Parroting a previous review of the action masterpiece [the] Prodigal Son (and Warriors Two), Sammo Hung is one of the best directors of action there has ever been. Nobody has his ability to choreograph, shoot and perform an action scene to its highest level, as he can, not even friend […]
Movies & Documentaries
Crazy Thunder Road (1980) Japan’s Mad Max or Generational Clash? (Review)
Released to Blu-ray this week by the Third Window Films label, Crazy Thunder Road is the breakthrough movie of Gakuryu, the artist formerly known as Sogo Ishii. A high-octane and proudly (cyber)punk movie, Crazy Thunder Road was actually the filmmaker’s graduation project. So impressive was it deemed for a student […]
One Night in Miami (2021) A Conversation with History (Review)
Originally released on Amazon Prime Video and cinemas back in January 2021, Regina King’s feature-length debut One Night in Miami, an adaptation of Kemp Powers’ 2013 play of the same name, who also wrote the screenplay, closed out the year with a Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray release in December. […]
Arrow Video FrightFest 2022 announces bumper Glasgow Film Festival line-up
It’s back! After being one of the last stages of normalcy before Covid, the UK’s No.1 horror & fantasy film festival returns to the Glasgow Film Theatre. This frightfully fantastic venue has been FrightFest’s second home for 17 glorious years has been, and now it returns as part of the […]
Written on the Wind (1956) Sirk’s most chaotically lush melodrama (Review)
After having a long career in a variety of genres, ranging from Westerns to Comedies, Douglas Sirk came into the peak of his career with a string of vastly influential melodramas in the 50s. These would go on to influence directors such as Pedro Almovador, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Todd […]
The Devil’s Men (1976) For those with a penchant for campy occultist enjoyable fluff (Review)
The Devil’s Men, also known in the US as Land of the Minotaur, is a Greek horror film directed by Kostas Karagiannis and written by Arthur Rowe. Starring two of horror’s most infamous actors, it sees Donald Pleasance (Halloween), as Irish priest Father Roche, face off against the sinister Baron […]
Lies and Deceit: Madame Bovary (1991), Betty (1992), Torment (1994) (Review)
After the Inspector Lavardin films, the second half of Arrow’s box set Lies and Deceit: Five Films by Claude Chabrol takes the duplicity promised in the title from the criminal to the domestic sphere. These three films also show Chabrol working with one of the key themes of the French […]
Love Affair (1939) A scandalous Hollywood tale wrought by the Hays Code (Review)
After a great run of films in the 1930s with hits like widely acclaimed Duck Soup (featuring the Marx brothers) and The Awful Truth (noted as being a defining film of Cary Grant’s early career), director Leo McCarey decided to end the decade with 1939’s Love Affair. Due to McCarey […]
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1982) An Obscure Take on the Traditional British Murder Mystery Novel (Review)
The British film industry of the late twentieth century is one that I am deeply fascinated by. From the early 1970s onwards, it was an industry cash-strapped by Hollywood’s decision to return home after rinsing the profitable new wave/kitchen sink/swinging London milieus of the previous decade. Compelled to either emulate […]
Dick Johnson is Dead (2020) sad yet uplifting doc about preparing for death (Review)
It’s impressive just how ‘up for it’ the titular Dick Johnson is for the various whims of his daughter, award-winning documentary maker Kirsten Johnson. Wide-eyed and smiling, 88-year-old Dick is placed into various fictitious mortal, and bloody situations throughout the movie staged in loving detail by his daughter, including getting […]