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Empire Magazine Greatest Movies List - #333: Grease

Nostalgia is a powerful feeling. You have some good times in a period of your life, time goes by and you feel like going back to that time period. I am guessing someone in the late 70s felt nostalgic about late 1950s high school life in America, leading to the creation of “Grease,” one of John Travolta’s first hits. The life and time are very dated today, but every now and then you still hear the soundtrack on classic rock stations. Clearly the lyricists did their jobs right. This is not my favourite musical. It’s cutesy with catchy tunes, but my top two musicals are “The Blues Brothers” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” If it involves car chases, Ray Charles, the Time Warp, Meat Loaf, and Carrie Fisher with a rocket launcher then count me in. I have less enthusiasm for Danny Zucko singing about his summer love for Sandy. But the movie was available for a dollar on iTunes during an evening when I had nothing to do in University, so I might as well kill two hours and ...

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #20: Blade Runner

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) is one of those movies that gets more relevant with each passing decade. Set in a (now passed) future in which Los Angeles is overrun with people and pollution, the story focuses on artificial lifeforms clashing with their human creators. As the chase for these lifeforms progresses, writers Hampton Francher and David Peoples imply they may not be so different from the humans chasing them. If this sounds topical in 2024, imagine how relevant it will sound ten years from now. When writing these amateur reviews, I usually try to think back on the first time I watched the movie and what I felt at the time. This is tricky with Blade Runner considering there have been five versions of the film released since the 1980s. I believe the first version I did see on TV was the original theatrical version with the narration to guide the audience since executives thought that was needed. I eventually disagreed and purchased the Final Cut on Blu-Ray to see th...

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #357: The long Goodbye

Sometimes in a detective story the mystery is not half as fun as the detective stuck in the chaos of the story. Philip Marlow is one of those detectives. His name is synonymous with Hollywood noir and in The Long Goodbye (1973), he dives deep into a mystery involving a murder, then a suicide, then a missing person, and eventually a very violent gangster operating in sunny Los Angeles. One thing I love about this version is that this detective loves his cat enough to go buy him food at three o’clock in the morning. Now that is a dedicated pet lover. The late great director Robert Altman starts the action at a slow pace to introduce Marlowe (Eliott Gould) as he wakes up to his hungry cat. Here is a man who falls asleep in his clothes, always the same suit and tie, and is either constantly smoking or lighting a new cigarette. He is a friendly person, nice enough to pick up an item for his neighbours while going out to get cat food. It probably helps that said neighbours are five y...

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