There are two telling facts that need establishing first and foremost when discussing Arrow Video’s new release of the Daimajin trilogy. The studio landscape for the monster movie was divided between Toho and Daiei. Toho had the spoils with Godzilla and Mothra, whereas Daiei had Gamera and the Daimajin. Secondly, […]
Movies & Documentaries
Pariah (2011): the most influential 2010s film you haven’t seen (Review)
You don’t get anything if you don’t ask. This new Criterion UK Blu-Ray of Dee Rees’s debut film Pariah came from a request she made when the company met with her about a forthcoming release of her later film Mudbound. Rees suggested that Pariah would make more sense as part […]
The Babadook (2014): the reigning champ of modern horror gets the reissue it deserves (Review)
Is seven years too early to call something a classic? Second Sight are hoping it isn’t, with this hulking 4K remaster of Jennifer Kent’s 2014 feature debut The Babadook clocking in with the weight of extras they’ve previously given to canonical works like Walkabout and The Colour of Pomegranates. The […]
True Romance (1993) Tarantino and Tony Scott’s Glossy Roller Coaster (Review)
Newly restored to 4K by Arrow, Tony Scott and Quentin Tarantino’s True Romance has been released as a limited-edition Arrow Video Blu Ray. It’s a tale as old as time. Boy meets Girl. They hit it off. The girl reveals she’s a call girl hired for Boy’s birthday but has fallen […]
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 […]
Straight Shooting (1917) and Hell Bent (1918): John Ford quietly establishes the Western’s essentials (review)
The history of silent cinema is famously patchy, and it’s not surprising when you look at how these films were churned out. Straight Shooting, the first film in Eureka Masters of Cinema’s double-bill of silent-era John Ford films, is the earliest surviving film from the future director of The Searchers. […]
Flowers of Shanghai (1998) a Beautiful, Languid Taiwanese Movie for the patient viewer (Review)
The first thing to note about Hou Hsaio-hsien’s dreamlike and vague period drama, Flowers of Shanghai, is just how unhurried it is with plot and pacing. If you are not a fan of slow cinema or don’t like films that are dense and are stray observations on character and mood, […]
One-Armed Boxer (1972) The Good, The Shaft and the Okinawan Karate Vampire (Review)
Perhaps I should’ve seen this coming. When I watched the cult favourite, Master of the Flying Guillotine, the arrival of the bad guy was scored by krautrock legends Neu!. While not strictly legal, this use of music made the threat to the heroes feel more dangerous and substantial than any […]
But I’m a Cheerleader! (1999): the best John Waters film Waters never made (Review)
It’s all very well if you’re a Jack or a Sarah, apparently, but us Grahams have few iconic movie characters who share our name. Even more reason, then, to cheer for Lionsgate’s new Blu-Ray of Jamie Babbit’s cult comedy But I’m a Cheerleader, which gives us a Graham for the […]
Encounters of a Spooky Kind (1980) Funny and Spooky, the perfect antidote to a bad day (Review)
Sammo is much more than Jackie Chan’s friend and co-collaborator and the butt of so many fat jokes in the 80s and 90s, he also happens to be one of the best action directors Hong Kong cinema ever produced. At his peak he was just as good behind the camera […]