The title of any given movie is supremely important, as many adage’s state first impressions matter and for any film that title is where we make that impression. Looking at the UK catalogue of Criterion, we can separate a movie title into two camps – we have the abstract, like […]
Movies & Documentaries
House (1977) Completely within its own erratic, mesmerising orbit (Review)
There’s a tiresome tendency among Westerners to squeal “wtf japan lol” every time a Japanese film exhibits a minor eccentricity, but sometimes you have to acknowledge a film is very strange. That’s the case with 1977’s House, now released on Blu-Ray by Eureka Masters of Cinema. House was a massive hit […]
Strangled (2016) less reinventing the wheel and more a threadbare example of true crime cinema (Review)
Montage Pictures (a subsidiary of Eureka) debuted with two unheard titles from the outer reaches of world cinema last year; Argyis Papadimitropoulis’s slow-burning drama, ‘Suntan’, and Attila Till’s wheelchair-bound hitman movie, ‘Kills on Wheels’. Following in a similar vein is Árpád Sopsits’s downbeat thriller, ‘Strangled’. Based on real-life events, ‘Strangled’ […]
A Touch of Sin (2013) few filmmakers have their finger on the pulse of the developing Chinese identity like Jia Zhangke (Review)
For the longest of times, the idea of Chinese film didn’t really stretch past the borders of Hong Kong and its legendary action cinema. It’s only been in recent years that mainland China has found its way onto the global market, for a country with such a complex modern political […]
The Mystery of Picasso (1956) A meeting of Auteurs, Picasso & Clouzot (Review)
There isn’t one set-in-stone way to make an art documentary, because there isn’t one set-in-stone way to appreciate art. Those who believe art should stand on its own, or trigger some kind of personal reading, may feel that the work is diminished by too much context and explanation. That seems […]
Wages of Fear (1953) one of the masterpieces of suspense (Review)
The Wages of Fear is a masterpiece of suspense by director/co-writer Clouzot, which keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat with each bump and turn in the road. It is not hard to see why it won multiple awards, and why, even today, it features in many Top […]
Bad Day For The Cut (2017) Coen-like thriller tropes, sturdy social realism, and unique Irish flavour (Review)
When the mother he both lived with and doted on is violently bludgeoned to death in an apparent home invasion, middle-aged and seemingly mild-mannered farmer Donal (Nigel O’Neill) takes his shotgun and newly restored campervan and sets out from their remote farmstead looking for answers and revenge. What he comes […]
Blue Collar (1978) the bleakest picture of the working week in American cinema (Review)
Not all of Paul Schrader’s movies are pitiless examinations of masculinity in crisis, but when one of them kicks off with Bo Diddley singing ‘I’m A Man’, you’d better believe that’s a statement. Now reissued on Powerhouse, Blue Collar is the tale of three car factory workers who hatch a […]
Charley Varrick (1973) The casual appeal of Walter Matthau (Review)
Powerhouse’s new Blu-Ray of Don Siegel’s 1973 thriller Charley Varrick comes with the impressive set of extras this label has set as a standard for their reissues of cult films. Sometimes, though, the information you get from those extras doesn’t quite tally up. The feature-length making-of documentary Last of the […]
Phenomena (1985) Dario Argento side steps the Giallo to bring the wildest and most fun horror of his career (Review)
Whether or not he was the best director remains to be seen, when the topic of the Giallo comes up one of the first names to come up is Dario Argento. Even if his career took a near-legendary nosedive in the early 1990s, his peak stands among the best runs […]