Gangster Films | Cagey Films

Howard Hawks’ Scarface (1932): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on November 13, 2024November 11, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Tony Cramonte (Paul Muni) makes his last stand in his fortified apartment in Howard Hawks' Scarface (1932)

Howard Hawks’ Scarface: The Shame of a Nation (1932), newly restored in 4K and released by Criterion in a dual-format edition as well as a stand-alone Blu-ray, is in many ways the most modern of the 1930s gangster movies, filled with Paul Muni’s infectious energy as the ambitious Tony Cramonte, balanced by two string female characters (Karen Morley and Ann Dvorak), blending dark tragedy with streaks of comedy, and pushing violence as far as was possible in the years just before Hollywood established the Production Code.

Interesting releases from Australia’s Imprint

Posted on September 6, 2023September 5, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Will Graham (Clive Owen) conbtemplates the futility of violence in Mike Hodges' I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2002)

The Australian company Imprint has been releasing extras-laden special editions on Blu-ray of movies which strangely remain elusive in North America. Among some recent acquisitions are Mike Hodges’ I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2002), Barbet Schroeder’s Charles Bukowski-scripted Barfly (1987), a minor but interesting B-movie by prolific journeyman Lesley Selander, The Catman of Paris (1946), and Walter Hill’s The Warriors (1979), thankfully in a two-disk set which includes the superior theatrical cut as well as the misconceived “ultimate director’s cut” from 2005.

Recent Arrow releases, part one

Posted on March 8, 2023March 6, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Toshio (Yuya Ozeki) lurks in dark corners in Takashi Shimizu's Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (2003)

Recent Arrow releases include Japanese ghosts (a deluxe box set of Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On movies) and gangsters (Shinji Somai’s genre-bending Sailor Suit and Machine Gun [1981]) and one of the best early adaptations of an H.P. Lovecraft story (Daniel Haller’s The Dunwich Horror [1969]).

The Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing (1990):
Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on February 23, 2022February 22, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro) becomes a dangerous doppelgänger for Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) in the Coen Brothers' Miller's Crossing (1990)

With their new Blu-ray release, Criterion add the Coen Brothers’ third feature, Miller’s Crossing (1990), to the Collection. One of the darkest, most sombre films in the Coen canon, this moody gangster story updates hardboiled noir as a complex meditation on male fragility and violence. Sumptuously shot by Barry Sonnenfeld, it features a superb cast of great character actors.

Asia extreme

Posted on April 8, 2020December 10, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Boxer Leo (Masataka Kubota) and prostitute Monica (Sakurako Konishi) face off against yakuza gangs in Takashi Miike's First Love (2019)

Although there are obviously differences from culture to culture, many Asian movies share a tendency to to ignore the kind of “realism” Western, and particularly American, movies so often feel is necessary – which is one reason so many U.S. remakes of Asian genre movies take on a pedestrian quality nowhere evident in the originals. Three recent Asian movies – from Korea, Japan and China – use different approaches to explore societies in which economic and social inequality engender violence and to some degree madness. One uses blackly comic satire, one pushes genre tropes to absurd extremes, and one pushes neorealism into the realm of nightmare.

Recent Viewing 1

Posted on October 10, 2012February 17, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

It looks like I haven’t reported on my home viewing in quite a while, so looking back over my notes, there are far too many titles to comment on in detail. Some of these are films I’ve looked at again because of recent Blu-ray releases – the Alien series, for instance, and the Red Riding […]

Tag: Gangster Films