Review | Cagey Films

Post-Op, week one

Posted on July 17, 2019December 18, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Ruthless gangs traffic in drugs and human lives in Seijun Suzuki's Smashing the O-Line (1960)

A week of intensive viewing following surgery provides a mix from classics to trash and everything in between – crime, horror, sci-fi, art and exploitation.

Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace (1966-67):
Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on July 10, 2019December 10, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Napoleon surveys the field of battle in Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace (1966-67)

Criterion’s two-disk Blu-ray release of Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace showcases a restoration of what may well be the most expensive film ever made. Truly epic in scale, this adaptation of Tolstoy’s revered novel balances awe-inspiring spectacle with emotionally charged character drama. The 7+ hour feature is supplemented with three hours of informative new and archival extras.

Miscellaneous viewing – Summer 2019

Posted on July 3, 2019September 24, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Rancher Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) is cautious with Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives) and his violent gang in Andre de Toth's Day of the Outlaw (1959)

Recent viewing includes a stark western (compared to the work of Dreyer by Bertrand Tavernier), an entertaining adventure souffle from frequent collaborators John Huston and Humphrey Bogart, and a ground-breaking satirical drama from Robert Aldrich which dealt sympathetically with lesbianism in the late 1960s.

Recent Brit disks, part two

Posted on June 26, 2019September 24, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Veronica Lake plays a western femme fatale in Andre de Toth's Ramrod (1947)

Recent viewing features stylized violence, classic martial arts, western noir and political Ozploitation on more disks from England

Random viewing, short takes – part two

Posted on June 19, 2019March 28, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Decor as meaning: style is the substance in Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977)

More Italian genre movies from the 1970s – horror, giallo and poliziotteschi – along with a gritty American exploitation movie which owes something to the giallo.

Recent Brit disks

Posted on June 12, 2019December 10, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Barrister John Sawyer (James Mason), not so subtly dominated by drink in Pierre Jouve's Stranger in the House (1967)

Recent viewing includes an obscure arty film by the producer of Blow-Up and a pair of lesser known horrors from the heyday of British Gothic.

William Wyler’s The Heiress (1949): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on June 5, 2019November 5, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

In finally achieving independence Catherine (Olivia de Havilland) also accepts the prospect of loneliness in William Wyler's The Heiress (1949)

Criterion’s new Blu-ray offers a superb presentation of William Wyler’s greatest film, The Heiress (1949), a subtle yet scathing dissection of the ways in which money distorts and destroys human relationships.

Random viewing, short takes

Posted on May 29, 2019April 7, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Sennia Nanua gives a riveting performance as Melanie, The Girl with All the Gifts (Colm McCarthy, 2016)

A decidedly mixed bag of recent viewing; a pair of young adult zombie stories — the Maze Runner Trilogy (2014-18) and the small-scale The Girl with All the Gifts (2016); a taut ’50s prison escape noir (Crashout, 1955) and a polished new crime noir (Dragged Across Concrete, 2018); a minor, dull thriller (All the Devil’s Men, 2018); and a bloated, enervatingly pretentious remake of a genre classic (Suspiria, 2018).

More from Indicator

Posted on May 22, 2019November 17, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

British agent Gatiss (Tom Courtenay) spies on fellow spy Eberlin (Laurence Harvey) in Anthony Mann's A Dandy in Aspic (1968)

Recent disks from Indicator present a wide variety of styles and genres from bleak ’60s espionage to slick 1970s big studio exploitation, charming period comedy to enjoyable if less-than-scary horror.

Demons and vampires from the ’70s

Posted on May 15, 2019December 10, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

The newly risen Caleb Croft (Michael Pataki) snacks on a suburban housewife in John Hayes' Grave of the Vampire (1972)

A pair of recent Blu-rays from Shout! Factory bookend ’70s horror with John Hayes’ Grave of the Vampire (1972), a too-little-known cheap exploitation feature which revitalizes vampire mythology and William Girdler’s The Manitou (1978), a low-budget studio movie with a better-than-average cast which plays a variation on demonic possession but fails to find an effective tone.

Category: Review