Arrow releases yet another impressive limited edition box-set with their dual-format edition of Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor and Humanity, a key work in the transition of Japanese cinema from the “classical” post-war period to a more transgressive critique of the nation’s history and culture.
Although I saw fewer movies in theatres than ever, this year offered a rich array of films on disk, belying continuing prophecies of the medium’s demise in the face of on-line streaming.
With an impressive Blu-ray of Speedy (1928), the Criterion Collection continue their project of proving that Harold Lloyd was the equal of Chaplin and Keaton in the art of silent comedy.
I recently gave a speech based on my documentary about the history of movie theatres in Winnipeg; this is the text.
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.
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.
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.
Criterion offer a real discovery, Swedish director Jan Troell’s debut feature Here Is Your Life (1966), a richly evocative coming-of-age story based on Nobel Prize-winner Eyvind Johnson’s four-part autobiographical novel set in the second decade of the 20th Century.
Watching Blacula (1972) while reading James Baldwin’s The Devil Finds Work turns up some surprising depths in the cheap blaxploitation horror movie.
An opportunity to meet my favourite film critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum, turned out to be a rich evening of films from around the world.