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. […]
Reviews
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 […]
A Bread Factory Parts One and Two (2018) Epic art-world comedy (Review)
You wait ages for a two-part independent film about making art, and then – aptly enough – two come at once. Following on from Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir Parts I and II, Bulldog distribution are releasing Patrick Wang’s A Bread Factory Parts One and Two. These films were originally released […]
Lies and Deceit – Cop Au Vin (1985) & Inspector Lavardin (1986)(Review)
Of all the names that came to prominence during the French New Wave, Claude Chabrol is one that didn’t receive the same level of acclaim or legacy as his illustrious peers. Arrow Video are doing their part to help with his broader perception by releasing two thematically tied boxsets in […]
Don’t Go In The House (1980) Schlocky psychological video nasty? (Blu-Ray Review)
Released in 1980, Don’t Go In The House, directed by Joseph Ellison, went on to define the video nasty era of the slasher genre. The darker and more bleak of the slasher nasties, compared to the fellow 1980 release of Friday The 13th, this psychological horror was met with controversy […]