Django Unchained

Cast
Django: Jamie Foxx
Dr. King Schultz: Christoph Waltz
Calvin Candie: Leonardo DiCaprio
Broomhilda von Shaft: Kerry Washington
Stephen: Samuel L. Jackson

Plot Summary

Django Unchained is set in Texas, in the year 1858. 2 years before the American Civil War. A German born, former dentist turned bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz seeks out a brutalised slave, Django. Schultz offers to buy his freedom in exchange for helping him to track down 3 slave owners wanted for murder called the Brittle brothers. Django accepts in order to gain his total freedom and find his wife who was sold separately in Greenville. He partners with Schultz through the Winter and is trained  to become his apprentice. As the working partnership draws to an end, Schultz speaks about how he still feels that he is responsible for Django and is driven to help him on his quest to rescue his wife, Broomhilda. Retrieving her is the new mission which Schultz, a proud German and believer in traditional, romantic fairy tales willingly assists with, as long as Django remains his partner. Eventually the pair learn that she was sold to a plantation called Candyland in Mississippi belonging to a mercilessly savage owner; Calvin Candie. The comrades know that  they cannot expect Candie to entertain offers for the release of Broomhilda, especially if they are forthright with their request. So, they devise a cunning plan whereby they are welcomed into the plantation. They use the diversion to their advantage as they attempt to reclaim Broomhilda.

Greatest Living Directors

Martin Scorsese
Quentin Tarantino
Steven Spielberg
Francis Ford Coppola
Paul Thomas Anderson
Christopher Nolan
Tim Burton
Peter Jackson
Joel and Ethan Coen                                             
Sam Mendes
George Lucas
David Lynch
Hayao Miyazaki
Frank Darabont
Wes Anderson
Terrence Malick
M. Night Shyamalan
Oliver Stone
Bernardo Bertolucci
Clint Eastwood
David Fincher
Shane Meadows
Ken Loach
Ridley Scott
Spike Lee
Gus Van Sant
Lasse Hallström
Jean-Luc Goddard
Michael Mann
Brian De Palma
Danny Boyle
Ang Lee
Spike Jonze
Kathryn Bigelow
Robert Zemeckis
Darren Aronofsky
Zack Snyder
James Cameron
Guillermo del Toro
Richard Linklater
Pedro Almodóvar

Greatest Late Directors

Alfred Hitchcock
Howard Hawks
Stanley Kubrick
Orson Welles
Elia Kazan
Jean Renoir
Fritz Lang
Buster Keaton
John Cassavetes
Charlie Chaplin
Frank Capra
Federico Fellini
John Hughes
George Cukor
David Lean
Billy Wilder
Sergio Leone
Sergio Corbucci
Tony Scott
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cecil. B. DeMille
Vincente Minnelli
Ingmar Bergman
Sam Peckinpah
John Ford
Yasujirō Ozu
Otto Preminger
William Wyler
Arthur Penn
John Huston
Josef von Sternberg
Michael Curtiz
Raoul Walsh
D.W. Griffith
Robert Wise
Sidney Lumet
Howard Hughes
Carol Reed
Akira Kurosawa
Francois Truffaut
Sydney Pollack

There Will Be Blood

Cast
Daniel Plainview: Daniel Day-Lewis
H.W. Plainview: Dillon Freasier
Eli & Paul Sunday: Paul Dano
Henry: Kevin J. O'Connor

Plot synopsis

There Will Be Blood is a story about religion, family, greed and most importantly, oil. It highlights the effect oil has on one man, and a community suffering as a result of it. The film follows charismatic and ruthless Daniel and his rise to power. His drive is to succeed and to see that competitors fail, on top of that is his intense hatred of others. When he learns that oil can be extracted cheaply from a small town in California with a plentiful supply, he relocates his operation and begins to manipulate and exploit the local people into selling him their property. He shrewdly gains the co operation of the people by projecting himself as a family man and using lofty promises to build schools, create jobs, cultivate the land and see the community flourish. Over time, Plainview's sins gradually accumulate as his wealth and power corrupt him, causing him to slowly alienate himself from everyone in his life.

Apocalypse Now

Cast
Kurtz: Marlon Brando
Kilgore: Robert Duvall
Willard: Martin Sheen
Chef: Frederic Forrest
Chief: Albert Hall
Lance: Sam Bottoms
Clean: Laurence Fishburne
Photojournalist: Dennis Hopper

