Christopher Saunders

LATEST ARTICLES ( 659 )

• Chinatown

  

  Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974) is a very '70s film noir, the plot turning on government corruption, corporate greed and personal coverups. Read more

  Posted on 07 February 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Mister Roberts

  

  (1955) seemed a slam dunk to Warner Bros.: John Ford directing Henry Fonda in a reprise of his long-running stage role. It turned into a nightmare, with directo... Read more

  Posted on 01 February 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Donovan's Reef

  

  John Ford's Donovan's Reef (1963) is a frivolous oddity that critics love dissecting. Peter Wollen describes it as "a kind of Valhalla for the homeless heroes o... Read more

  Posted on 31 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Selma

  

  Decades removed from denunciations as a race-baiting Communist, Martin Luther King Jr. ranks alongside the Founding Fathers as a sanctified American. Read more

  Posted on 27 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Groggy on Moviepilot: Z

  

  Another week, another piece on Moviepilot: this time on Costa-Gavras's Z. Writing this article required some actual research: certainly I know more about 20th... Read more

  Posted on 24 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Garden of Evil

  

  Henry Hathaway's Garden of Evil (1954) is a badly overblown Western. The movie's graced by beautiful photography and three excellent leads, yet feels clunky... Read more

  Posted on 23 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Confession (1970)

  

  After savaging Greece's military junta in Z (1969), Costa-Gavras targets Stalinist barbarity in The Confession (1970). Based on Czech official Artur London's... Read more

  Posted on 19 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Oscar Announcements

  

  We start by recognizing that after Birdman, all the Best Picture nominees are shit.First, another Moviepilot article to pimp, this one on The Day of the... Read more

  Posted on 17 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Behold a Pale Horse

  

  (1964) was a rare flop for Fred Zinnemann. A portentous revenge saga, its soggy storytelling never comes to life, while miscast stars flounder in unsuitable... Read more

  Posted on 15 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Golden Globes, Etc.

  

  The Golden Globes were last night, so that everyone knows, more or less, what to expect on Oscar night. The winners are:MOTION PICTURESBest DramaWINNER:... Read more

  Posted on 13 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Jackal

  

  In the mid-'90s, some Universal Studios wiseacre decided to remake The Day of the Jackal (1973). Then Jackal's creators, novelist Frederick Forsyth and... Read more

  Posted on 12 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Groggy on Moviepilot: Algerian War Movies

  

  My latest Moviepilot piece dropped today: Shadows of Savagery: The Algerian War on Film. This article covers 54 years' worth of films about France's "savage... Read more

  Posted on 11 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Gangs of New York

  

  Martin Scorsese spent decades preparing Gangs of New York (2002). It's a world apart from his usual crime sagas, a grandly ambitious, monumentally flawed... Read more

  Posted on 06 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Best and Worst Film Viewings of 2014

  

  Surviving another Christopher Nolan movie2014 wasn't a great movie year. I went through my archives before preparing this list and saw that only six new viewing... Read more

  Posted on 03 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Rawhide (1951)

  

  The Fifties were replete with Westerns valuing suspense over action, most famously High Noon and 3:10 to Yuma. Henry Hathaway's Rawhide (1951) is practically a... Read more

  Posted on 03 January 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Imitation Game

  

  It's Christmastime, so let's watch some ostentatious Oscar bait. Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game (2014) provides a competent biopic of Alan Turing,... Read more

  Posted on 29 December 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Birdman, Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

  

  I've spent three days puzzling Birdman (2014), a deceptively complex movie. Credit director-cowriter Alejandro González Iñárritu for crafting something distinct. Read more

  Posted on 24 December 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• An Historical Holiday Interlude

  

  I watched a few films this weekend, but haven't gotten around to reviewing them yet. Mainly because I've been researching the American Civil War,... Read more

  Posted on 22 December 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Suddenly

  

  "When you have a gun, you are in a way sort of a God."Suddenly (1954) was a minor Frank Sinatra film until the unspeakable happened. Lee Harvey Oswald caught... Read more

  Posted on 19 December 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• To Be Or Not to Be (1942)

  

  When Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not To Be (1942) hit theaters at the height of World War II, many critics attacked it as inappropriately lighthearted. Read more

  Posted on 17 December 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES