Review | Cagey Films

Discovering a Japanese master: Tai Katô

Posted on May 7, 2025May 6, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Former soldier Kawada (Noboru Andô) defies the law and his former comrades to help his community in Tai Katô’s Eighteen Years in Prison (1967)

Despite a career spanning from the 1930s to the mid-’80s, I hadn’t even heard of Tai Katô until a recent flurry of disk releases from Radiance in England and Film Movement in the States, yet he produced significant work in some of my favourite genres – particularly chambara and yakuza films, both of which are represented in these releases, with excellent editions of postwar crime stories (By a Man’s Face Shall You Know Him [1966] and Eighteen Years in Prison [1967]), police procedural noir (I, the Executioner [1968]), and period swordfighting (Tokijiro: Lone Yakuza [1966]).

Horrors old and new

Posted on April 30, 2025April 24, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Kronos (Horst Janson) uses his modified sword to deflect the vampire's hypnotic gaze in Brian Clemens' Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974)

Horror is a flexible genre, capable of using science fiction, history, adventure, action and terrible real-life events to touch on existential questions as well as provide escape with a frisson of pleasurable fear. Three recent releases span a broad range of the possibilities – Roger Corman’s X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), arguably his best film; Brian Clemens’ Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974), one of the best late films from Hammer Films; and Nick Kozakis’s Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism (2023), a bleak examination of the dangers of fundamentalist religious beliefs based on a tragic case which occurred in Australia in 1993.

Late winter/early spring Arrow viewing, part two

Posted on April 23, 2025April 22, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Dr. Ellis (Richard Dysart) inserts electrodes into Harry Benson (George Segal)'s brain in Mike Hodges' The Terminal Man (1974)

Some recent Arrow releases provide an opportunity to revisit a few familiar movies and – perhaps – reevaluate them. Each of them presents some problems, but Tarsem Singh’s The Cell (2000), Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects (1995) and Mike Hodges’ The Terminal Man (1974) were all worth another look.

Claude Berri’s Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources (1986): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on April 16, 2025April 14, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Manon (Emmanuelle Béart) watches over those who ruined her family in Claude Berri's Manon des Sources (1986)

Criterion have released an excellent two-disk edition of Claude Berri’s adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s epic tragedy of idealism brought down by greed and petty rivalries in early 20th Century rural Provence. New 4K restorations of Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources (both 1986) are visually ravishing, while the drama is embodied in superb performances from Gérard Depardieu, Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Béart and an excellent supporting cast.

Late winter/early spring Arrow viewing, part one

Posted on April 9, 2025April 7, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Gunsfighter J.B. Books, dying of cancer, is played by John Wayne, who was dying of cancer, in Don Siegel's The Shootist (1976)

Recent Arrow disks offer an alien invasion (Oliver Hirschbiegel’s The Invasion [2007]), stylish horror (Rampo Noir [2005]), a classic western (Don Siegel’s The Shootist [1976]) and a note-perfect homage to ’70s low-budget exploitation (Francis Galluppi’s The Last Stop in Yuma County [2023]).

Peak paranoia: two classics on Blu-ray

Posted on April 2, 2025March 31, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) carefully guards his own secrets while exposing others' in Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974)

Two key films from the era of peak paranoia, the late-’60s and early ’70s, are given exemplary disk releases – Theordore J. Flicker’s darkly comic The President’s Analst (1967) on Blu-ray from Imprint and Francis Ford Coppola’s nightmarish The Conversation (1974) on 4K in a dual-format edition from StudioCanal.

Dipping another toe into the online stream, part two

Posted on March 19, 2025March 19, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Nicholas Cage goes full Nic Cage in Longlegs (2024)

My recent streaming seems to lean heavily into horror, with a few animated movies to lighten the tone.

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear (1953): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on March 17, 2025March 16, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Mario (Yves Montand) switches allegiance from the ex-pat group to the newcomer M. Jo (Charles Vanel) in Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear (1953)

Criterion’s new dual-format 4K UHD/Blu-ray release of The Wages of Fear (1953) presents an opportunity to revisit Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic and examine just why it troubled its U.S. distributor and some critics with its political and sexual implications.

Dipping another toe into the online stream, part one

Posted on March 15, 2025March 10, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Bud Spencer and Terence Hill as mismatched brothers in Enzo Barboni's They Call Me Trinity (1970)

My plunge into streaming has been more rewarding than not, catching up with a slew of recent action movies as well as a variety of older movies I missed decades ago, or remember from television screenings back in the ’70s.

Dipping a toe into the online stream

Posted on March 12, 2025March 12, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

The Terror and the Erebus sail into danger seeking the Northwest Passage in the Ridley Scott-produced adaptation of Dan Simmons' novel The Terror (2018)

Until fairly recently I’ve avoided streaming – I like nothing better than handling physical media, taking small shiny disks out of their case and putting them back on the shelf as part of my collection after watching their contents. But various factors have been pushing me towards rethinking my collector mentality and in the past few months I’ve found myself mixing and increasing amount of streaming into my viewing. This has included a number of (limited) series as well as quite a few older and newer movies. And I’ve become aware that I haven’t been writing about these shows because – that collector mentality again – I have kind of ghettoized them: somehow I haven’t taken a streamed movie as seriously as the ones I own. So perhaps it’s time to consider them here…

Category: Review