Roger Corman will surely go down as one of the best movie producers of all time. Through his 250+ credits, he was at the forefront of developing the B-Movie and gave breaks to a whos-who of actors and directors, Jack Nicholson and Avatar & Aliens director, James Cameron counting among […]
Movies & Documentaries
John Ford at Columbia 1935-1958: Way outside the West (Review)
“My name’s John Ford. I make Westerns. I don’t think there’s anyone in this room who knows more about what the American public wants than Cecil B. DeMille – and he certainly knows how to give it to them. But I don’t like you, C.B. I don’t like what you […]
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 […]
Rio Grande: John Ford’s Comfortable West (Review)
Rounding off any trilogy is no easy feat for any director, producer or star. Although John Ford’s inadvertent and seemingly accidental triumph through his Cavalry trilogy isn’t connected through the storylines, the characters and expected interactions of the genre are built up in equally vivid and cold ways in previous […]
Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain: Surrender to the Phantasmagorical Wonder (Review)
In the West, Tsui Hark’s Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain is best known for being a key influence on John Carpenter’s cult favourite Big Trouble in Little China. In the East – China & Hong Kong, specifically – it is part of an ancient story tradition dating back centuries […]
Battling Butler: A Different Kind of Buster Keaton Movie (Review)
For the past three years, Eureka has been doing mighty good work dipping into Buster Keaton’s filmography, from one of the best short film collections I have ever experienced to his most famous trio of features of the General, Sherlock Jr and Steamboat Bill Jr. Eureka has provided me with […]
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 […]
Curling: grips in ways a standard Hollywood thriller can’t manage (Review)
So do Second Run have some kind of insider knowledge, or…? Their first all-new release of 2020 (after a welcome Blu-Ray upgrade for Valerie and Her Week of Wonders) is Denis Côté’s Curling, a spare, paranoid film about self-isolation, home-schooling and precarious minimum-wage jobs. A rare chance for British audiences […]
Nights of Cabiria: Tragedy shall never defeat Hope (Review)
Tragedy as a theme is often contained in subtle nods or hidden messages throughout much of cinema. For a film to interact with such a negative narrative concept for its entire running time is to take on a sincerely upsetting story. Fellini does so with Nights of Cabiria, his 1957 classic. […]
The Navigator: still hugely impressive today (Review)
Eureka’s first box set of Blu-Ray Buster Keaton reissues, released in 2017, featured Steamboat Bill Jr., Sherlock Jr. and The General, the latter being the film that, more than any other, his contemporary auteur reputation rests on. The General was a critical and commercial flop on release; The Navigator, which […]