Starring: Donald Pleasance, Gary Bond, Chips Refferty, Jack Thompson Director: Ted Kotcheff A teacher in a rural Australian town finds himself stranded in the middle of nowhere after he gambles away his money. He falls in with the locals and soon finds himself degenerating to their level as the Outback makes savages of everyone.... It's… Continue reading Australian Movie Month: Wake In Fright (1971)
Starring: Barbara Loden, Michael Higgins, Dorothy Shupenes Director: Barbara Loden In a coal mining town in Pennysylvania, Wanda (Loden) wanders through life, numbing her despair with alcohol and one night stands. She sleeps on her sisters couch and drifts through temporary employment. When she meets a man in a bar, she willingly heads home with… Continue reading Classic Movie Of The Week: Wanda (1971)
Starring: Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson Director: George Cukor There have been several versions of A Star Is Born, and there's set to be another one out this year. There's something about the story of the meteoric rise of the starlet while her famous love and mentor takes a massive fall that's so dark… Continue reading Classic Movie Of The Week: A Star Is Born (1954)
Starring: Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie Director: Robert Rossen One of Paul Newman’s most loved films, The Hustler is about Fast Eddie, a pool shark who trawls the bars and pool halls to make a buck hustling games. When he falls in with a mentor who tries to teach him how to be a… Continue reading Classic Movie Of The Week: The Hustler (1961)
Starring: David Bowie, Rip Torn, Candy Clark Director: Nicolas Roeg When David Bowie died recently, the huge outpouring of grief was quite a beautiful thing. Imagine touching people’s lives like that, and inspiring so many people? My first experience with Bowie was in his film work, as Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth, which has… Continue reading Classic Movie Of The Week: The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976)
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Austin Stowell Director: Nacho Vigalondo Gloria (Hathaway) is a barely functioning alcoholic and sometime writer who lives with her handsome British boyfriend in New York. When he tires of her behavior, he kicks her out, she decides to move back to her old home town to try to get herself… Continue reading Colossal (2016)
Director: Claude Barras Rated PG-13, this is an unusual animation. A little boy lives with his alcoholic mother, til one day she dies in an accident that he blames himself for. He's sent to a foster home, where all the kids are suffering from losing their parents and from growing up in highly dysfunctional homes.… Continue reading My Life As A Zucchini (2016)
Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler Director: Kenneth Lonergan Kenneth Lonergan, the writer of Gangs Of New York and Analyze This, gets to showcase his directing chops too in this drama about a man drowning in loss, who is surprised to become the guardian of his nephew when his brother suffers from a heart… Continue reading Manchester By The Sea (2016)
Starring: Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson Director: Tate Taylor Three women who all have issues around babies, find themselves linked when Rachel (Blunt), an obsessive and alcoholic, thinks she might be involved in a missing persons case. Rachel is unable to have children, which drove her to drinking and drove her husband into the… Continue reading The Girl On The Train (2016)
Starring: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry Director: Billy Wilder Four days in the city, in the life of an alcoholic as he tries to quit, and then tries anything to get his hands on a drink. A strong indictment of alcoholism and addiction at it's worst. Ray Birnum (Milland) is a writer living in… Continue reading 105 Must See Films: The Lost Weekend (1945)
Wildfire Movies 