Ace in the Hole - MatthewHunt

Goldfinger
(Guy Hamilton, 1964)
Somewhere in between the comparative realism of the first two Bond films and self-parodic
Roger Moore frippery, Goldfinger is high operatic 007, with Sean Connery on majestic form.
Hamilton takes the key obsessions - sex, power, danger, money - and smelts them down into
iconic images: Shirley Eaton embalmed in gold; the laser inching towards the coveted
crotch...
The Golem
(Carl Boese, Paul Wegener, 1920)
A rabbi in 16th-century Prague conjures up a living clay man to save his community from
expulsion by the emperor - for, ironically, charges of witchcraft. Once activated, the powerful
creature eventually runs amok amidst the expressionistic sets, in many scenes that later
found echoes in Frankenstein.
Gone With the Wind
(Victor Fleming, 1939)
It's the American civil war, with Vivien Leigh stepping forward to be Scarlett as they burned
Atlanta, and Clark Gable not giving a damn. David O Selznick made it, exhausting his writers
and directors. It's the film of films, the eternal money-spinner. Is it worth it? I'll think about that
tomorrow.
Good Night, and Good Luck
(George Clooney, 2005)
George Clooney's gorgeously photographed, black-and-white chamber drama looks at the
waning years of the McCarthy era in America - and its disastrous toll - from the vantage point
of the television news studio. Star David Strathairn doesn't merely impersonate legendary
newsman Edward R Murrow so much as he channels his solemn gravitas.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
(Sergio Leone, 1966)
The most successful of Leone's Dollars trilogy, and the best, with its trio of civil war antiheroes
in search of a fortune in lost gold. Stylish to the max, witty at every turn and ceaselessly
inventive on the visual front - plus the biggest explosion in movie history.
Goodfellas
(Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Narrated by coked-up "wiseguy" Ray Liotta, Scorsese's mafia masterpiece plunges us into a
dizzying underworld - vicious gangsters, their wives and girlfriends, henchmen and hangerson.
Propelled by adrenalin-pumped paranoia and punctuated by bloody violence, the path it
plots from glamour to horror is pure genius.
Gosford Park
(Robert Altman, 2001)
A return to form after a tepid 1990s with a classic Altmanesque spin on the country-house
whodunnit. Murder most inconsequential and Stephen Fry's bungling detective stalk the
mansion, but the real pleasure is the immersive, near-documentary eavesdropping through a
vast cast of aristos and servants.
The Gospel According to St Matthew
(Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)
Fundamentalists take note: it took a homosexual Marxist to bring us the finest biblical epic
ever made. Pasolini reconfigures the messiah as a political animal; he dramatises his story
with amateur actors and garnishes it with a soundtrack that runs the gamut from Bach to Billie
Holiday. It is a devastating piece of work.
The Graduate
(Mike Nichols, 1968)