Overlooked Pictures

Jules: Not only an impossible love-triangle, but an impossible political romance unfolds in this robust and sinewy retelling of the ancient, troubadour-filtered tale of a God-given head of state who both physically and metaphysically unifies his island kingdom. The myth of the benevolent dictator finds its apotheosis in the overwhelmingly decent, occasionally-befuddled character of Arthur, whose i...

Jules: The best, late period William Gibson film adaptation not actually adapted from a William Gibson novel, Demonlover intersects oblique characters and narratives to produce an aesthetically integrated nightmare of Postmodern fragmentation. When unconscious entities (like corporations, nationalities, and religious movements before them) evolve djinn-like abilities to tempt, trap, and consume th...

Jules: If films are the means by which we collectively countenance the uncomfortable truths of what we are, and how that seems to override who we are, this film is both trauma and therapy. What is the relationship between desire, word, and action, and our collective sense of right and wrong? Last Tango ponders these questions (among others) and - crucially - acts upon them, in ways that sometimes...

Jules: A high-noon nightmare collision between the vestiges of high-minded European culture and the alien landscape of inland Australia. Rationality is discarded as our Anglo-Australian everyman descends into an inferno of instinctual drives, unquestioned customs, and murderous violence. But, amongst the beer-swilling and paddock-bashing, is anything as it seems?  David: A changing of the guard in...

Jules: Like many first-time directors, Clint Eastwood turned to thriller/horror, via this story about the intersection of fame and obsession. The film is more interesting for the fact that the fame is moderate, and the obsession is feminine. Jessica Walter's anti-heroine somehow seems objectionable more for her actions than her sentiments in this rare example of a genre film dealing thoughtfully w...

Jules: It seems Kubrick's last film (excluding conspiracy theories, or Spielberg public relations) disappointed, riled, puzzled, or otherwise stymied almost everyone who saw it upon first release. A publicity campaign that teased a salacious treatment of the hottest Hollywood couple at the time didn't altogether help. But has the passage of time, and the rumors that surround the film, suggested a...

Jules: The clash of cultures, faiths, races, and civilisations entire was hardly ever so agreeable as it is in this 1947, somewhat-forgotten classic. See vertiginous, mountain-perched bordellos revamped to serve as nunneries! See lanky actors in too-short short-shorts attempt to maintain their gravitas whilst riding Shetland ponies! See skin-tinted occidental girls reinvented as oriental firebrand...

Jules: This film divided film viewers and critics to a surreal degree; but is it perhaps the film which most deserved overlooking in 2012? Despite its problems, however, what does it tell us about the ability of today’s filmmakers to revisit their own pasts? David: Plot tendrils snaking about like a grasping facehugger that’s drunk too much coffee. The franchise that inspired so many films borrows...

Jules:  Leni Riefenstahl may possess the most problematic oeuvre in cinema history, famously combining technical and artistic skill with one of the most pernicious ideologies of the Twentieth century. Did she shape history as she shaped public opinion, via this outing? (Apologies for the sound issues: a time-travelling NAZI mosquito apparently infested the recording gear for this podcast.) David:...

Jules: How late is too late for what might be the latest, late-to-market film sequel in the history of cinema? Problems of tone, story, and pacing pile up as the digital apocalypse approaches. But what are we to make of the mythic imagery and symbolic story elements accompanying this technical wonder-wagon? David: Nonplussed by narrative nonsense. Nice neon.

Jules: What becomes of the book in the age of the moving image? Peter Greenaway considers this question, among others, in this sumptuous 1991 production featuring John Gielgud in (apparently) his dream role as Prospero from Shakespeare's The Tempest . David: Frames within frames, and naked dames. And who to blame?

Jules: Problems (and beauty) abound in this characteristically Gilliamesque romp through the Enlightenment, and its cultural upheavals. Marvels to delight the eye accompany the misadventures of our titular hero as he attempts to establish how the war began. David: Beautiful ladies, beautiful ladies!