The June issue of Sight & Sound has selected 75 "mainstream marvels of the last 30 years" - commercial films that deserve more critical appreciation or notice. I was glad to see a few of my favourites among the list, such as Excalibur, Deep Cover, Unlawful Entry, The Runaways, The Bounty, Breakdown, Femme Fatale, Footloose, Jennifer's Body, and Tombstone. I have to question the inclusion of The Devil Wears Prada, which seems to me to be an obvious classic already. Several key mainstream marvels could also be added to this list of 75 (for the full list get a copy of the magazine), such as Killing Zoe, Looker, Nacho Libre, Congo, Don't Say A Word, The Rainmaker, and JFK.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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I really don't watch many films apart from French ones. Rusty has got hold of a copy of Midnight Cowboy which she insists that we are going to watch on bank holiday Monday. We'll see.
Best wishes from Simon