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…
Tag: American Movies
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…
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…
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension! – Summary & Analysis
No matter where you go, there you are. Like so many cult films, this 1984 production was initially considered a box-office failure. Its cult popularity grew by word of mouth and the advocacy of American ubercritic Pauline Kael. Essentially it’s the typical story of a scientist/rock ’n’ roll musician/brain surgeon/samurai who fights evil aliens named…
On The Waterfront: Summary, Analysis
Summary: After he is used to unwittingly set up Edie Doyle’s brother to be murdered, Terry Malloy begins to see those who run the longshoremen’s trade union for the thugs they have always been. He falls in love with Edie, and through her and Father Barry has his eyes opened to the injustices of life…
Night Of The Living Dead (1968): Summary, Analysis
Summary: When the recently deceased begin to rise from the dead to feast upon the flesh of the living, a small group of embattled survivors attempt to stave off destruction by taking refuge in an abandoned western Pennsylvania farmhouse. They face the ghoulish threat of the living dead from without, but also increasing tension from…
Modern Times – Summary & Analysis
Summary: The Little Tramp’s final film strings together Depression-era vignettes. In an 83-minute film,the Tramp is arrested five times and works at four different jobs. He begins the film as an assembly line-worker but a nervous breakdown sends him to the hospital. After his release, he is arrested and imprisoned for allegedly leading a communist…
The Misfits (1961 Movie) – Summary & Analysis
Summary: Roslyn, a former burlesque dancer, has travelled to Reno, Nevada, to obtain a ‘quickie’ divorce. Shetakes up with Gay, an elderly cowboy, who persuades Perce, a struggling rodeo rider, to join him in rounding up some of the last feral mustangs of the region. Assisted by Guido, a freebooting pilot, they manage to capture…
Mildred Pierce (1945 Movie) – Summary & Analysis
Summary: In contrast to the novel on which it is based, the film is structured as a fragmented flashback which gradually unravels the story of a murder. The deliberate omission of a standard reverse shot that would have clarified the situation, tricks the viewer into thinking there is no ambiguity regarding the identity of the…
The Lodger (Movie): Synopsis & Analysis
Synopsis: Adapted from a successful novel by Marie Belloc, the film reinterprets and offers a solution to the story of infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper and reimagines the seedier parts of London in the nineteenth century.1 After an initial sequence that makes clear that the killer known by his calling card as ‘The Avenger’…