“All About Eve” to “Alphaville”
All About Eve (1950) As well as being a multiple-Oscar winner, it’s a nice insight to the backstage world of The Theatre. (KCL)
All the Presidents Men (1976) Alan J. Pakula’s minimalist retelling of the Watergate affair could have been portentous in the extreme, but thanks to a skillful script, loads of great performances and, amid the inevitable sense of moral outrage, some admirable and perceptive comments on human frailty make this a key-text to understanding America in the 1970s. (KT)
Allegro Non Troppo (1977) This animated work by Bruno Bozzetto is a satiric and creative send up of Disney’s Fantasia. Split up into six segments, each containing their own memorable characters. Some of the composers include: Debussy, Stravinsky and Ravel. My favorite remains the Vivaldi segment. (SF)
Almost Famous (Untitled) (2000) Cameron Crowe’s touching, awkward, stimulating recreation of his teenage years has just the right degree of wit and insightfulness to ward off potential charges of mawkishness. A rite-of-passage text, a road movie, a social document and sex and drugs and rock and roll. The director’s cut (Untitled) is better, if only because you need 49 minutes more of this film in your life. How old are you? (KT)
Alphaville (1965) Science fiction does not get any stranger than this. It seems extremely low-budget, but its not. Written and directed by Jean Luc Goddard, it is subtitled but it is the same old story. Another planet is controlled by the emotionless computer Alpha-60. Secret agent Lemmy Caution arrives in Alphaville to find and destroy the machine along with its creator, Prof. Von Braun. It is strange metaphoric stuff, where time, reality, and plot bump and roll over each other. It could be fine for either MST3K or an international film art class. Is not love illogical? (KWR)
Originally published in Raspberry World – Volume 2, Issue 1 (June/July 2007)