Guest blogger Howard Curle discovered a fascinating, previously unknown film and filmmaker at the 2014 San Francisco Silent Film Festival: Harbour Drift by Leo Mittler.
Although the idea of creating lists of the “best” is always problematic, the attempt often provides the impetus to think about and reevaluate our own likes, dislikes and judgements. The recent Sight & Sound list of “the greatest documentaries of all time” affords an opportunity to think about what actually qualifies as documentary and to talk about personal favourites.
Since we’ve been able to invent stories, we’ve had fantasies about creating artificial versions of ourselves, but in “playing god” we often end up faced with unruly creatures or machines which rebel against us or even worse become our masters.
With Scanners, his occasionally gory telepath thriller, David Cronenberg made a significant move from low-budget horror towards the mainstream.
Any attempt at making a list of movie best-ofs opens a door for endless arguments because ultimately all value judgments are subjective, as is immediately apparent in CineFix’s attempt to define the 10 best editing moments in film history.
Andrei Konchalovsky’s Runaway Train, although an American production, has a distinctly Russian tone in its mix of action and existential allegory.
Arrow have released an excellent edition of Donald Cammell’s little-seen White of the Eye, a marital drama disguised as a serial killer movie, along with an excellent selection of extras that throw light on the troubled director’s career.
England’s Arrow Video, while still largely focusing on genre titles, is rapidly becoming the equal of the BFI and Criterion in the quality of their releases, including extensive, informative supplements on many disks.
Excellent new region B Blu-rays of Richard Fleischer’s soap noir Violent Saturday, Franklin Schaffner’s The War Lord and Robert Altman’s revisionist take on classic detective stories, The Long Goodbye; plus The Land of Hope, a recent, quieter and more contemplative film by prolific Japanese director Sono Sion.
Peter Davis’ Oscar-winning 1973 documentary Hearts and Minds remains the single finest investigation of U.S. motivations and actions in Vietnam.