Hit Me With Your Best Shot: 'The Conversation'

by Nathaniel R

a wonderful 'establishing shot' not of a building but of a man (Gene Hackman), his targets (in photographs), and the tools of his trade.

Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974)  is nothing if not elusive. So many of the images in this paranoid mystery are obstructed. Coppola and the cinematographer Bill Butler are continually adjusting focus and searching for the subject and his targets. The protagonist, an 'unreliable narrator' type albeit without the narration, is Harry Caul (Gene Hackman, brilliant) and he's often hiding in the corner of frames, or with his back turned to us. The film begins with a full circle, as Harry is spying on a man and a woman as they walk around a city park. For what reason we do not yet know and might never know. Though we see his targets frequently, there are constant visual interruptions from trees and people and their own movements. We understand this to be Harry's view, figuratively if not literally, since people can't move like a crane shot or zoom in for a closeup...

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Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022)

by Eric Blume

Oscar-nominated director Peter Bogdanovich has died at age 82.  Famous primarily for directing three classic films consecutively early in his career, he was a true lover of the medium and a key influence on fostering in a new energy in American cinema during the 1970s. 

Bogdanovich's early career was as a film programmer for New Yorks' Museum of Modern Art.  He watched over 400 films a year and kept reviews for each one of them.  His passion for and understanding of film got him a gig as assistant to Roger Corman, who helped him direct his first film, Targets, in 1968.  This led to the three-film master stretch for which Bogdanovich is most remembered and treasured...

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Almost There: Glenda Jackson in "Mary, Queen of Scots"

by Cláudio Alves

Eva Husson's Mothering Sunday arrives in American theaters in February. If you are in the UK, you can already stream or rent the movie online. This period drama marks the return of Glenda Jackson to the big-screen after years in Parliament and brief stints on stage. So it seems logical to celebrate this tremendous thespian now, who remains one of the strangest Oscar favorites in Academy history. I've written about her 1970 victory for Women in Love before, but Jackson's career is vaster than the fruitful collaboration with Ken Russell. For instance, on TV, she played the definitive dramatization of Elizabeth I in the BBC's 1971 miniseries Elizabeth R and won two Emmys for her efforts. Concurrently, the actress also played the 16th-century monarch on film.

Charles Jarrott's Mary, Queen of Scots saw her consider the role in a less historical context, performing the Virgin Queen in romanticized opposition to Vanessa Redgrave in the part of her doomed Scottish cousin…

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Almost There: Rita Moreno in "The Ritz"

by Cláudio Alves

She just turned 90, but Rita Moreno is on the top of her game. The 1961 Best Supporting Actress champion is back on the silver screen thanks to Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story. While not playing Anita this time around, Moreno still manages to steal the spotlight and deliver one of the movie's most impactful songs, the emotional high point of the entire production. As pundits argue over the nonagenarian's Oscar chances, it's a good time to look back at her filmography and consider the last time she was in the awards conversation. After the success of West Side Story, Moreno's most acclaimed movie role was probably that of Googie Gomez in the big-screen adaptation of The Ritz…

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Almost There: Diana Rigg in "The Hospital"

by Cláudio Alves

Last Night in Soho, now in theaters, marks Diana Rigg's last movie appearance. That British Giallo pastiche cum Swinging Sixties nostalgia-kick was the great actress's final project before she died last year, at 82. Rigg left behind an incredible career that spanned over six decades and several mediums. In honor of the erstwhile Bond girl, our immortal Queen of Thorns, and unforgettable Emma Peel, this week's Almost There write-up is dedicated to her.

Despite an Emmy victory and two BAFTAs for her TV work, Rigg never got an Oscar nomination. The closest she ever came was in 1971, on the occasion of her Hollywood debut in Arthur Hiller's Oscar-winning The Hospital…

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