Eureka’s first box set of Blu-Ray Buster Keaton reissues, released in 2017, featured Steamboat Bill Jr., Sherlock Jr. and The General, the latter being the film that, more than any other, his contemporary auteur reputation rests on. The General was a critical and commercial flop on release; The Navigator, which […]
Blu Ray
The French Lieutenant’s Woman: Parallel Lives, Parallel Loves (Review)
Secret Friends (1991): Dennis Potter’s maelstrom of fantasy and memory
Resurrected: Raw War drama from a debuting Greengrass (Review)
The Bourne franchise director Paul Greengrass made his directorial debut in 1989 with Resurrected which is, um, resurrected by Indicator this week in the shape of a rather welcome Blu-ray package. Resurrected tells the story of Kevin Deakin (played by David Thewlis who, like his director, was also making his […]
Orphans (1998): Handles the ugly side of human nature, brilliantly (Review)
Before I start this review, I think it’s important that I give a little background context. 1998’s Orphans came at a time when the British film industry was in love with Scotland, following the success of Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave ad, more importantly in terms of its cultural impact, Trainspotting. […]
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith: “A Fugitive from Justice…Or from Injustice”?
Often cited as one of the most important Australian films ever made and a key text in the Aussie New Wave movement of the 1970s, Fred Schepisi’s The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a beautifully shot yet heart wrenching and savage account of institutionalised racism in colonial Australia at the turn […]
Nightfall (1956): An Unsung Noir by one of the Great Unsung Directors (Review)
Jacques Tourneur is the kind of director that has been consigned to the history books, the RKO-man was well known for his many low-budget horror films (including the pre-Romero, I walked with a Zombie), he also did many noirs, westerns and epics. Filmmakers just aren’t allowed that level of liberation, […]
One, Two, Three (1961): Billy Wilder’s Satirical Greatest Hits
To Sleep With Anger: the eternally youthful Charles Burnett (Review)
The 2003 Martin Scorsese-produced HBO anthology series The Blues featured a lot of big-name directors offering their take on America’s centrally important musical genre. Yet most critics agreed that the best episode wasn’t directed by Clint Eastwood, Wim Wenders or Scorsese himself. It was the episode Warming by the Devil’s […]
Mark Isaacs: Five Films, One Filmmaker (2001-2017)(Review)
Second Run dropped a bombshell of a box set dedicated to the films of Marc Isaacs, a British documentary filmmaker known for creating closed-off, intimate films with a cast of many memorable and sometimes eccentric personalities. It doesn’t matter if his contributors are small-time BNP supporters, nobody street sweepers, or […]