Renowned British horror director Terence Fisher rarely tried his hand at science fiction; Odeon Entertainment has recently released new Blu-ray editions of his two best SF films, Island of Terror and Night of the Big Heat.
Twilight Time continues to release an interesting assortment of titles, often now with excellent commentaries and impressive supplemental material.
Roman Polanski’s Macbeth stands as one of the finest adaptations of Shakespeare on film, a seamless blend of poetry and harsh realism in its depiction of a cruel medieval world and the futility of ambition.
The documentary impulse was integral to the evolution of film and a key element was the application of the new technology to the 19th Century impulse to explore and “conquer” far-off exotic places and cultures.
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.
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.
The latest Flipside release from the BFI, Bill Forsyth’s That Sinking Feeling, is like a cross between a gritty Ken Loach working class story and a Children’s Film Foundation fantasy of kid empowerment.
The consequences of one man’s decision in Steven Knight’s Locke outweigh the fate of the world in Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow.
Warners, once in the forefront of quality disk supplements, now more often releases bare bones titles even when the movies cry out for commentaries and documentaries to illuminate their importance.
Two disks illustrate the spectrum of British genre production in the ’70s and ’80s: Pete Walker’s cinematic horror Frightmare and David Rudkin’s epic BBC fantasy Artemis 81.