An eclectic assortment of recent viewing, including an obscure short feature from England, a couple of westerns old and new, and a pair of Elmore Leonard adaptations.
Late summer viewing: more short takes
Category: Commentary
Fractured dream: Georges Franju’s Spotlight on a Murderer (1961)
Arrow Video has released an excellent Blu-ray edition of Georges Franju’s little-known third feature, Plein feux per l’assassin (Spotlight on a Murderer, 1961), which adds surreal touches to a country house mystery centred on the missing body of a dead nobleman and the bickering relatives who gather hoping to inherit.
David Lynch/Eraserhead interview
I was interviewed this week by Nathan Wardinski for his show Sounds of Cinema, broadcast on a couple of public educational radio stations in southern Minnesota. The topic was David Lynch and the making of Eraserhead and I was initially a bit intimidated – both by the idea of being interviewed (I’ve interviewed quite a […]
Summer viewing: short takes, part 2
More notes on recent viewing, from a sadistic thriller to emotionally resonant anime, from a literary adaptation to two investigations of racism in America.
Summer viewing: the serious stuff
Two recent releases uncover fascinating fragments of cinema history: G.W Pabst’s dramatically powerful and technically innovative early sound films Westfront 1918 (1930) and Kameradschaft (1931) from Masters of Cinema and Samuel Beckett’s sole foray into movies Film (1965) paired with Ross Lipman’s “kino-essay” about the production Notfilm (2015) together in a dual-format release from the BFI.
Recent deaths: Tobe Hooper and others
The older I get, the more often I hear of the death of people who have touched my life in some way. This summer seems to have been worse than most.
Summer viewing: short takes
A round-up of recent viewing ranging from classic fantasy to low budget horror to rugged adventure and a western.
Summer viewing: science fiction
Technical accuracy is not necessarily what makes science fiction satisfying; more important is storytelling, as illustrated by two older, and one recent, movies released on Blu-ray: Byron Haskin’s Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964), Joseph Sargent’s Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) and Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016)..
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979): Criterion Blu-ray review
Criterion’s Blu-ray presents Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece Stalker in a stunning new restoration which does full justice to its rich imagery and subtle soundscape.
George A. Romero 1940-2017
George A. Romero, who died on July 16, a master of the horror film, was influential far beyond the movies, having originated the now-ubiquitous zombies of pop culture in his best known films, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead.
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