peter falk

Mikey and Nicky

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Nicky and Mikey on the bus

A cult movie from a cult director, Mikey and Nicky stars the ever-cultish John Cassavetes and his old friend Peter Falk as a pair of low-life crooks having one last night together before the day of reckoning arrives. Nicky (Cassavetes) has done something to a bad guy and is now in hiding, petrified, in a hotel room. When Mikey (Falk) arrives to talk him out of his fear, Nicky is not entirely convinced that Mikey isn’t after him as well. But he allows himself to be persuaded and soon the two of them are heading out into the night, which will prove to be the last one for one of them. Shot in … Read more

Murder by Death

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The detectives assembled

In Murder by Death Neil Simon proves he’s not always the surefire comedy hotshot, Peter Sellers reminds us that his non-European comedy characters are stinkers and Truman Capote demonstrates, in his only proper acting role, that he’d have made a pretty good Bond villain. It’s a spoof of a country house whodunit, written by Simon, directed by Robert Moore and with a cast that’s pure gold and the saving of this movie demonstrating that if you’re going to kick the legs out from under a genre, you’d better have done your homework. The conceit that Simon has come up with is to collect all the world’s most famous detectives – names slightly changed … Read more

The Princess Bride

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Cary Elwes and Robin Wright in The Princess Bride

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 22 February Ladislaus the Posthumous born, 1440 On this day in 1440, Ladislaus the Posthumous was born. His father, Albert II, had died four months before and so it was that Ladislaus became Duke of Austria and head of the house of Habsburg as soon as he arrived in the world. Ladislaus grew up under the protection, as a prisoner more or less, of Frederick V, who was the de facto ruler of Austria. Meanwhile John Hunyadi ruled Hungary in Ladislaus’s stead, and George of Podebrady fulfilled the same function in Bohemia. At the age of ten, Ladislaus swapped one guardian … Read more