Archive - GROSS - Cinema history and criticism

December 2024

November 2024

GROSS/50 1959 Ben-Hur - I can only apologise

Stupid, cruel, stupidly cruel.

Nov 21, 2024 •

GROSS DISTRACTION - final movies

He didn't know it would be his last film but Tarkovsky's 'The Sacrifice' is very very final.

Nov 13, 2024 •

GROSS/49 1958 - South Pacific - apocalypse then

It's a delirious, not to say demented, movie - a kind of Eisenhower acid trip.

Nov 11, 2024 •

GROSS/48 1957 - The Bridge on the River Kwai - the childish delusion of the omnipotence of thought

Public school fantasies take on brute reality in the jungle.

Nov 9, 2024 •

October 2024

GROSS DISTRACTION - The Apprentice - midtown mendacity, downtown depravity

Trump derangement syndrome has not yet peaked.

Oct 23, 2024 •

GROSS DISTRACTION - Brief Encounter - a land without cinema

The 1950s are driving me to distraction so let's rewind ten years and watch Brief Encounter again.

Oct 22, 2024 •

GROSS/47 1956 - The Ten Commandments - cold war artefact

It's a big, silly, camp thing and an anti-Communist weapon and I'm definitely not writing about it. Definitely.

Oct 11, 2024 •

GROSS/46 1955 - Lady and the Tramp - a very, very good boy

Disney's ultimate hymn to conformity.

Oct 7, 2024 •

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