Plot summary

The film is based loosely on Joseph Conrad's 1899 novel Heart of Darkness. The main protagonist is U.S. Army Captain Benjamin L. Willard who has returned to Saigon during the height of the Vietnam War. He is in a cheap hotel drinking heavily and haunted by his memories of battle. Drunk, dishevelled and out of control, he punches a mirror and bloodies his fist. The impossibility of assimilating the war's grand scale horrors has led directly to this downward spiral of self destruction. Two officers enter his room, shocked by the scene; they stick him in a cold shower to help sober him up quickly. They escort him by helicopter for a mission briefing. He has to accept one of his most daring and secretive missions yet. Willard is sent into the jungle with top-secret orders to find and eliminate Colonel Kurtz who has gone insane and set up his own army within the jungle in Cambodia. As Willard descends into the jungle, he is slowly over taken by the jungle's mesmerizing powers and battles the insanity which surrounds him. His crew succumbs to drugs and are slowly killed off, one by one. As Willard continues his journey he confronts the same horrors that pushed Colonel Kurtz over the edge into the abyss of insanity and he becomes more and more like the man he was sent to assassinate. He sees the primal violence instilled within human nature and is witness to the darkness clouding his own heart and mind. Willard must struggle against the horrors and hypocrisies of war and the darkness within himself to complete his mission and kill Colonel Kurtz.

Siskel and Ebert

Gutted at the news of Roger Ebert passing. One of the greatest critics of all time, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his captivating, charismatic and thought - provoking criticism. Siskel and Ebert gave us the most enthralling and gripping partnership ever.

The dynamic duo

Siskel and Ebert and The Movies and then Siskel and Ebert were such refreshingly captivating programmes that they had a huge loyal following of film fans wanting to learn. Two of the greatest voices of critique and appraisal in cinema history, they always gave their fantastic and unique judgements. Both leaving behind an incredible legacy...

A powerful collaboration of two geniuses. They seem to disagree!

                  ...R.I.P. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Two eternal thumbs up!

Thumbs up!

Pulp Fiction

Cast

Vincent Vega: John Travolta
Jules Winnfield: Samuel L. Jackson
Mia Wallace: Uma Thurman
Marsellus Wallace: Ving Rhames
Butch: Bruce Willis

Ringo/Pumpkin: Tim Roth

Yolanda/Honey Bunny: Amanda Plummer
Mr. Wolf: Harvey Keitel

Plot Synopsis

Pulp Fiction is a classic neo-noir crime thriller. Focusing on the lives of two hitmen, a wealthy mob boss and his wife, an aging boxer and his girlfriend, a thieving couple, a drug dealer, a Vietnam war veteran and an underworld problem solver. Each storyline focuses on a different series of incidents, they connect and intersect in various ways. There are a total of seven narrative sequences, though it is focused around three primary, distinct storylines which are interrelated. Vincent Vega, the mob hitman working for Marsellus Wallace is the lead of the first story "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife". Butch Coolidge, the professional boxer is the leader  of the second "The Gold Watch". Vincent's companion and duplicate; a contracted killer to Marsellus, Jules Winnfield, is the lead of the third story "The Bonnie Situation" The film starts at a diner with a hold-up staged by "Pumpkin" and "Honey Bunny" and it finally returns to where it began, in the diner. Vincent and Jules, who have stopped by to eat something, find themselves embroiled in the hold-up. The intermittent stories of other important characters; Vincent, Jules, Butch, Marsellus Wallace, Mia and Winston Wolf are woven through, throughout the course of the movie. The way the narrative is told:

1. Prologue—The Diner
2. Prelude to "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife"
3. "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife"
4. Prelude to "The Gold Watch" (a—flashback, b—present)
5. "The Gold Watch"
6. "The Bonnie Situation"
7. Epilogue - The Diner

Legendary trilogies

Which trilogy is better? Francis Ford Coppola's operatic gangster drama; The Godfather. Or Peter Jackson's fantasy epic; The Lord of the Rings!

Iconic films – cultural or social impact.

Iconic films Vol. II

The Usual Suspects

Citizen Kane

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Silence of the Lambs

The Great Escape

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Fight Club

Enter the Dragon

Rebel Without a Cause

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Psycho

Bronson

The Matrix

Star Wars - Original Trilogy

Trainspotting

The Italian Job

Blue Velvet

Spartacus

Gladiator

Quadrophenia

Dirty Harry

The Shining

Road to Perdition

The Deer Hunter

Cape Fear

Lawrence of Arabia
Gone with the Wind
On the Waterfront
Vertigo

A Streetcar Named Desire

Modern Times
It's A Wonderful Life

12 Angry Men

Die Hard

Enemy at the Gates

Warrior

American History X

Iconic films – cultural or social impact.

Iconic films Vol. I

Taxi Driver

Raging Bull

Apocalypse Now ✔

The Godfather I, II and III

Mean Streets

The Shawshank Redemption

New York, New York

There Will Be Blood ✔

Reservoir Dogs

Casino

Goodfellas

Full Metal Jacket

Scarface

Gangs of New York

A Clockwork Orange

Heat

Rocky

Saving Private Ryan

The Green Mile

Donnie Brasco

Metropolis

Schindlers List
Seven Samurai

No Country For Old Men

Pulp Fiction ✔

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The Untouchables

Cape Fear
Serpico
The Third Man

All Quiet On The Western Front

Giant

The Birth Of A Nation

Snatch

Once Upon a Time in America

Cast Away
Chinatown
Good Will Hunting
L.A. Confidential