Although I saw fewer movies in theatres than ever, this year offered a rich array of films on disk, belying continuing prophecies of the medium’s demise in the face of on-line streaming.
Year End 2015
Category: Commentary
Winnipeg’s vanished movie theatres
I recently gave a speech based on my documentary about the history of movie theatres in Winnipeg; this is the text.
The joy of B: Sam Katzman’s 1950s horrors
Sony’s Icons of Horror Collection: Sam Katzman DVD set presents an entertaining selection of low-budget genre movies from the mid-’50s. While they’d never be mistaken for art, they’re undeniably entertaining.
Recent viewing: November 2015
A grab-bag of recently watched movies, some old, some new, covering a wide range of genres and styles.
Random notes: two films and a book
A variety of approaches to horror are on display in Guillermo Del Toro’s new film Crimson Peak; a book about Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining which gathers together articles, essays and interviews from the ’80s to the present; and a disturbing 1983 Austrian film based on a real-life multiple murder, Gerald Kargl and Zbigniew Rybczynski’s Angst.
Five Shades of B
Since the end of the studio system, the term B-movie has come to refer more to content than budget; recent viewing covers a wide range of styles within this nebulous category.
Aleksei German’s Hard to Be a God (2013)
Hard to Be a God (2013), the final film of Russian director Aleksei German, more than a decade in the making, is a dense, obscure, visually stunning adaptation of a novel by the Strugatsky brothers. While German’s storytelling is extremely oblique, this depiction of a brutal medieval world which eventually corrupts Earth scientists who have traveled there to study a Renaissance which failed to happen, is realized with such visceral power that the viewer becomes immersed in the filth, madness and horror, occasionally gleaning brief moments of transcendent beauty.
Second David Lynch eBook published
Cagey Films publishes the second volume of The David Lynch Files, this one featuring a journal of the production of Dune in Mexico during the summer of 1983, plus a number of previously unpublished interviews with Lynch and others working on the movie.
Italian genre beyond Bava
While Mario Bava paved the way for Italian horror, directors who followed him pushed the limits of violence, foremost among them Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci.
Mario Bava and Italian genre film: Gialli and Thrillers
The visual master Mario Bava virtually invented the Italian genre called giallo, influencing generations of filmmakers who followed and built on his stylistic and thematic example. Arrow video has been releasing a series of impressive editions of Bava’s films on Blu-ray, offering alternative versions and a rich array of supplements to provide a critical and historical context for his work.
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