Recent viewing ranges from classic noir to mediocre ’80s thriller, from low budget horror to a documentary about one of the great craftsmen of fantasy film.
Brief viewing notes, July 2016
Tag: Film Noir
Recent viewing: April & May 2016
Another eclectic selection from my recent viewing, from an old fondly remembered BBC sci-fi series to an unsettling French psychological thriller, from a nasty John Frankenheimer thriller to a pair of atypical Rossellini features striving to break out of the confines of neorealism.
Criterion Blu-ray review: In a Lonely Place (1950)
Criterion releases Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place (1950) in a superb Blu-ray edition with plentiful special features to illuminate this bleak masterpiece about masculine insecurity and the roots of violence.
Criterion Blu-ray review: The Killers (1946/1964)
Criterion’s Blu-ray of The Killers, with two excellent new hi-def transfers of the 1946 Robert Siodmak and 1964 Don Siegel versions of Ernest Hemingway’s short story, as well as Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1956 student film, is a fascinating study in the process and possibilities of adapting literature to film.
Bias and preconception in movie-watching
We bring our whole personal history to every movie we see, even ones we’ve seen (many times) before; as we’re in a constant state of change, so the movies we watch seem to change with each viewing.
Criterion Blu-ray review: Ride the Pink Horse (1947)
Criterion’s resurrection of Robert Montgomery’s Ride the Pink Horse is a revelation; the noir-inflected movie serves as a critique of post-war despair and finds a way for its war-damaged hero to return to life.
Edgar G. Ulmer, B-movies, and the art of the low budget
I was a fan of Edgar G. Ulmer before I had any idea who he was. Sometime back in the ’70s, I saw The Black Cat (1934) on television and it became, and remained, my favourite classic Universal horror film. As much as I like the others (particularly the witty work of James Whale), the […]
Stanley Kubrick part 1: Becoming Kubrick
My first encounter with Stanley Kubrick’s work came before I was ten years old. Sometime in the early ’60s, my parents took me to see Spartacus, probably at the Odeon in Chelmsford. For years afterwards, two things stuck with me: the gladiators training in a kind of cage and Jean Simmons, holding her baby, riding […]
The collector’s lament
Glenn Erickson over at DVD Savant has put up his annual “wish list” of titles he’d like to see on DVD, a reminder that no matter how many movies have been released over the past decade, there are still many more that remain unavailable. His introductory essay provides a very good overview of the situation […]
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