Thrillers | Cagey Films

Tripping, shopping and the airborne multiplex

Posted on January 11, 2017July 17, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Ricardo Montalban as Trek's favourite villain, Khan, in Nicholas Meyer's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

A recent trip to England produced stacks of new disks, some interesting books, and several in-flight movies.

Year-end ruminations: 2016

Posted on January 4, 2017December 10, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

The awkwardness that precedes a tentative sexual encounter in Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's Anomalisa (2015)

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”.

October viewing notes

Posted on October 5, 2016September 1, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Murderous games in James DeMonaco's The Purge (2013)

Some fairly random thoughts on an old TV show, a couple of violent satires, and large-A Acting in the films of Bennett Miller.

See Max, see Max run … in his underwear

Posted on August 24, 2016March 31, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Max von Sydow as Salem, driven mad by a desire for revenge in Laslo Benedek's The Night Visitor (1971)

Some movies are so odd it’s hard to see how they came to be made … like Laslo Benedek’s brooding thriller The Night Visitor (1971) with its pulpy plot and cast of major international stars.

Random notes: August 2016

Posted on August 17, 2016February 1, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Brief thoughts on some genre movies released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video, plus a couple of interesting books about the making of Cy Endfield’s Zulu and Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.

Recent Twilight Time releases

Posted on August 3, 2016December 10, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Charles Bronson establishing himself as an iconic figure of vengeance in Michael Winner's Chato's Land (1972)

Twilight Time offer a thriller maligned on its initial release, a harsh western directed by an Englishman in Spain, and a sprawling Hollywood epic which was one of the last of the big ’60s roadshow productions.

Brief viewing notes, July 2016

Posted on July 20, 2016December 10, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Bek (Brenton Thwaites) annoys blind god Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in Alex Proyas' Gods of Egypt (2016)

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.

Recent viewing, May-June 2016, part two

Posted on July 13, 2016March 23, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Peter Cushing as the sadistic witch hunter Gustav Weil in John Hough's Twins of Evil (1971)

Nazis and vampires have been popular subjects for exploitation for decades in a range of genres from the Gothic to epic SF and paranoid b-movie thriller.

Recent viewing: April & May 2016

Posted on May 25, 2016December 10, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Alain Delon as writer Jean-Paul in Jacques Deray's La Piscine (1969)

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)

Posted on May 18, 2016December 10, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart in Nicholas Ray's 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.

Tag: Thrillers