Christopher Saunders

LATEST ARTICLES ( 667 )

• More Mabuse Madness! The Return of Dr. Mabuse, The Invisible Dr. Mabuse and The...

  

  After the success of Fritz Lang's The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960), Central Cinema Company (CCC Film) commissioned several sequels. Read more

  Posted on 01 June 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse

  

  For his final movie, Fritz Lang returned to his native Germany and a character who'd twice served him well. Fittingly perhaps, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse... Read more

  Posted on 31 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Saving Private Ryan

  

  (1998) was easily the most influential war movie in decades. Steven Spielberg's World War II epic indelibly shaped American perception of that conflict, not to... Read more

  Posted on 27 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Hannah Arendt

  

  Intellectuals make difficult movie subjects. How does a director make thinking, writing and debating esoterica compelling? Margarethe von Trotta's Hannah... Read more

  Posted on 24 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Tracker

  

  Rolf de Heer's The Tracker (2002) stands among a number of recent Australian films exploring white-Aboriginal relations. David Gulpilil gets the lead role, the... Read more

  Posted on 24 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Entertainer (1960)

  

  John Osborne's The Entertainer ranks among the best plays of its era. Where Osborne's Look Back in Anger is nigh-indigestible nastiness, The Entertainer blends... Read more

  Posted on 22 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Odd Angry Shot

  

  Australia committed 61,000 troops to the Vietnam War, yet few films show their story. Tom Jeffrey's flawed but enjoyable The Odd Angry Shot (1979) presents the... Read more

  Posted on 18 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Newsfront

  

  Beloved in Australia but little-known elsewhere, Newsfront (1978) deserves a look. It launched the career of Philip Noyce, who's balanced Hollywood... Read more

  Posted on 17 May 2014 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• 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