Classics | Cagey Films

Howard Hawks’ Scarface (1932): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on November 13, 2024November 11, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Tony Cramonte (Paul Muni) makes his last stand in his fortified apartment in Howard Hawks' Scarface (1932)

Howard Hawks’ Scarface: The Shame of a Nation (1932), newly restored in 4K and released by Criterion in a dual-format edition as well as a stand-alone Blu-ray, is in many ways the most modern of the 1930s gangster movies, filled with Paul Muni’s infectious energy as the ambitious Tony Cramonte, balanced by two string female characters (Karen Morley and Ann Dvorak), blending dark tragedy with streaks of comedy, and pushing violence as far as was possible in the years just before Hollywood established the Production Code.

Hong Kong’s Studio One cinema club

Posted on October 9, 2024October 11, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

My Studio One membership card from the winter of 1980-81

During an eight-month visit to Hong Kong in 1980-81, I took out a membership in a cinema club called Studio One. I recently came across the eight monthly schedules for their screenings and discovered that my memory of the movies I’d been to see varied widely. What makes one thing stick while another fades away? Damned if I know!

Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba (1964): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on April 24, 2024April 22, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

A crowd bears away a murdered student in the wake of a riot in Mikhail Kalatozov's I Am Cuba (1964)

Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba (1964) uses the striking cinematography of Sergei Urusevsky to create a fever dream version of the Cuban Revolution, a series of archetypal moments of oppression and resistance leading to an ecstatic explosion of justified communal violence. Filled with heightened emotions rendered in breathtaking images and seemingly impossible camera movements, the film looks gorgeous in a 4K restoration on Criterion’s Blu-ray.

Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers on Blu-ray from Criterion

Posted on March 27, 2024March 26, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Alonzo (Lon Chaney) realizes that his romantic feelings for Nanon (Joan Crawford) will never be returned in Tod Browning's The Unknown (1927)

Criterion’s two-disk Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers showcases three of the director’s best movies, including the peak of his long collaboration with Lon Chaney in The Unknown (1927) and Browning’s masterpiece Freaks (1932) along with the lesser-known The Mystic (1925). Fine 2K transfers and some illuminating extras leave you hoping that more of Tod Browning’s work will turn up on disk in restored versions.

Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy: Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on February 7, 2024February 5, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Young Apu (Subir Banerjee) looks for his own path in Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali (1955)

Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy, which follows the life of its titular character from birth to a difficult adulthood, from an impoverished rural village to India’s crowded cities, recognized as a masterpiece of world cinema, shines in Criterion’s new dual-format edition.

Martin (1976): George A. Romero’s masterpiece

Posted on April 26, 2023December 26, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Martin (John Amplas) stalks another victim in George A. Romero's Martin (1976)

Although overshadowed by his hugely influential cycle of zombie movies, Martin (1976), George A. Romero’s treatment of vampirism, is his finest work, a complex and subtle meditation on myth, madness, violence and social collapse in mid-’70s America. Second Sight’s 4K restoration finally gives this masterpiece the release it deserves.

Revisiting two more old favourites

Posted on November 23, 2022November 19, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) stands wrapped in a towel at the top of the stairs in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944)

Excellent Blu-ray editions from Criterion and the BFI respectively do full justice to Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944) and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear (1953), two very dark examinations of the post-war crisis of masculinity.

Marcel Carné’s Hôtel du Nord (1938): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on August 24, 2022August 23, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Renée (Annabella) and Pierre (Jean-Pierre Aumont) look for the last time at a world they're determined to leave in Marcel Carné's Hôtel du Nord (1938)

Doomed romance is offset by a vibrant sense of community in Marcel Carné’s Hôtel du Nord (1938), one of the filmmaker’s remarkable string of poetic realist masterpieces from the late 1930s to the mid-’40s. The film’s rich atmosphere comes to life in the 2K restoration used by Criterion for their new Blu-ray release.

Digital resurrection

Posted on August 17, 2022August 15, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

The blood-drinking witch (Henriette Gerard) peers into hero Allan Gray (Nicholas de Gunzburg)'s coffin in Carl Th. Dreyer's Vampyr (1932)

Digital tools put in service of restoring films from a century ago produce spectacular results with Blu-rays of Carl Th. Dreyer’s uncanny Vampyr (1932) and Louis Feuillade’s serial Tih-Minh (1919).

Rethinking Kane and Chain Saws

Posted on April 20, 2022December 4, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles)'s opponent James Gettys (Ray Collins) understands the political game far better than the upstart newspaperman in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941)

However many times you watch a movie, there’s always a possibility to see something new and find new responses which surprise you out of complacent familiarity – two recent cases in point: Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).

Tag: Classics