read more

  Posted on 02 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• State of Siege

  

  Costa-Gavras is an equal-opportunity antiauthoritarian. After Z (1969) attacked Greece's slide into reactionary dictatorship, he excoriated Communist... Read more

  Posted on 01 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES