Directors | Cagey Films

Resurrecting a pre-tax shelter classic: The Rainbow Boys (1973)

Posted on December 24, 2022December 24, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Donald Pleasence, Don Calfa and Kate Reid hit the road in search of gold in Gerald Potterton's The Rainbow Boys (1973)

A relatively new label, Canadian International Pictures, has resurrected Gerald Potterton’s light and charming character-based comedy The Rainbow Boys (1973) in a fine Blu-ray edition with substantial extras. Another CIP release showcases Potterton’s National Film Board short The Railrodder (1965), a travelogue starring Buster Keaton towards the end of his life, along with John Spotton’s documentary about the making of the short, Buster Keaton Rides Again (1965), and another NFB travelogue, Eugene Boyko’s Helicopter Canada (1966), made to mark the country’s centennial.

Todd Haynes’ The Velvet Underground (2021): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on December 21, 2022January 30, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Andy Warhol adds polka dots to the performance in Todd Haynes' The Velvet Underground (2021)

Todd Haynes’ documentary The Velvet Underground (2022) is as dense and illuminating as the band’s music, providing a kaleidoscopic account of the creative explosion in music, art and film in New York in the 1960s out of which the band emerged for a brief, transformative moment of cultural change.

Universal Noir #1 from Indicator

Posted on December 14, 2022December 12, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Menace on the mean streets of film noir in Jerry Hopper's Naked Alibi (1954)

After five box sets devoted to film noir B-movies from Columbia Studios, Indicator have embarked on a follow-up covering Universal Studios crime films from the same mid-’40s to late-’50s period. The inaugural set of six titles covers a range of styles, from the classic noir of Michael Gordon’s The Web (1947), Norman Foster’s Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) and Jerry Hopper’s Naked Alibi (1954) to the docu-noir of Joseph M. Newman’s Abandoned (1949) and the shot-in-Italy neorealist melodrama of Robert Siodmak’s Deported (1950). With a host of contextual and critical extras, Universal Noir #1 inaugurates another great series of releases from Indicator.

Italian Gothic horror on Blu-ray

Posted on December 7, 2022December 5, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Saint Simon (John Phillip Law) believes he's the reincarnation of Vincent Van Gogh in Sergio Bergonzelli’s Blood Delirium (1988)

Arrow’s Gothic Fantastico box set gathers together four lesser-known Italian genre movies from the mid-’60s from the period when Gothic horror flourished between Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) and the rise of the giallo later in the decade, while Sergio Bergonzelli’s Blood Delirium (1988) from Vinegar Syndrome is a garish throwback long after the Gothic had faded away.

Brief Notes, December Part Two

Posted on December 3, 2022December 3, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

An ancient vampire is foolishly revived in Leon Klimovsky’s The Werewolf vs Vampire Woman (1971)

A few more comments on recent viewing, which includes a couple of interesting older horror movies and two overblown recent Hollywood blockbusters.

Brief Notes, December Part One

Posted on November 30, 2022November 29, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Dr. Ted Rampion (Keiron Moore) descends into a volcano with an atom bomb in Andrew Marton's Crack in the World (1965)

A few notes about disks from a couple of companies I’ve previously had little experience with – 88 Films and 101 Films, both from the UK – plus three box sets from Arrow.

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.

The Infernal Affairs trilogy (2002-03): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on November 16, 2022November 15, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

An undercover cop and a triad mole face off on a Hong Kong rooftop in Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs (2002)

Soon after Hong Kong was handed back to China by Britain, filmmakers Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak embarked on an ambitious project to revitalize a film industry in disarray. The result was the Infernal Affairs trilogy, which has its roots in the HK action movies of the 1980s, using familiar narrative tropes as a springboard for a complex meditation on identity amidst new political and economic uncertainties. Criterion’s three-disk Blu-ray set showcases the trilogy with an array of new and archival extras.

Revisiting some old favourites

Posted on November 9, 2022November 6, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Something is changing the ants in Saul Bass's Phase IV (1974)

Revisiting some old favourites recently has taken in an eclectic selection ranging from a classic BBC television production to Spanish zombies, New York cops, a Las Vegas heist and an oblique alien invasion.

James Whale’s Show Boat (1936): music and race in Golden Age Hollywood

Posted on November 2, 2022November 1, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Black labour with echoes of slavery in James Whale's Show Boat (1936)

Although now he’s best-known for his four witty Gothic horror movies – Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein – Show Boat (1936) is arguably James Whale’s crowning achievement as a filmmaker. One of the decade’s great musicals, it is also one of the most complex and nuanced treatments of race and its impact on American culture produced at the height of Hollywood’s studio era. Criterion’s Blu-ray does full justice to the film’s intrinsic qualities and historical importance.

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