A round-up of recent disk-watching ranges from comedy to horror, mock-umentary to documentary, a poverty row classic and major discovery from the late silent period.
Viewing notes July-August 2015
Tag: Docu-drama
The political cinema of Costa-Gavras
Criterion has released two excellent Blu-ray editions of Costa-Gavras’ finest films: The Confession and State of Siege examine dramatically political repression and violence on both the Left and Right.
Twilight Time again …
Recent Blu-rays from Twilight Time are as eclectic as ever. A couple of mainstream Hollywood classics; an oddball excursion into pulp by one of the great Hollywood directors; and a devastating animated fable by a Japanese-American filmmaker based on a very English graphic novel.
Criterion Blu-ray review: Vengeance is Mine (1979)
Vengeance Is Mine (1979). Shohei Imamura’s chilling fact-based film about a serial killer, now on Criterion Blu-ray, is shot through with anger and satirical jabs at post-war Japanese society.
Recent disks from England, part one
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.
Criterion Blu-ray Review: Riot In Cell Block 11 (1954)
Criterion offers a strong presentation of Don Siegel’s breakout movie, Riot In Cell Block 11 (1954), a powerful docudrama which avoids all prison movie cliches.
Notes on Recent Viewing, part two
Continuing a review of the past month’s disk viewing; contemporary and classic thrillers, Czech animation, British cult TV, and a French dream of New York.
Notes on Recent Viewing, part one
A survey of recent viewing covers approaches to realism, metaphor, horror and war in a range of films from the 1920s to the 2010s.
Representing Violence: The Manson Family (2003)
Considering the amount of effort and energy required to make a movie, it’s not surprising that a filmmaker can become obsessed with a project. Major directors sometimes get lost trying to complete a movie – think Werner Herzog determined to drag a full-sized steamship over a mountain in Fitzcarraldo, or Francis Ford Coppola growing mad […]
DVD Review: Medium Cool (1969)
It’s interesting that Criterion has released Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool (1969) so soon after Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (1962). The two films, separated by an ocean, by different cultures and by almost a decade, represent two distinct approaches to the same essential problem: is it possible for film to capture […]
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