A round-up of recent Blu-ray viewing, with some classics, an occasional dud, and a few old favourites.
Viewing notes, March 2017: Part One
Tag: Western
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”.
Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
Criterion’s Blu-ray release of One-Eyed Jacks is one of the disk highlights of the year, its restored image and sound confirming this great western’s stature. Marlon Brando’s sole directing effort is a key transitional moment between the traditional western and the national myth it represented and the modern deconstruction of that myth by filmmakers like Sam Peckinpah and Arthur Penn.
Leonard Cohen, Robert Altman and an elegy to a national myth
Robert Altman’s masterpiece, McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), finally gets a worthy disk release. Criterion gives us a wonderful transfer along with almost three hours of informative supplements.
Random notes: August 2016
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
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.
Recent viewing: November 2015
A grab-bag of recently watched movies, some old, some new, covering a wide range of genres and styles.
Viewing notes July-August 2015, part two
Brief comments on a selection of recently watched movies, ranging from classic science fiction to a Danish western, world war two tank combat and Aussie zombies.
Binging on Twilight Time
Recent binging on Twilight Time Blu-rays ranges from politics to comedy to science fiction, absurd studio productions and idiosyncratic independents; from the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions to the overthrowing of a future society of privileged immortals to underhanded contemporary business wars, from dinosaurs deep inside the Earth to the destruction of an alien race on the moon.
Rewriting the West:Monte Hellman’s The Shooting and Ride In the Whirlwind
The Criterion Collection resurrects Monte Hellman’s two radical, innovative westerns from the mid-’60s, The Shooting and Ride In the Whirlwind, for a stunning Blu-ray double bill supported by a substantial set of special features.
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