In the 1960s, Soviet and Eastern Bloc sci-fi cinema was full of hope and the promise of a technologically enhanced future. How could it not be? Soviet technology was winning the space race against the decadent West. This may have been due to the West spending millions of dollars in […]
Czech New Wave
Invention for Destruction (1958) One of the finest pop-up books in cinema history (Review)
Daisies (1966) A High-Punk, High-Art, High-Feminist one of a Kind (Review)
Black Peter (1964) The origins of Czech New Wave’s greatest export (Review)
Intimate Lighting (1965) Czech New Wave as a light, comedic, endless rewatchable delight (Review)
After their great re-release of Juraj Herz’s ‘The Cremator’ on Blu-Ray late last year, Second Run have kindly followed that up by restoring another fan favourite Czech title – Ivan Passer’s ‘Intimate Lighting’. Like his close friend and collaborator, the late Miloš Forman, Passer is uninterested in creating a melodramatic […]
The Cremator (1968) an absolute essential to watch for all Czech New Wave Fans (Review)
Witchhammer (1969) The Best Witch Trials movie ever made (Review)
Reality is something to be surpassed in horror. The promotional line of being based on a ‘true story’ is something which is used as a basic inspiration point as illustrated by the original Amityville and Conjuring movies or the countless identikit exorcism films using this in their marketing spiel. Witch […]
Three Wishes For Cinderella (1973) A Christmas Favourite in Mainland Europe for all the right reasons (Review)
Something Different / A Bagful of Fleas (1962-3) breezy, charming and fiercely political (Review)
All My Good Countrymen (1968) Even a dictatorship can’t keep a lid on this (Review)
A rural, bawdy, political epic with magical realist fringes, full of drinking, singing and close-ups on weathered peasant faces, Vojtěch Jasný’s 1968 film All My Good Countrymen is exactly the sort of thing some people think of when you talk about classic European cinema. Following the fortunes and misfortunes of […]