DVD/Blu-Ray Review
Blu-Ray Review: Howards End
Merchant Ivory Productions started out with the goal of making English-language films in India, aimed at the international market. The majority of their films have been produced by Ismail Merchant and directed by James Ivory; at one point almost becoming their own genre. They’re still going to this day, with James Ivory writing the script …
Blu-Ray Review: Montparnasse 19
The portrait of a tortured artist is one which has inspired fascination and sometimes imitation for hundreds of years. Alcoholism and drug addiction can become romantic notions when they’re associated with the likes of Hemingway, van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Coleridge or Dickens. Indeed, these kinds of excesses have become synonymous with those who are considered creative …
Blu-Ray Review: The Thing
The Thing is one of those films which is a cult classic whilst being part of mainstream culture. It’s a good remake. Arguably the best remake there’s ever been. It’s a John Carpenter film which is not only a good John Carpenter film (arguably his best above Escape from New York, Halloween and They Live) …
Blu-Ray Review: Goldstone
Cinema hasn’t really painted rural Australia as the perfect place to visit on a vacation. Sure, it all looked rather pretty in Walkabout, but don’t be fooled by appearances. The likes of Wake in Fright, Wolf Creek and Mystery Road hardly portray the outback as a pleasant place to live. Especially if you’re a member …
Blu-Ray Review: The Farthest
In the 1960s and 1970s, Americans increasingly looked to the stars. Whilst the Space Race had already been won, our fascination with our universe and beyond was only just beginning. In an attempt to increase our understanding of our solar system, NASA launched the Voyager mission in 1977. Voyager 1’s objective included a flyby Jupiter, …
Film Review – Ferrari: Race to Immortality
Formula 1 today is a sport of cutting edge science, drivers who are athletes at the peak of fitness and tracks which place safety well above entertainment value. However, this hasn’t always been the case. Indeed, until the tragic death of Aryton Senna, F1 was not a sport for the faint of heart. If you …
Blu-Ray Review: The Tiger: An Old Hunter’s Tale
There’s something rather poetic about the battle of wills between man and beast. The hunter and the hunted. The predator and the prey. In literature, there are few more poetically powerful tales than Captain Ahab versus Moby Dick. On the big screen, Liam Neeson fighting a wolf with his bare hand in Grey or Brody, …
Blu-Ray Review: Black Christmas
Whilst it’s true that John Carpenter’s Halloween was the first film to introduce the slasher genre to a mainstream audience, it was by no means the first of its kind. That distinction probably goes to Mario Bava for either Blood and Black Lace or A Bay of Blood, but if truth be told it was …
Blu-Ray Review: Hammer Volume One: Fear Warning
Hammer Volume One: Fear Warning brings together four Hammer horror productions released in the first half of the 1960s. They are four very different tales of fear, curses, madness and the supernatural. In a genre and period when female actors were usually restricted to playing the victim or the damsel in distress, these films afforded …
Blu-Ray Review: Witchhammer
Co-founder of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, whilst Otakar Vávra was a highly prolific film-maker over a number of decades, he’s not well-known outside of his native Czech Republic. One of the reasons for this was possibly because he was considered a sell-out by many of his peers due to his willingness to …