1930s – cinemescope

100 Word Review – Porco Rosso (1992)

November 30, 2015March 6, 2016Posted in 100 Words..., Drama, FantasyTagged 1930s, Action, adventure, animation, Anime, Drama, family, Fantasy, Hayao Miyazaki, Italy, Japanese, Michael Keaton, war, WWILeave a comment

In classic Hayao Miyazaki (Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke) style, this Japanese anime perfectly captures the spirit of adventure and freedom that permeates throughout it.

Set in the skies above a 1930s Italian coast, a WWI veteran pilot makes a living in his sea plane as a bounty hunter, taking down air pirates. His name is Marco Rosso and he was cursed to look like a pig.

Definitely family friendly, but with hidden depths that might have made me cry. There’s humour, there’s romance, there’s a sense of history and the dubbed version even has the voice of Michael Keaton.

100 Word Review – O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

September 8, 2015April 15, 2016Posted in 100 Words..., ComedyTagged 1930s, adventure, America, Comedy, Ethan Coen, George Clooney, Holly Hunter, Joel Coen, John Goodman, John Turturro, Tim Blake NelsonLeave a comment

Joel and Ethan Coen, the Coen Brothers (Big Lebowski, The Hudsucker Proxy), do it again.

Set in 1930s American Deep South, three escaped convicts (George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson) attempt to avoid the authorities, tangling with a range of weird and wonderful characters, on their quest for hidden treasure.

Loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey and co-starring John Goodman and Holly Hunter, this film manages to be simultaneously charming, familiar and epic.

Nominated for Oscars in Screenplay and Cinematography, it is absolutely full of laughs, a soundtrack that will get your toes tapping and, above everything else, heart.

100 Word Review – Bringing Up Baby (1938)

May 11, 2015March 6, 2016Posted in 100 Words..., Comedy, F-Rated, RomanceTagged 1930s, Cary Grant, Comedy, Dudley Nichols, farce, Hagar Wilde, Howard Hawks, Katherine Hepburn, leopard, RomanceLeave a comment

This is the film in which I fell in love with Katherine Hepburn.

Cary Grant plays a mild-mannered, confused palaeontologist who is swept up in the whirlwind that is heiress Susan (Hepburn) and her pet leopard, Baby.

A great, fun film, farcical and wittily written by Hagar Wilde (Carefree) and Dudley Nichols (Stagecoach), and directed by Howard Hawks (His Girl Friday). It’s romantic, it’s risqué and it’s roll-around-on-the-floor funny. I’m not exaggerating.

“It isn’t that I don’t like you, Susan, because, after all, in moments of quiet, I’m strangely drawn toward you, but – well, there haven’t been any quiet moments.”