Film Reviews by sb

Pekinpah's excellent Western which works as standard Cavalry movie, a meditation of loyality and friendship and a study in a dangerous obbsesion.Heston is very good as the titular Major who will risk everything to catch the raiding Apache's and restore his good name - he is stiff necked and inflexible and plays nicely against Harris's dashing Southern Captain who only wants to get home. It has been compared to Moby Dick with Heston as Ahab and who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal.

It has fine support from the usual Pekinpah regular company with epic battle scenes offset by more thoughtful passages - this is the original restored version at 2h13m (on release the studio cut huge chunks out if it) and ranks up there with the very best films he made.

Excellent documentry on the Director led period in 1970's Hollywood when the studios had lost their way and handed control of movies to the Autor generation - which started out briliantly and boldly making some of the greatest movies ever and ended up in a blizzard of cocaine and self-indulgence - by which time the rise of the blockbuster handed control back to the studios.

Lots of great and painfully honest interviews with archive footage and movie clips that just reminds you how many great movies there were......top stuff

Haneke's haunting parable set in a small German village on the eve of WWI - told from the perspective of a local teacher (with a voice over looking back many years later) it tells of a series of events that took place - some mundane, others quite horrific that engulfed the village - no-one can be found to be blamed and this creates tensions that ratchet up the already tense relationship between the major characters. Its as much a mediation on the roots of evil and how in the years to come these roots will manifest themselves as history. Its engrossing throughout with long elegant takes and fantastic B&W photography - its quite slow and at 2h24m quite a long haul but won the Palme D'Or at Cannes that year - and it does reward the effort.....