Every actor want to play someone who is going absolutely crazy. Think of the psychopaths in The Silence of the Lambs, The Joker and Taxi Driver. But also people who go mad caused by the effects of war in The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now.
Film noir is the world of raw detectives, dirty cops and femme fatales. With a focus on films such as Touch of Evil by Orson Welles and modern classics such as Lost Highway and Drive.
The European version of horror is traditionally always slightly 'nastier' than the American one. And Martin Koolhoven is looking for an answer to the question: what should blood look like?
Crime films go a little further in Europe than elsewhere. Martin Koolhoven covers La Haine, Sexy Beast and M, among others. Special attention to the Italians with their insane pursuits.
In this second episode Martin Koolhoven discusses the directors of gangster movies like Martin Scorsese and Brian de Palma and their movies Goodfellas and The Untouchables.
Martin Koolhoven discusses gangster movies of classic actors like James Cagney, Humprey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson and the method acting of Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.
In the sixties, the spaghetti western, according to Martin Koolhoven the most beautiful genre, became a real craze. It started with A fistful of dollars by Sergio Leone, the greatest director in the genre.
It is the wet dream of many film directors: to be able to build a whole new world on the old one, keeping only those elements from the past that are useful to you.
Sex and film, it's still an awkward marriage. Martin Koolhoven shows successful examples from Tarzan and his mate, Amarcord, 800 Balas, A history of violence and Dressed to kill.
Time traveling has always been an interesting topic. Is it possible? With Back to the Future as one of the most iconic time traveling movies, Martin also looks at Groundhog Day, Idiocracy and The Time Machine.