Cinema, TV, and Everything in Between
An automatic awards-season front runner for Daniel Craig as best actor, Luca Guadagnino’s deliberately louche adaptation of the semi-autobiographical 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs is easily his most cohesive film to date. My regular reader will know that I’ve not found much to admire in his Suspiria, Bones and All or Challengers, but...…
Scared the living cack outta me!!!! ‘The magical film that haunted the dreams of a generation’ runs the ad-line for this blu-ray release, the first time that this notorious Brothers Grimm adaptation has been released in this format. ‘The scary AF East German fantasy f*ckery that freaked out millions of...…
Standing up for the indie is a big part of what we do; there are genres, and there are sub-genres, and then there are micro genres; there’s a specific kind of indie romcom that isn’t really a romcom at all, but you know it when you see it; it’s when...…
‘There must be no end, only a new beginning’ is the punchline of sorts to Ray Milland’s low-budget kinda apocalypse, kinda survivalist thriller. On Blu-ray for the first time in the UK from the Radiance imprint and ideally purchased in HMV Cardiff, Panic in Year Zero has an obvious relevance...…
Adapting his own play, writer Ronald Harwood evokes the spirit of the ultimate ham actor, Donald Wolfit, in this wonderfully arch character drama from Peter Yates. Known only as Sir, this Shakespearean firebrand is played to the hilt by Albert Finney; an opening scene in which he stops a train...…
One of the great milestones in cinema history, writer and director Benjamin Christensen’s film is a documentary that’s reasonably summarized by its 1968 reissue title Witchcraft Through the Ages. That version, edited and with a commentary by no less an authority on the arcane than William Burroughs, is included in...…
Ready to off-road? Never mind a Rotten Tomatoes page, Toshio Matsumoto’s 1988 movie doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page; we’re a long way from Kansas now, Toto, but that’s no bad thing in this instance. Dogra Magra gets a blu-ray treatment for the first time outside of Japan with this...…
‘We’ll have a good story to tell,’ one woodcutter blithely tells another in Tokuzō Tanaka’s philosophically rich ghost story; it’s one of three supernaturally-themed stories told in a new boxed-set from Radiance, Daiei Gothic – Japanese Ghost Stories (LE). Providing the rather startling image for the cover, The Snow Woman...…
I’m not sure why I’ve not previously set eyes on Gordon Hessler’s 1969 Gothic horror The Oblong Box…
Rules, rules, rules; are YOU a demon seeking to interfere maliciously with the lives of real mortals?…
Well, it took a few decades, but I finally saw The Black Bird, a detective movie spoof from 1975…
Radiance are providing some rare insight into the 60’s output of Elio Petri…
It’s not just any old Megalopolis, it’s Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis…
How did I miss A Murder at the End of the World?…
After various elements of Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim’s script were artfully ‘remixed’ for Rian Johnson’s Knives Out and Glass Onion, it’s something of a treat to go back to the source. Herbert Ross did a bang up job of directing The Last of Sheila, but it’s the literate, urbane...…
How do you like your film noir? To misquote the Supersister song, I prefer my noir…
Do you review shorts? It’s a question that comes up a lot, and the answer is a yes…
WTAF happened to Blumhouse? In 2023, the horror imprint could do no wrong…
Radiance’s care and consideration for selecting, restoring and supporting classic films on blu-ray…
For a bestselling novelist, Wilbur Smith’s work rarely ended up on the big screen…
‘I’ve been looking for the Third Programme and all I can find is comedy and crudity,’…
The BBC Genome allows us to trace the highs and lows of a viewing history…
If nothing else, streaming is becoming so annoying, it’s driving me back to the cinema…
Aldo Lado’s Who Saw Her Die? occupies a rather strange place in film history…
Judd Hirsch was the name which drew me to this upbeat, winning tale of baseball kids overcoming the odds…
RSS – Posts