Brief thoughts on some genre movies released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video, plus a couple of interesting books about the making of Cy Endfield’s Zulu and Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.
Random notes: August 2016
Tag: Film Criticism
Blast from the past: a 28-year-old term paper
I recently unearthed a university paper I wrote almost 30 years ago in which I tried to explain why Frank Capra’s work rubbed me the wrong way. It’s a glimpse of where I came from as a writer about film.
Random notes: two films and a book
A variety of approaches to horror are on display in Guillermo Del Toro’s new film Crimson Peak; a book about Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining which gathers together articles, essays and interviews from the ’80s to the present; and a disturbing 1983 Austrian film based on a real-life multiple murder, Gerald Kargl and Zbigniew Rybczynski’s Angst.
David Lynch book now available
Cagey Films has begun to issue content from the site, as well as new material, in a projected series of eBooks, beginning with a volume devoted to David Lynch and the making of Eraserhead.
Lost Soul: Richard Stanley vs Hollywood commerce
David Gregory’s documentary Lost Soul tells the fascinating story of Richard Stanley’s failed attempt to adapt H.G. Wells’ Island of Dr. Moreau, a project which fell foul of the conflict between a quirky artist and a Hollywood corporation.
Blaxploitation and historical counter-narrative
Watching Blacula (1972) while reading James Baldwin’s The Devil Finds Work turns up some surprising depths in the cheap blaxploitation horror movie.
An evening with Jonathan Rosenbaum
An opportunity to meet my favourite film critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum, turned out to be a rich evening of films from around the world.
When “bad” can be good …
There are bad movies and then there are “bad” movies; our relationship with the latter is more complicated than it first appears.
Listmania redux: The Greatest Documentaries of All Time, part three
In part three of my response to the Sight & Sound list of “greatest documentaries”, I finally get around to comparing my own choices with those in the magazine, finding some points of overlap and others of disagreement.
Guest post:
A Weimar Cinema Revelation: Harbour Drift (1929), part two
Guest blogger Howard Curle continues his investigation of the silent Weimar feature Harbour Drift (1929) through a look at the film’s producer Willi Munzenberg and the film’s critical reception.
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