Criterion Collection
Blu-Ray Review: The Ascent
Cinema, like almost every other walk of life, has been a male dominated world since the first ever motion pictures in the late nineteenth century. Whilst it’s true of most areas of the film industry, this disparity has been particularly marked behind the camera. Indeed, until relatively recently, there were few female directors who the …
Blu-Ray Review: Charade
Audrey Hepburn is one of the most recognisable faces to ever grace the big screen. The elfin Brit is as well known for being a Hollywood heartthrob as she is for her abilities in front of the camera, which is incredibly unfair. While her role as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s remains her most …
Blu-Ray Review: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
Given the rather troubling rise of the far right and a resurgence in support for views espoused by Benito Mussolini, in modern Italy, the country is once again facing a turbulent socio-political period. Of which there have been many. Towards the end of the 1960, and throughout the next decade, there were a spate of …
Blu-Ray Review: The Tin Drum
During the period on either side of the 19th Century, Eastern Europe was a region in constant flux. No country personifies this more than the territory which is classed as modern-day Poland. Whether under partition or occupation by Prussia, Russia, Germany or Austria, a desire for independence and nationalistic movements were repeatedly thwarted. Often by …
Blu-Ray Review: Five Easy Pieces
During the 1970s, there were a number of great American actors who both captivated cinema audiences and won a string of awards. Jack Nicholson was up there at, or near, the top. There are few who could claim to have had a stronger decade than the New Jerseyan. The likes of One Flew Over the …
Blu-Ray Review: Girlfriends
The 1970s was a time of change and liberalisation in America. Following on from the conservative post-war years, the 1960s opened up a whole new world of opportunity; which continued into the next decade. Feminism began to make waves across the major urban areas, including LA. Hollywood reacted slowly, but it’s a period when several …
Blu-Ray Review: Eraserhead
There aren’t many film directors who are truly one of a kind. David Lynch sits firmly in this camp. Whilst you often hear something described as ‘Lynchian’, it almost always isn’t. Heck, how many people in the film industry have got their own adjective? Whilst Twin Peaks remains his opus, every film he’s made in …
Blu-Ray Review: Beau Travail
During the past couple of years, a strange thing has happened to Claire Denis. The renowned director of such brilliant films as 35 Shots of Rum, Bastards and White Materials has always been popular and feted on festival circuits, but she now appears to have become the fairy godmother of European arthouse cinema. Whilst a …
Blu-Ray Review: Show Boat (1936)
Whilst he was only actively making films for just over a decade, James Whale played a pivotal role in the development of genre cinema in America. Influenced by early European expressionist cinema, the West Countryman made some of the most iconic early horror films, including The Old Dark House, Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein and …
Blu-Ray Review: Safety Last!
Whilst many of the films produced during the silent era may now be lost, damaged or forgotten, it was a pivotal period in cinema and established a strong bond between audiences and motion pictures. A variety of genres began to flourish during that time but it’s perhaps the American comedies which still retain the most …