Very brief comments on several dozen disks viewed over the past few months.
Speed reviewing: 50 Capsule Comments
Tag: Japanese Film
Summer viewing: short takes, part 2
More notes on recent viewing, from a sadistic thriller to emotionally resonant anime, from a literary adaptation to two investigations of racism in America.
Viewing notes: June 2017 – Arrow Video
Arrow Video’s commitment to genre releases is on full display in a selection of recently viewed Blu-rays, each featuring informative supplements: the Japanese juvenile delinquent series Stray Cat Rock, Don Coscarelli’s epic Phantasm series, a pair of Gothic gialli from Emilio P. Miraglia, and Spanish director J.P. Simon’s adaptation of Brit author Shaun Hutson’s gross-out novel Slugs.
Viewing notes: May 2017
Two recent Japanese animated features – Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s Patema Inverted and Keiichi Hara’s Miss Hokusai – and Caltiki: The Immortal Monster, an early low-budget horror from Mario Bava, illustrate the range of styles and content available to fantastic film.
Juzo Itami’s Tampopo (1985): Criterion Blu-ray review
Juzo Itami’s international hit Tampopo (1985), a prodigiously inventive comedy about our relationship with food, gets an excellent release on Blu-ray from Criterion.
Criterion’s complete Lone Wolf and Cub 1972-74
Criterion adds another landmark of Japanese popular cinema to their collection with an impressive Blu-ray release of the complete Lone Wolf and Cub series, a dark, poetic, bloodily violent adaptation of Kazuo Koike’s epic manga.
Year-end ruminations: 2016
2016 was an impressive year for movies on disk, with a wide variety of new and classic releases, prestige productions and exploitation, and some interesting rediscoveries … too many to pick just a handful of “bests”.
Criterion Blu-ray review: Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939)
Criterion’s new Blu-ray of Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939) makes available one of the earliest masterpieces by this great Japanese director; although the film shows its age, the director’s remarkable technique of long takes and composition in depth is impressive.
Late winter viewing, part one
Kids and monsters, kids in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and a couple of cousins from Israel who tried to take over Hollywood in the ’80s: all help to take one’s mind off the tedious last days of winter.
Kinji Fukasaku’s Yakuza epic
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.
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