Courvoisier's revolutionary spirit week continues, and today I got three iconic films in the post. Avatar has come to symbolise a new era in film making, and the movie was included in the Cream 100 innovators book, "No Apples". 

 Easy Rider was one of the great counter-culture movies of the day, and anyone interested in films should check out a brilliant book called "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-And Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood". 

Of most interest to media types though, has to be Citizen Kane. Orson Welles' classic tale based on early media tycoon and newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst. Filled with symbolism and imagery that would keep film buffs enthralled for decades, Citizen Kane is regularly voted the "best film of all time" in various polls. 

Innovative at almost every creative and technical level, Citizen Kane remains an example of excellent film-making, although at the time, Hollywood collectively shunned the film and booed its name at that year's academy awards. 

Hearst went nuts. He banned any of his papers from carrying advertising for the film, and offered the studio substantial sums of money to burn all prints of it. Luckily, although he was a powerful figure in media, Hearst wasn't able to suppress the film, which is just as well, as it wouldn't be until after the second world war that cinema going audiences would really 'get' Kane, and it would become the celebrated work of art that it is today. 

I doubt anybody these days would have the balls to make a scathing allegorical film about Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Paige, Rupert Murdoch or Jimmy Wales.