Inglourious Basterds

Brad Pitt in Inglourious Basterds

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 16 April Colditz liberated, 1945 On this day in 1945, the infamous Colditz Castle PoW camp was relieved by the US Army. Dating back nearly a thousand years, though extensively rebuilt in the 19th century, the castle had been a workhouse, a mental asylum and a sanitarium for the well-to-do before being pressed into service as a prison for high security captives during the Second World War – often people who had broken out of other prisons. Known as Oflag IV-C, it is the source of many myths and stirring stories about escape attempts during the Second World War. It was … Read more

Natural Born Killers

Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers

Oliver Stone’s notorious film about two dim kids who kill a few people and become media celebrities takes two actors who weren’t exactly the go-to choices for crazy nutjob killer roles. Woody Harrelson was fresh from playing affable dunce Woody in Cheers and Juliette Lewis was uppermost in the mind as the daughter in Cape Fear. As it turned out the roles fit them like a second skin. As in similar gangster/road movies such as Badlands or Bonnie & Clyde, writer Quentin Tarantino and director Stone send their two fuck-ups off on a series of murders. But, unusually, they also send them off on a stylistic journey through a storm of different generic … Read more