Drama > F Drama > by Award

Advantages: Bright, colourful, gripping story
Disadvantages: May seem dated, purely fictional story

...and surprising death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, complete with pauper's grave, pouring rain, and the dramatic 'Requiem Mass for the dead' bringing it all together. * * * * * It is always difficult to write a review without giving away too much of the story… Wolfgang Mozart is played by Tom Hulce (who also appeared in 'Animal House', I was informed by 'The Simpsons'). Peter Shaffer's original Mozart was vulgar and charming, with a sordid sense of ...
...see a deeper Mozart, all the above, but also flamboyant, colourful, honest, driven to poverty and alcoholism, exhaustion and depression. With the same 'Romeo and Juliet' prophetic foresight of tragedy, I felt great pain at the knowledge that this wonderful, handsome, young genius was going to die, either in the hands of fate, or a jealous villain. Which leads me to Antonio Salieri. A great composer at the time of Mozart, he is now almost forgotten. ... Read review

Advantages: Excellent film
Disadvantages: none

...vividly that incredible week at the beginning of September 1997 - the week Princess Diana died. Particularly I remember the complete shock, followed by an outpouring of public grief never known before and probably never likely to be known again in our lifetime, and the hostility vented against the Royal Family for not showing their emotions and instead opting for the 'stiff upper lip!' I was never a big Diana fan, although I did feel her death was ...
...to note that one of the things that this film did not do, at least in my mind, was to come down on one side or another and I think that all the events were depicted in a very honest way. The key players in this film are obviously the Queen herself, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, the Queen Mother and Tony and Cherie Blair. Princes William and Harry are not shown at all which I think was a very good decision as even after all the time that had elapsed ... Read review

Advantages: autobiographical, symbolic, surreal, heavy, dramatic, italian
Disadvantages: none at all

...film is loosely based on Fellini's own life and fast times in 1950s Rome. Marcello Mastroianni portrays Guido who is desperately trying to get his film finished, but has no idea how to end it. Throughout the film, Fellini uses (and creates) some of cinema history's most amazing images through techniques like flashbacks, slow dissolves and the shadowplay should have won it's own award. This film also marks a change in the style of film Fellini himself ...
...of his career. Gone are the Neorealistic masterpieces of his younger years "I Vitelloni" "Il Bidone" and "Nights of Cabiria" were all amazing films, but to watch 8 1/2 you wouldn't believe its by the same man. Fellini began heavily visual films after this movie, and went to some extremes with this as well ( see "Satyricon"). This is one of those movies that anyone interested in the true masterworks that changed the face of world cinema should not ... Read review

Advantages: Jack Nicholson at his most iconic
Disadvantages: Nurse Ratched is a big meanie! Boooo!

...to McMurphy. He's the one that you can most easily empathise with. He watches his inmates with incredulity at first, but later his personality wins over the group. The inmates include Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Vinny Schiavelli and Brad Dourif, who were unknown at the time, but have since gone on to appear in numerous Hollywood films. They were well chosen, as in this context, they all appear strange, and at the time it was unknown as to whether ...
...as he'd like, and at one stage, she becomes an infuriatingly impassable wall of evil. It's a quite incredible performance that justifiably won her the 1975 Oscar for Best Actress. McMurphy organises parties, a fishing trip, and dreams of a breakout, but thanks to Nurse Ratched, his dreams don't quite come off as planned. When you watch 'the mak