A grab-bag of recently watched movies, some old, some new, covering a wide range of genres and styles.
Recent viewing: November 2015
Tag: Western
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.
Recent Viewing: April and May, part three
Among other recent disks, Ben Wheatley’s A Field In England and Frank Perry’s The Swimmer use realistic performance and imagery to dig below material reality to strange symbolic and psychological depths, while the Estonian documentary Disco and Atomic War transforms the social and political facts of the Cold War into something strange and very funny.
Late Summer Viewing, part 2
I’ve mentioned the boutique label Twilight Time before; they continue to release an interestingly eclectic series of limited edition Blu-rays (3000 copies of each title), with their specialty being a focus on the films’ soundtracks (each title includes a separate music track), not so surprising since they’re available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment, a site […]
The Director as Sociopath …
Quentin Tarantino has formidable filmmaking skills, rooted in his deep knowledge of movies famously acquired during his years as a video store clerk. His ability to create images, to build fluid visual progressions and elaborate displays of action, is complemented by a savant’s dazzling knack for exhilaratingly wordy dialogue rich in non-narrative tangents and the […]
DVD review: The Scarlet Worm (2011)
In the American southwest of 1909, an enforcer named Print (Aaron Stielstra) who works for a rancher named Mr. Paul (Montgomery Ford) justifies his work by transforming each killing into a kind of artistic statement. He likes to lecture his victims on the finer points of the meaning of life before finishing them off, then […]
Year End 2011: video
Not surprisingly, given the amount of time I spend watching movies at home, I came across quite a few worthwhile titles during the year. I’ve already written about many of these in this blog, so will just offer capsule comments here (in no particular order) about ones that I particularly recommend. Dramatic features The World, […]
Stanley Kubrick 2: The Business – Spartacus (1960)
I’ve been hung up for a few weeks in my plan to re-watch all of Stanley Kubrick’s films in chronological order because the prospect of sitting through Spartacus one more time was a bit daunting. There was a three year gap between the success of Paths of Glory and this, the biggest production of Kubrick’s […]
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