Two disks illustrate the spectrum of British genre production in the ’70s and ’80s: Pete Walker’s cinematic horror Frightmare and David Rudkin’s epic BBC fantasy Artemis 81.
Spectrum of Horror: from class to crass
Category: Commentary
Styles of Horror, part two
Recent disks offer a range of horror movies displaying commercial and artier approaches to the genre from Vincent Price vehicles from American-International to Roger Vadim’s visually rich LeFanu adaptation …et mourir de plaisir and Bill Gunn’s key Black Cinema offering from 1973, Ganja & Hess.
Editing and Representation
I just came across this interesting nature documentary clip on YouTube. It’s from a BBC series called Inside the Animal Mind and it illustrates the remarkable intelligence of the crow. Well, perhaps it does, and perhaps not. If you read the comments below the clip, there are a number of people who (inevitably) cry “fake!” […]
Styles of Horror, part one
Horror remains one of the most durable of genres, with a constant stream of disk releases of new and classic movies.
An unforeseen drawback of digital projection
I’ve recently had evidence that computers do indeed make people more stupid. I’ve been out to the movies twice in the past two weeks, both times to my most accessible theatre, Silver City Polo Park. The first time was for Pompeii (in 3D). I thoroughly enjoyed it, but then I’ve liked quite a lot of […]
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: Stanley Kramer’s struggle to be funny
Wanting to make a comedy to end all comedy, in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, serious-minded Stanley Kramer produced a bloated compendium of comedy styles which stubbornly refused to be funny.
Reading Movie History
Reading great critics of the past – Agee, Farber, Kauffmann – sheds interesting light on the ways our perception of film history has been formed.
Acting Up a Storm
Three recent disks showcase performances by interesting actors in less-than-reputable movies: Klaus Kinski in Crawlspace, Udo Kier in The House on Straw Hill, and Peter Cushing in Corruption.
The Apprenticeship of Steven Soderbergh: King of the Hill (1993)
Criterion’s excellent edition of King of the Hill (1993) and The Underneath (1995) throws some interesting light of the development of Steven Soderbergh as a filmmaker.
Notes on Recent Viewing, part three
Continuing a brief survey of the past month’s disk viewing; sci-fi, horror and Archer, an animation discovery which is one of the best current series.
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