The Western has been around as long as Hollywood. It stands to reason I guess that, when looking to tell tales on the big screen with this new medium of cinema, many American filmmakers looked towards the history of their homeland. However, by the 1960s Hollywood’s rendition of the Wild […]
Mark Cunliffe
Senior Contributor Mark's first cinematic experience was watching the Cannon and Ball vehicle, The Boys in Blue. He hasn't looked back since. Hailing from Lancashire, he is an occasional contributor to Arrow DVD, writing booklet inlay essays on a variety of titles, including Children of Men and The Great Escape. He has also written a chapter for Ste Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence's book, Scarred For Life Vol II. He is often found on Letterboxd, has appeared on the Talking Pictures podcast and also writes for We Are Cult, Horrified, America's left-leaning news outlet ZNetwork, and the fanzine Undefined Boundary: The Journal of Psychick Albion. He is also a regular contributor to the Geek Show's podcasts, including Pop Screen and the Uncut series.
Early Universal Vol 1: Skinner’s Dress Suit/The Shield of Honor/The Shakedown (1926-1929)(Review)
Released to Blu-ray on Eureka’s Masters of Cinema last month, Early Universal Vol 1 is a boxset celebrating the legendary studio’s formative years with three beautifully restored silent features. Each film feels carefully chosen to represent the breadth and variety of features made during the silent era; the domestic comedy […]
Walk on the Wild Side (1962) More Like Walk on the Mild Side (Review)
Released to Blu-ray by Arrow Video on the 6th of this month, Walk on the Wild Side is certainly a film with a good pedigree. Based on a novel by Nelson Algren published six years earlier, it is directed by Edward Dmytryk, the Canadian-born American filmmaker who had a very […]
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976) Playing Ball With Motown Productions (Review)
When we think of Motown, we inevitably think of that glorious back catalogue of music – the mainstay of many a party or get together. What we don’t think of, is cinema. Nevertheless, Motown supremo Berry Gordy Jr launched Motown Productions in 1968, hopeful that he could corner the market […]
Jagged Edge (1985) The’80s Neo-Noir that Pre-empts Basic Instinct (Review)
The 1980s saw the return of noir in Hollywood. Heralded as the neo-noir, these films revelled in their adult thriller status, creating sub-genres such as the yuppie in peril movie and the erotic thriller. It was arguably Lawrence Kasdan’s 1981 movie Body Heat that kickstarted the whole revival, making stars […]
Bringing Up Baby (1938) I Can’t Give You Anything But Love (Review)
Released to Blu-ray on the Criterion label this week is Bringing Up Baby, the 1938 romantic farce starring Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn that is still today fondly regarded as one of the best and most pivotal examples of the screwball comedy genre. It tells the story of Dr David […]
Beauty and the Beast (1978) A Grim Fairytale (Review)
The film opens in a mist-shrouded, decaying forest. A band of grimy-looking travellers on horseback, pulling covered wagons are traversing this ominous terrain, accompanied only by the forbidding sounds of the wild. One in their number, a female, anxiously announces that danger will befall them if they continue – but […]
Adoption (1975) A Personal Film from an Unsung Female Director (Review)
Released to Blu-ray by Second Run this week is Adoption, or Örökbefogadás to give it its native Hungarian title. A 1975 film from director Márta Mészáros, it tells the story of Kata (Katelin Berek), a forty-three-year-old factory worker embroiled in a longing-standing love affair with a married man, Jóska (László […]
The Night of the Hunter (1955): The First Shall Be Last and the Last Shall Be First (Review)
By the late 1940s, it seemed that Charles Laughton, that great Scarborough-born star of the silver screen, was losing interest in acting. Believing his performances in films like The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Rembrandt (1936) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) were […]
Before Tonight is Over (1965) “Someone Will Die” (Review)
Released to Second Run Blu-ray this week, Peter Solan’s 1965 film Before Tonight is Over is a real hidden gem waiting to be discovered by all like-minded fans of the Czech New Wave movement. It tells the story of an evening in a nightclub in the Slovak mountain resort of […]