Ace in the Hole - MatthewHunt

The older-woman-younger-man scenario has never been the same since Nichols launched
Dustin Hoffman's career as Benjamin, the confused college boy whose love affair with Mrs
Robinson (Anne Bancroft) goes sour when he falls for her daughter. A counter-culture classic,
and its haunting Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack is as fresh as it was four decades ago.
Le Grand Voyage
(Ismael Ferroukhi, 2004)
A modern classic road movie, and a lovely, gentle story of father-son bonding. Mohamed Majd
is an elderly Moroccan exile in France who chivvies his irreligious younger son (Nicolas
Cazalé) into driving him 3,000 miles on a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Ferroukhi was
the first feature film-maker to be allowed to shoot in Mecca, and the crowd scenes there are
really spectacular. A lovely, bittersweet reconciliation between the two men crowns the story.
La Grande Bouffe
(Marco Ferreri, 1973)
Super Size Me's Morgan Spurlock has nothing on this splenetic 1973 last supper, in which
Marcello Mastroianni and three grumpy mates fornicate, philosophise, then eat themselves to
death. A decadent orgy that impressed Cannes but repulsed just about everyone else, it's
scatological, unrepentantly on a road to nowhere, and defiantly one of a kind.
La Grande Illusion
(Jean Renoir, 1937)
Renoir's landmark first world war drama revolves around two French officers - an aristocrat
and a working-class mechanic - in a POW camp where they befriend a Jewish banker.
Prussian commander Erich von Stroheim treats his prisoners with civility, but they dig an
escape tunnel. An unconventionally filmed gem about social class, ethnicity, and war's futility.
Grapes of Wrath
(John Ford, 1940)
Steinbeck's novel about the Dust Bowl saw the country in despair. The Fox film, made by
John Ford but driven by Darryl Zanuck, has the common man triumphing. There's some
awkwardness in that, but this is a riveting dramatisation of the Depression with Henry Fonda
as Tom Joad - an Abe Lincoln in dusty jeans.
Grave of the Fireflies
(Isao Takahata, 1988)
Most animated films are little more than weak musicals tied together with gormless popculture
references. This Japanese offering - from the peerless Studio Ghibli - offers a
reminder that animation is merely a tool for telling a story, and not a genre. A heartbreaking
tale of a young brother and sister struggling for survival in a firebombed Tokyo. The "acting"
and "camerawork" are superb.
Grease
(Randal Kleiser, 1978)
Infectious musical capitalising on the 1970s' nostalgia for the 1950s, with lots of toe-tapping
numbers, charismatic performances from Travolta and Newton-John in the leads, and an
unabashed desire to entertain. In that it succeeds wonderfully.
The Great Dictator
(Charlie Chaplin, 1940)
The fight of the century - Chaplin v Hitler. Who has the funniest moustache and the most
frightening speeches? So the two universal celebrities of the age met in one film. The sermon
part is lame, but the comic ballet is a crushing defeat for fascism. You can see Charlie going
mad before your eyes.
Great Expectations
(David Lean, 1946)
The finest Dickens adaptation not starring the Muppets, Great Expectations sees Lean on