Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) is the leader of a quartet of ‘droogs’ in an unspecified English city in the near future. They spend their nights raping, brawling, attacking helpless drunks and breaking into houses. Fissures develop in the group when two of the four members, Dim (Warren Clarke) and Georgie (James Marcus), express an unwillingness…
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A collection of high-quality academic essays.
Carnival Of Souls (1962): Synopsis, Analysis
Hailed as a low budget unintentional horror masterpiece, Carnival of Souls has become the standard for the late 50s, early 60s genre of American horror. Yet, conversely, it also seems to transcend the category entirely. Its deliberate pacing and unorthodox composition elements honestly seem more attuned to the sensibilities of contemporary, French new-wave cinema than…
Brazil (Movie): Summary, Explanation
When Kafka wrote The Trial, he set it out of any specific point in history, making it contemporary to all time. Whereas in 1948, when George Orwell wrote 1984, it had a necessarily futuristic element to it. When Terry Gilliam fused both these stories into his intellectually loaded and visually remarkable masterpiece, Brazil, one of…
The Blues Brothers (Movie): Synopsis & Review
They’re ‘on a Mission from G-ahhd!’ Not ‘God’, let alone the high-English, biblical epic ‘GAUGHD’, but pure Chicago Ethnic-Catholic ‘G-ahhd’. The Blues Brothers follows siblings Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) and fresh-out-of-prison ‘Joliet’ Jake Blues (John Belushi) as they try to re-unite their blues combo. They do this in order to raise $5,000 to save the…
Blade Runner (1982): Story Explained
There are period films so influential they become the reference through which we imagine the era they portray. Seminal works like Schindler’s List (1993) and Barry Lyndon (1975) define an archetypical conception for the eras they portray (the Holocaust and Georgian England respectively). The 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner was so influential in creating a…
Betty Blue (37°2 le matin) – Synopsis, Analysis
This is the film to embrace or avoid (depending on your predilection) if you have ever loved someone madly. If you have ever loved with intensity and against common sense, you will understand this film perfectly. It is one of the greatest portrayals I have ever seen of that dilemma. It is a very moving…
Barbarella: Queen Of The Galaxy – Summary & Analysis
See Barbarella do her thing! Ever wonder what it might look like if Gianni Versace had directed a Christmas pageant? Me neither, but it probably would have looked something like Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy. It’s a bizarre, futuristic take on Alice in Wonderland, full of beautiful people, quasi-surreal images and dated styles. It has…
Badlands (1973 Movie) – Summary, Analysis
In 1959 a lot of people were killing time. Kit and Holly were killing people. It seems every creatively bankrupt director has at some time or another been flying between New York and Los Angeles, and in their boredom looked out the window and noticed a country going by. ‘Eureka!’ they say into their airline…
Bad Boy Bubby: Synopsis & Analysis
All he needs is love. As a rule, Hollywood portrays the mentally disabled as quaint, likeable, quirky and entirely benign people who occasionally say the wisest things. No wait, I’m thinking of Australians. Anyway, if you want to watch both conventions refreshingly shattered, see the Australian Indy legend Bad Boy Bubby. It may seem like…
Akira (1988 Anime) – Story Summary & Analysis
Neo-Tokyo is about to E.X.P.L.O.D.E. The entire genre of Japanese Anime is a cult unto itself. I hesitate in limiting the inclusion of Anime entries to a thousand films, let alone one. Anime’s following is so passionate that no selection is going to be good enough for its devotees. So before they come home from…