I started at the top and worked my way down. Blake Erickson must be an enormous Orson Welles fan. Either that or he looks so much like him and was obviously mistaken for the ghost of Orson Welles so many times, he decided to just run with it and be him for and hour or […]
Tag Archives: oscars
Rope – Hitchcock tricking you into seeing what’s “there” when it’s the unspeakable “there.”
posted by lisathatcher
I’ve had to watch a slew of Hitchcock in the last few weeks for work, and although I have seen so many of them I confess to having a marvellous time. I can’t really pin point a very favourite Hitchcock film, but I will say Spellbound, Rebecca and Rope are the front-runners at this point. […]
The Lady Vanishes – Hitchcock makes something out of nothing
posted by lisathatcher
There is no reason why The Lady Vanishes should be the success it is. I’ve heard the film referenced in pop culture for years and have never watched it till last weekend. My reason for watching, without ever having seen the film, is that I am working on a novel, and the film is central […]
High and Low – Akira Kurosawa asks which is heaven and which is hell?
posted by lisathatcher
High and Low is an adaptation of an American novel entitled Kings Ransom written by Ed McBain in 1959. The film is divided largely into three parts, using the crime thriller genre to give us a large dose of Kurosawa’s trade mark social criticism. In the balance between money and incorruptible life, everyone must choose and this is the question Kurosawa […]
Farewell Nora Ephron
posted by lisathatcher
“Like most of my contemporaries, I first read The Fountainhead when I was 18 years old. I loved it. I too missed the point. I thought it was a book about a strong-willed architect…and his love life….I deliberately skipped over all the passages about egoism and altruism. And I spent the next year hoping I would meet […]
SFF: Play it like Godard – Jonathan Zaccaï pokes fun at precociousness
posted by lisathatcher
One thing I just have to say before I went to the film last night, is how bloody AMAZING the Vivid Sydney festival is. I Haven’t been to this festival before – despite its review as one of the top ten festivals in the world in the Guardian and despite its being a ten minute train […]
Lisa Thatcher 
Francopherenia – James Franco on the complexities of being James Franco (Sydney underground Film Festival)
posted by lisathatcher
At any other time in the history of television, trying to convince the world your guest starring appearances on General Hospital are a work of art would be impossible. However we live in a time of tolerance when it comes to pulp media. There is a new cultural fascination for what was once derided and […]