Released to Blu-ray this week by Studio Canal’s Vintage Classics label is the feature that effectively gave birth to the British film industry’s New Wave period of the 1960s, Jack Clayton’s 1959 movie Room at the Top, starring Laurence Harvey and Simone Signoret. The opening shot of Harvey’s threadbare socks […]
Studio Canal
Peeping Tom (1960) – A rightfully reappraised masterwork (Review)
Following a run of classics that he created with Emeric Pressburger, director Michael Powell made his second solo feature with 1960’s Peeping Tom. Now considered a masterpiece that is an ancestor of the slasher subgenre, however, the feeling was much different upon release as the film was so vilified that […]
Cry, the Beloved Country (1951) Korda’s Surprising Anti-Apartheid Movie (Review)
The Wicker Man (1973): Folk horror’s towering icon catches ablaze in new 4K restoration (Review)
It towers over the horizon, casting shadow over everything below. It inspires dread, reverence and devotion, cutting an impressive figure of iconic proportions. It catches alight quickly and blazes with a terrible truth, and it becomes impossible to look away from its purifying, eye-opening vision. And we’re not just talking […]
Cross of Iron (1977) Sam Peckinpah’s unconventional war story just as gritty and grim today (Review)
Legendary filmmaker Sam Peckinpah is always destined to be one of cinema’s most misunderstood voices. His predominantly macho body of work dealt with frustrated, pent-up groups of men on missions that traverse the abyss, often losing themselves and sending many others into its deep nothingness along the way. Although milder […]
Le Mépris (1963): the odd couple Godard and Bardot make a classic (Review)
Inland Empire (2006): How much more Lynch can this be? None, none more Lynch (Review)
Re-released in a new Criterion led restoration, Inland Empire is David Lynch’s most recent feature length film (if you’re not counting Twin Peaks: The Return, which is more contentious than you’d think), and generally has the reputation of being a collection of ideas and experimentations with filming in digital, lacking […]
The Virgin Suicides (1999) – the haunting, silencing cries for help (Blu-Ray Review)
As gentle music plays across the opening moments (of the Virgin Suicides), a sunny day captures families playing outside within a sleepy suburb. This picture-perfect glimpse at the neighbourhood is contrasted with an indoor scene, as Cecilia Lisbon (Hanna R. Hall) – the youngest of five sisters – attempts suicide. […]
Linie 1 (1988): All Aboard for a German New Wave Musical (Review)
Your attention, please. The Blu-ray now arriving on this platform is the Studio Canal Cult Classics release of Linie 1, Reinhard Hauff’s 1988 big-screen adaptation of Germany’s second-most successful musical after Brecht’s Threepenny Opera. Linie 1 tells the story of Sunnie (Inka Victoria Goetschel), a young woman who, having learnt […]