by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
Funny Girl | 1968
It's not often that you get to watch a star being born in real-time, but that's exactly what it is like to watch William Wyler's Funny Girl. Barbra Streisand would, of course, go on to star in A Star is Born in 1976, but Funny Girl was her star-is-born moment, and what a moment it was. Streisand was already a successful singer and Broadway actress, but it was her performance in Funny Girl and her subsequent Oscar win that helped turn her into an icon.
There's something agreeably no-nonsense about Alex Parkinson's Last Breath, a straight-down-the-middle, meat-and-potatoes true-life rescue thriller we rarely see anymore. Perhaps I'm looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, but there once was a time when mid-budget actioners like this were multiplex staples. Nowadays, you're more likely to see movies like this relegated to streaming rather than playing on a big screen.