Kenneth George Godwin | Cagey Films

D.A. Pennebaker’s Original Cast Album: “Company” (1970):
Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on August 18, 2021January 24, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Stephen Sondheim coaches a singer on pronouncing a single syllable in D.A. Pennebaker’s Original Cast Album: “Company” (1970)

Criterion’s new Blu-ray of D.A. Pennebaker’s Original Cast Album: “Company” (1970) is a fascinating glimpse of the intense physical and mental labour which goes into the process of artistic creation, closely observing the recording of the original cast performing the songs from Stephen Sondheim’s breakthough Broadway show Company in one long fourteen-hour session. Tense, exhausting and exhilarating, it depicts dedicated professionals doing their jobs under intense pressure to deliver under a near-impossible deadline.

Vinegar Syndrome summer binge, part three

Posted on August 11, 2021August 11, 2021 by Kenneth George Godwin

Kung-fu musician Buddy (Jeffrey Falcon) fights his way across the desert in Lance Mungia's Six String Samurai (1998)

I wrap up my recent Vinegar Syndrome binge with surfer dudes tackling zombies, deadly telepaths and a roving musician fighting his way across the desert to vie for the position of King in post-apocalyptic Lost Vegas … but this is not the end as I’ve already received the next batch of releases!

Vinegar Syndrome summer binge, part two

Posted on August 4, 2021August 1, 2021 by Kenneth George Godwin

There's a lot of neck to bite in Javier Aguirre's Count Dracula's Great Love (1973)

I continue my Vinegar Syndrome binge with an even more varied collection of movies across many genres, with monsters and Nazis, ghosts and a traditional vampire, cannibalism among shipwreck survivors, and a female vigilante facing down a vicious gang.

Not exactly back to normal

Posted on July 31, 2021July 26, 2021 by Kenneth George Godwin

Surgeon Charles (Rufus Sewell) loses his tenuous grip on reality in M. Night Shyamalan's Old (2021)

Wanting to see the new M. Night Shyamalan movie, I braced myself and went to a theatre for the first time in more than a year-and-a-half. The movie was effectively creepy, but the theatre was scarier – almost deserted, with a haunting air of the End Times about it. A staff person checked my vaccine status, but no one even bothered to look at my ticket and after the show I got an email from the theatre chain thanking me for going and pleading with me to come again soon.

Farewell to a good friend: Dave Barber

Posted on July 30, 2021August 2, 2021 by Kenneth George Godwin

Dave at the 2004 opening of my friend Gord Wilding's show at Artspace

Long-time friend Dave Barber, programmer of the Cinematheque and heart and soul of the Winnipeg Film Group died on Monday July 26 after six hard weeks in hospital, leaving behind a local and national film community which owed him an enormous debt for his unceasing work to get Canadian independent cinema seen by audiences across the country. For those close to him, the loss is more personal and painful; Dave’s decency and humour affected us all deeply and its absence now leaves a painful hole which will be impossible to fill.

Vinegar Syndrome summer binge, part one

Posted on July 28, 2021July 25, 2021 by Kenneth George Godwin

Young Elijah Wood watches as his father is murdered in Mike Robe's Child in the Night (1990)

I’ve recently been binging a lot of Vinegar Syndrome releases, including a box set of made-for-TV mysteries, an odd bit of exploitation-horror made in Florida by a French director, and one of the most brain-bendingly bad movies I’ve ever seen.

Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror (1975): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on July 21, 2021December 28, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

The mother (Margarita Terekhova) watches the road her husband may return on in Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror (1975)

Criterion have just released Andrei Tarkovsky’s most personal Film, Mirror (Zerkalo, 1975), in an exemplary two-disk edition. The 2K restoration supplied by Mosfilm has been supplemented with four-and-a-half hours of new and archival documentaries, including a superb feature-length survey of Tarkovsky’s life and work made by his son, Andrei A. Tarkovsky, in 2019.

Bill Duke’s Deep Cover (1992): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on July 17, 2021August 19, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Laurence Fishburne as conflicted cop Russell Stevens Jr. in Bill Duke's Deep Cover (1992)

Director Bill Duke uses a mixture of film noir and blaxploitation tropes to explore the political complexities of being Black in the U.S. in Deep Cover (1992), his neon-tinted crime drama about an undercover cop (Laurence Fishburne) infiltrating the West Coast cocaine trade, now released in an extras-loaded 4K restoration by Criterion.

Karloff at Columbia on Eureka Blu-ray

Posted on July 14, 2021July 14, 2021 by Kenneth George Godwin

Dr. John Garth (Boris Karloff) is distracted by a murderer's impulses in Nick Grinde's Before I Hang (1940)

Eureka’s new two-disk Blu-ray release Karloff at Columbia is a real treat for fans of the iconic actor. Although it begins with Roy William Neill’s atmospheric period Gothic The Black Room (1935), the bulk of the set is devoted to what became known as the Mad Doctor Cycle, five extremely low-budget sci-fi tinged horrors in which Karloff plays scientists dabbling in research which the establishment frowns on; the authorities’ resistance tends to push him over into madness and murder and mayhem ensue. Long held in low esteem, these cheap movies are all entertaining and Karloff delivers sincere performances no matter how silly the trappings occasionally become.

Columbia Noir #3 from Indicator

Posted on July 7, 2021August 8, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Vince Ryker (Vince Edwards) escapes prison thinking he's going to be rich in Irving Lerner's City of Fear (1959)

With their third box set of Columbia Studios films noirs in just over half a year, Indicator again gather together six entertaining B-movies made in the shadow of Cold War paranoia; crime, violence and personal demons evoke a world destabilized by fear, betrayal and uncertainty. As before, the set is packed with commentaries featurettes and short films which illuminate the context from which the features emerged.

Author: Kenneth George Godwin