The Rear-View Mirror – Page 6 – A Damn Fine Cup of Culture

The Rear-View Mirror: The Good the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

Jun 28, 2019Sep 26, 2019Mege3 Comments

Please don’t think less of me, but my introduction to Westerns was Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Not only was the peak of the western genre, if not over by 1966, then at least in decline, but this one here also got not made anywhere near the New World, but mainly in Spain, and by an Italian. In a way, it’s a western twice removed, but it uses some set pieces and arrays them into a three-hour spectacle that seems to know exactly how much it can stretch any kind of suspense without actually reaching breaking point.

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The Rear-View Mirror: With a Little Help from My Friends (1967)

Jun 21, 2019Jun 21, 2019EricLeave a comment

The year 1967 stands out for a number of reasons.

It was a powerful year for movies: the world got the likes of Bonnie & Clyde, In The Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner blowing open the doors on what was previously considered taboo in the US.

It was a powerful year for history: it was the year James Bedford died. It was also the year James Bedford became the first man in history to be cryonically preserved. It was the year the United States stepped up the war in Vietnam. It was also the year that, in the middle of race riots and violence, the world seemed to unite for a single moment in opposition to Vietnam, and the Summer of Love was born.

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The Rear-View Mirror: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Jun 14, 2019Sep 26, 2019MegeLeave a comment

So you’ve got zombie fatigue, too? I don’t blame you. Even my teenage daughter has given up quite a while ago on Rick Grimes and his merry gang (and resorted to vampires, but that’s a story for another night). Even the most ardent zombie fan has to admit that the survivors of a zombie apocalypse are much more dangerous than those slouching, moaning, shuffling undead. In a way, George A. Romero had it easy: when he made his Night of the Living Dead in 1968, zombies were not yet a (excuse the pun) recurring staple of horror movies. And indeed, Romero’s debut doesn’t even use the term.

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The Rear-View Mirror: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Jun 7, 2019Jun 7, 2019MattLeave a comment

If there was alien life out there that had discovered a method to objectively measure charm and they used that to discover intelligent life in the universe, they would surely have discovered the Earth after the release of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969, directed by George Roy Hill, written by William Goldman, but most importantly starring one of the greatest double acts in Hollywood history, Paul Newman and Robert Redford as the titular characters. The effortless chemistry between Newman and Redford, combined with Hill’s assured direction and Goldman’s wit, make the film a master class in ’60s cinema. There are few films that are as purely enjoyable as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

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The Rear-View Mirror: Five Easy Pieces (1970)

May 31, 2019Sep 26, 2019MegeLeave a comment

Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!It must sound incredible to ears younger than mine, but there was a time when Jack Nicholson didn’t let his freak flag fly in every movie he was in. The Shining, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Witches of Eastwick will all make the top of any crazy poll because Jack eventually goes full Nicholson in all of them. I really don’t mind those movies, but there are other movies starring him, such as Five Easy Pieces, which use him not as a purring kitten exactly, but he brings a wonderfully layered performance to the movie.

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The Rear-View Mirror: Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

May 24, 2019Sep 26, 2019MattLeave a comment

I must have mentioned it before: I’m not a fan of film musicals. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t like the genre, but I don’t like something just because it’s a musical. At the same time, there are a lot of musicals that I do like a lot, and they generally find ways of elevating the material, of making it more effective, because the characters in them have this odd habit of breaking into song every now and then.

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The Rear-View Mirror: The Godfather (1972)

May 17, 2019Sep 26, 2019MegeLeave a comment

You could easily forget how reluctant Michael Corleone initially is to take over the family business. There are many reluctant heroes in the movies or in literature; reluctant villains are much rarer and often don’t see themselves as villains. They are set to do what seems necessary, blaming the times or the circumstances, acting for the greater good – and it’s their definition of ‘necessary’ that movies like Coppola’s The Godfather are really about.

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The Rear-View Mirror: Don’t Look Now (1973)

May 10, 2019Sep 26, 2019JulieLeave a comment

There are many mysteries and unforgettable images at the heart of Don’t Look Now. The recurring motifs of falling, broken glass and the colour red. Getting lost. Not understanding each other, not understanding what is happening. This is the way the supernatural might infringe on the every-day.

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The Rear-View Mirror: Philippe Petit (1974)

May 3, 2019Sep 26, 2019MegeLeave a comment

He is up there in the air, 417 meters above ground, a mere speck to his random audience, so you could easily mistake him for a plane or a bird. He might appear semi-abstract to you. Legend has it that, as a Parisian teenager, he had to go his dentist, but found a picture of the not-yet-built World Trade Center in New York in a magazine and drew a line between the two roofs. He left, his toothache all but forgotten, and he perfected his considerable talent as a tightrope walker and waited for the towers to be built. Until then, Philippe Petit worked his way up, from juggling and unicycling in Parisian streets to walking the tightrope between the two towers of Notre Dame, to doing the same thing between two towers of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. And then the Twin Towers got built, and in 1974, Petit was ready for them. Or they were ready for him.

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The Rear-View Mirror: Tommy (1975)

Apr 26, 2019MattLeave a comment

Admittedly, I didn’t spend all that much time watching films, reading books or playing whatever games that were around in 1975. I had a good excuse: I was only born in June and thus missed half the year anyway, and my reading, watching and, well, everything skills were decidedly underdeveloped at the time. Which is a shame, because 1975 was a great year, especially for cinema: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest! Barry Lyndon! Jaws! I’m sure even infant me would have found it in himself to coo appreciatively over John Alcott’s sublime cinematography or Robert Shaw’s USS Indianapolis speech.

But no, I’m afraid this installment of the Rear-View Mirror will be about… baked beans.

Ever since I was a young boy/I ate the orange bean/From Soho down to Brighton/I must have ate them all