Arrow’s first film noir box set, released in 2020, included bona fide cult classics like The Big Combo and Force of Evil, as well as deeper cuts from master directors like Fritz Lang. The third volume collects four titles which will be unknown to all but the most forensic of […]
Graham Williamson
Senior Contributor
Skinamarink (II) (2022): TikTok’s favourite liminal horror takes its Blu-Ray bow (review)
At a time when major streaming services are casually erasing whole shows from existence, we should be grateful to Acorn Media for their continuing run of Blu-Ray releases of Shudder exclusives. It also opens up one of those questions of format that a certain kind of Bazin-besotted film theorist loves […]
Le Mépris (1963): the odd couple Godard and Bardot make a classic (Review)
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot started acting in 1952, at the age of 17. By the end of that decade she was the most famous woman in France, for her films, her music and the gleefully-reported-on turmoil of her private life. Among actresses of this era, only Marilyn Monroe was more famous. […]
Smooth Talk (1985): should now be considered an American classic (Review)
For a reissue of a quiet, low-key movie that isn’t all that well-known, Criterion’s new Blu-Ray of Joyce Chopra’s feature debut Smooth Talk has to do a lot. First off, it has to contribute to correcting the gender imbalance in Criterion’s library, although it isn’t shouldering that burden alone. Over […]
Red Sun (1970): Between the Commune and the comic-book (Blu-Ray Review)
There are many things you need to check before making a movie; cast availability, contracts, and filming permits. “The consent of a Leftist commune” is not usually one of them, but then there aren’t many filming environments quite like post-war Germany. Rudolf Thome’s Red Sun, newly released on Blu-Ray by […]
The Hot Spot (1990): more fun than eating cotton candy barefoot (Blu-Ray Review)
Twilight (1990): an irresistible challenge that upends the detective genre (Review)
There are many mysteries to unpick in the new Second Run release, but the one that had me the most perplexed is this: what were people watching before this restoration? Because, as Stanley Schtinter’s booklet and several of the interviews on this disc attest, György Fehér’s debut theatrical release was […]
The Lighthouse (2019): a 4K illumination for a modern cult classic (Review)
Aptly for a director so invested in orally told tales – superstitions, fisherman’s stories, Icelandic sagas – Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse is already accruing its own legend. It’s one of the few modern films to have a legendarily tough shoot, all of which is unpacked in the three-part making-of documentary […]
Hopping Mad: The Mr Vampire Sequels (1986-1989) (Blu-Ray review)
Anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear or fangs to bite knows that Ricky Lau’s 1985 film Mr. Vampire is one of the most joyous comedies in cinema history, a perfect mix of spooky hijinks, balletic martial arts action and broad, goofy slapstick. It was inevitable that sequels would […]
Naked Lunch (1991): a special edition big enough to feed anyone’s addiction (Review)
One of the great things about Arrow Video’s Blu-Ray special edition of David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch is that the package does the same thing as the film: it uses cutting-edge technology to immerse you in the stranger corners of a now-lost era. In Cronenberg’s case, that meant using Chris Walas’s […]