Crime, violence, sports, noir, international intrigue and political allegory from Kino Lorber and Arrow Video.
Fall 2023 viewing, part four
Tag: Action
Fall 2023 viewing, part three
Something for everyone this week – killer clowns, sea monsters, Gothic horrors, a high-speed ambulance and haunted buildings, werewolves, Nazi cannibals and anatomical abnormalities, murder and madness.
The transgressive art of William Friedkin
William Friedkin’s death in August prompted a look back at his most significant work from the ’70s and ’80s, a run of movies which were controversial and only intermittently commercially successful. At his best, Friedkin’s cool, detached approach to dangerous subjects resulted in powerful movies which influenced the direction of popular genres and his work from that period remains challenging today.
Interesting releases from Australia’s Imprint
The Australian company Imprint has been releasing extras-laden special editions on Blu-ray of movies which strangely remain elusive in North America. Among some recent acquisitions are Mike Hodges’ I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2002), Barbet Schroeder’s Charles Bukowski-scripted Barfly (1987), a minor but interesting B-movie by prolific journeyman Lesley Selander, The Catman of Paris (1946), and Walter Hill’s The Warriors (1979), thankfully in a two-disk set which includes the superior theatrical cut as well as the misconceived “ultimate director’s cut” from 2005.
Recent Asian releases from Eureka
Eureka, and their specialty label Masters of Cinema, continue to release a range of Asian films, from pulp action to classical tragedy. Among recent releases are a two-disk set of four sequels to Rickay Lau’s Mr. Vampire (1985), Cynthia Rothrock’s first lead role in Mang Hoi & Corey Yuen’s Lady Reporter (1989), and a pair of very different samurai epics: Tadashi Imai’s bleak dissection of the Bushido code in Revenge (1964) and Kenji Fukasaku’s mix of history and supernatural horror in Samurai Reincarnation (1981).
Carl Franklin’s One False Move (1992): Criterion Blu-ray review
One False Move (1992), a slow-burn character study of small-time criminals and a small-town cop punctuated by disturbing burst of violence, gave Tom Paxton his best role and launched the careers of director Carl Franklin and writer-actor Billy Bob Thornton. This low-budget independent production gets an impressive restoration from the Criterion Collection in a dual-format 4K UHD/Blu-ray release.
The amateur passion of Michael J. Murphy
Although I’ve so far only watched four of the ten disks in Indicators monumental Magic, Myth & Mutilation: The Micro-Budget Cinema of Michael J. Murphy 1967-2015, it’s time to say a few words about this remarkable English outsider artist whose ambition consistently outpaced limited resources; the set is an amazing act of recovery and preservation of a body of work which has survived only in compromised form, covering multiple genres and displaying the development of a genuine filmmaking talent. The most impressive release yet from one of the world’s finest companies.
Action and politics in ’70s thrillers
Thrillers may exploit real-world issues for story material, but often distort and trivialize reality in their quest to entertain. The terrorism which erupted and spread during the 1970s is used in quite different ways in Otto Preminger’s Rosebud (1975), John Frankenheimer’s Black Sunday (1976) and Andrew V. McLaglen’s North Sea Hijack (1980).
What I haven’t been writing about
Although I write regularly here about the movies I watch, there are a lot more I don’t get around to mentioning – the reasons for what write about or ignore are not entirely clear.
Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill (1967): Criterion Blu-ray review
Criterion’s new dual-format release of Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill (1967) showcases a 4K transfer of this radical deconstruction of the yakuza genre starring the idiosyncratic Joe Shishido as hit man who finds himself disappearing down a rabbit hole of paranoia and violence.
Search
Indexes
Monthly Archives
Recent Posts