Released to Blu-ray by Arrow Academy this last week, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is the renowned Japanese new wave filmmaker Nagisa Ōshima’s 1983 adaptation of Sir Laurens van der Post’s semi-autobiographical works, The Seed and the Sower from 1963 and The Night of the New Moon from 1970, each inspired […]
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 St Helens, 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 is a reviewer with IndieMDB and has also written a chapter for Ste Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence's book, Scarred For Life Vol II. Other sites he has written for include We Are Cult, Horrified, and America's left-leaning news outlet ZNetwork. Publications he has written articles for include Stat Magazine 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, and he can be found on Letterboxd.
Husbands (1970): Hard Going, But Intentionally So (Review)
If you want a divisive film, look no further than Husbands, released on Criterion Blu-ray from June 9th. On it’s release in 1970, John Cassavetes drama polarised critics and audiences alike. Jay Cocks of Time magazine described it as “one of the best movies anyone will ever see. It is […]
Snowpiercer (2013) Next Stop, Class Warfare (Review)
The film now arriving on Blu-ray this week is Snowpiercer. UK Home media apologise for the delay, which was due to a taste failure from Harvey Weinstein. I mean, there’s late and there’s very late. I actually think I’ve spent a similar amount of time waiting for Snowpiercer as I […]
The Family Way: Hayley & Hywel 4Eva (Review)
It’s perhaps a measure of how London-centric our society is that if you were to mention playwright Bill Naughton to anyone then those who had heard of him at least would tell you that he wrote Alfie, the 1963 stageplay about a cockney Casanova that has been twice made into […]
The Strange One: Homoeroticism, Hazing and the Hays Code (Review)
The Strange One was one of only two feature films directed by Jack Garfien, an Auschwitz survivor who sadly passed away on December 30th last year, aged 89. Based upon the novel and play End as a Man (the title the film was released under in UK cinemas) by Calder […]
Dreamland (2019) Canadians can be rather quirky people (Review)
There are not many films set in Luxembourg. But films about a cadaverous hitman who gets a sudden attack of conscience and sets out to rescue an innocent teenage girl from her fate as a vampire’s child bride…set in Luxembourg? Well, they’re even rarer. Welcome to Dreamland. Bruce McDonald, the […]
The French Lieutenant’s Woman: Parallel Lives, Parallel Loves (Review)
Made in 1981 from a screenplay by Harold Pinter, The French Lieutenant’s Woman from director Karel Reisz remains to this day a groundbreaking and bold post-modern film that resides upon the cutting edge. Ostensibly it is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by John Fowles novel but, […]
The Son of the Sheik: The Return to Form That Proved to Be Valentino’s Swansong (Review)
In the mid-1920s and the dying days of the silent movie, Rudolph Valentino was in need of a hit. Laden with debt, he had recently walked away from his contract with Famous Players-Lasky following a squabble over money, and his last two movies – which saw him attempt to break […]
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. […]