Satire | Cagey Films

Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on June 11, 2025June 14, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Office drone Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) has heroic fantasies in Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985)

Criterion’s new edition of Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece Brazil (1985) presents an impressive new 4K restoration which highlights the dense, endlessly inventive production design of Gilliam’s blackly comic dystopian vision of a world run by an oppressive but utterly incompetent bureaucracy, even more pertinent now than it was in the middle of Reagan’s presidency. The three-disk, dual-format set includes a comprehensive history of the production and the controversy surrounding Gilliam’s fight to get the film released, as well as the truly awful alternate “Love Conquers All” cut put together by Universal in a misguided attempt to make the film “more commercial”.

British archive television from Network

Posted on May 31, 2025June 1, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Colonel Waley (Alfred Burke) enforces conservative traditions in the exclusive Hunters Club in Nigel Kneale's Ladies' Night (Herbert Wise, 1986)

A pair of DVDs from the now-defunct Network Releasing unearth forgotten artefacts from British television history; The Frighteners, an anthology of concise half-hour psychological thrillers from 1972-73, and three one-hour dramas displaying the range of the influential writer Nigel Kneale – The Crunch (Michael Elliott, 1964), a political thrillers, Ladies’ Night (Herbert Wise, 1986), a satirical comedy about a conservative establishment crumbling in the face of feminism, and Gentry (Roy Battersby, 1987), in which a bourgeois couple cashing in the decline of an East End community are confronted by the anger of those being displaced.

Pete Walker, master of British exploitation

Posted on October 23, 2024October 25, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

The threat to Marianne (Susan George) comes from inside her family in Pete Walker's Die Screaming, Marianne (1971)

Two new box sets from 88 Films provide an opportunity to re-visit the work of Pete Walker, arguably the best exploitation filmmaker working in England from the late-’60s to the end of the ’70s. The Flesh and Blood Show collects the seven horror movies which are his best-known work, while the Pete Walker Sexploitation Collection includes his first playful features which grew out of years of making sex loops as well as his final film of the ’70s in which the sex takes on a much darker tone.

Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembène: Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on June 5, 2024June 2, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Princess Dior Yacine (Tabata Ndiaye) defiantly challenges the audience at the end of Ousmane Sembène's Ceddo (1977)

Criterion follow their 2021 edition of Ousmane Sembène’s Mandabi (1968) with a three-disk set showcasing the features he made in the 1970s, works which continued his exploration of African identity in the shadow of centuries of colonial oppression. Emitaï (1971), Xala (1975) and Ceddo (1977) range across two centuries, from the pre-colonial incursions of Christianity and Islam to the brutality of French colonial oppression and on to the political corruption of the post-colonial era.

Joseph Losey’s The Servant (1963): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on July 5, 2023June 30, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Architecture reflects social divisions in Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963)

Criterion’s new 4K restoration of Joseph Losey’s The Servant (1963) provides an excellent showcase for this pitch-black satire about the collapse of the British class system after World War Two and the dissolution of Empire. Harold Pinter’s script (adapted from Robin Maugham’s novella), Losey’s direction, Douglas Slocombe’s rich black-and-white cinematography and and a superlative cast – Dirk Bogarde, James Fox, Wendy Craig and Sarah Miles – combine to create one of the defining British films of the 1960s.

Back to the multiplex

Posted on February 8, 2023February 7, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

James Foster (Alexander Skarsgard) undergoes the duplication process in Brandon Cronenberg's Infinity Pool (2023)

Two new movies by directors who interest me offer a mixture of pleasure and slight disappointment. Both Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool (2023) and M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin (2023) have a strong strain of psychological horror somewhat compromised by endings which are not fully satisfying.

Recent Arrow viewing, Part Two

Posted on May 5, 2021November 11, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Captain Seafield (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) and sonar expert Nedge Pepsi (Beulah Peters) are shocked by the Lake Michigan Monster (2018)

Yet another wide range of titles from Arrow Video from a restored silent classic to aliens over Tokyo, woods infested with zombies, food which consumes those who eat it, apocalypse in an alternate future Los Angeles, friendship destroyed by political conflicts, rich people facing the loss of their wealth and a naively admiring time capsule of the U.S. on the brink of the ’60s.

Winter viewing: Severin Films

Posted on March 13, 2021March 11, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Graf Saxon (Howard Vernon) engages in gruesome medical experiments in Adrian Hoven's Castle of the Creeping Flesh (1968)

Bingeing has been my default viewing mode for some time, but it’s only more recently that it’s come to encompass indulging in multiple releases by a particular company – which in turn is a result of those company’s offering regular sales and discount packages of monthly releases. The most prominent examples of this are Vinegar Syndrome and Severin Films, both of which specialize in genre and exploitation titles, pulling me into deep, often sordid, black holes.

Miguel Llansó’s trash aesthetic

Posted on November 4, 2020July 7, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

The Soviet Union virus (Ciaron Davies) tries to seduce Agent D.T. Gagano (Daniel Tadesse) with power in Miguel Llanso's Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (2019)

Once again, Arrow Video introduces me to a previously unknown filmmaker whose work is wildly imaginative, playful and challenging. Their two-disk set of Miguel Llansó’s Crumbs (2015) and Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (2019) is one of the year’s most engaging releases.

Pandemic viewing, Part One

Posted on April 29, 2020December 10, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Brigitte Lahaie serves the bloodsucking Count in Jean Rollin's La fiancee de Dracula (2002)

Social isolation and “working from home” mean a lot of time for movie-watching … and the volume far outstrips my ability to say anything substantive about many of the films I do watch: so here I mostly just acknowledge what I’ve been viewing in the past 4-6 weeks. Part one of four.

Tag: Satire