Christopher Saunders

LATEST ARTICLES ( 659 )

• Two Glass Menageries: 1950 and 1987

  

  Tennessee Willams has fared pretty well onscreen: A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer all became classic movies. (We can... Read more

  Posted on 15 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Glass Menagerie (1973)

  

  Four years after The Lion in Winter, Anthony Harvey and Katharine Hepburn re-teamed on The Glass Menagerie (1973). This classy television adaptation of Tennesse... Read more

  Posted on 13 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• A Cry in the Dark

  

  Fred Schepisi explores the intersection of crime and media in A Cry in the Dark (1988), aka Evil Angels. Despite inspiring endless jokes about dingo-eating... Read more

  Posted on 10 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Railway Man

  

  Jonathan Teplitzky's The Railway Man (2013) mixes powerful moments with clunky storytelling. Based on Eric Lomax's memoir of wartime suffering and atonement,... Read more

  Posted on 08 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Amistad

  

  (1997) is Steven Spielberg's most schizophrenic film. When focused on its central story - the plight of 53 slaves tried for piracy and murder - it's remarkably... Read more

  Posted on 07 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Don Jon

  

  Joseph Gordon-Levitt's enjoyed a steady ascent from child star to indie lead to A-lister. Now he breaks into directing with Don Jon (2013), a clever film... Read more

  Posted on 05 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Year of Living Dangerously

  

  Peter Weir bid farewell to Australian cinema with The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), an ambitious adaptation of Christopher Koch's novel. Read more

  Posted on 04 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• RIP Bob Hoskins

  

  Wednesday saw the passing of Bob Hoskins. Short, gravel voiced and ferocious, Hoskins racked up a long and diverse film career: Royal Flash, Zulu Dawn, Brazil,... Read more

  Posted on 03 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Scarlet Street

  

  Reteaming his stars from The Woman in the Window, Fritz Lang adapts George de La Fouchardière's novel La Chienne into a grim film noir. Read more

  Posted on 01 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Unforgiven (1960)

  

  John Huston's The Unforgiven (1960) is one strange Western. Based on an Alan Lemay novel, Unforgiven mixes incongruous elements (message movie, action film,... Read more

  Posted on 27 April 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Undefeated

  

  After his Oscar-winning turn in True Grit, John Wayne coasted in lazy vehicles ranging from mediocre to terrible. Andrew McLaglen's The Undefeated (1969) sets... Read more

  Posted on 27 April 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Pursued

  

  Raoul Walsh's Pursued (1947) presages the '50s trend in psychological Westerns, swapping the genre's simple morality for tortured introspection. Read more

  Posted on 26 April 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Kangaroo (1952)

  

  was Hollywood's first movie shot in Australia, seemingly calculated to offend natives. Ads proclaimed Australia "a continent that time forgot" (surely news to... Read more

  Posted on 22 April 2014

• Under the Skin

  

  Ever since Scarlett Johansson went from indie darling to A lister, she's generated inexplicable resentment. True, Johansson's made some risible movies (The Blac... Read more

  Posted on 20 April 2014

• Titanic (1997)

  

  James Cameron's Titanic (1997) scarcely needs an introduction. A phenomenon when released, it smashed box office records, played for nearly a year and won 11... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2014

• Man Hunt (1941)

  

  Among Classic Hollywood's German expatriates, Fritz Lang evinced the most bitterness towards his homeland. He considered Germany irredeemably sullied by its pac... Read more

  Posted on 18 April 2014

• Milius (2013)

  

  John Milius is a true Hollywood original. As a screenwriter he's penned some of cinema's most quotable scripts: Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, Jaws' Indianapolis... Read more

  Posted on 17 April 2014

• Sandra

  

  Between The Leopard and his later epics, Luchino Visconti directed several middling small-scale films. Sandra (1965) is an operatic chamber drama, small-scaled... Read more

  Posted on 16 April 2014

• Beneath Hill 60

  

  (2010) plays like a classic Hollywood war film with an Aussie twist. Jeremy Hartley Sim's First World War epic offers few surprises, yet it's a compelling watch. Read more

  Posted on 15 April 2014

• Sunday Too Far Away

  

  Among Australia's New Wave films, Sunday Too Far Away (1975) is something of an outlier. Ken Hannam's low key film fits more comfortably with slice of life... Read more

  Posted on 13 April 2014