Arrow Video has become my favourite source for high quality releases of both serious films and exploitation titles. Their special editions rank with the best offered by prestige companies like Criterion and Masters of Cinema.
Two distinguished British actors passed away in June after long and varied careers in film and television: the imposing Christopher Lee and the debonair Patrick Macnee, both at age 93.
Criterion has released two excellent Blu-ray editions of Costa-Gavras’ finest films: The Confession and State of Siege examine dramatically political repression and violence on both the Left and Right.
Two recent Blu-ray releases highlight very different attitudes to the crime thriller in the ’70s: Robert Culp’s Hickey and Boggs and Douglas Hickox’s Brannigan.
Some impressions of the eclectic variety of movies I’ve watched in the past couple of months, from the obscure to the classic, from mainstream blockbusters to quirky independents.
Recent viewing includes the big-budget Furious 7 and the smaller but better It Follows, as well as a collection of older genre movies on disk.
Criterion’s Blu-ray release of Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out (1947) should help to establish this masterpiece as the equal of Reed’s more famous The Third Man.
Recent Blu-rays from Twilight Time are as eclectic as ever. A couple of mainstream Hollywood classics; an oddball excursion into pulp by one of the great Hollywood directors; and a devastating animated fable by a Japanese-American filmmaker based on a very English graphic novel.
Horror, action, mindless violence and exploitation: summer viewing has involved a lot of switching off my brain and watching undemanding genre movies.
With Scanners, his occasionally gory telepath thriller, David Cronenberg made a significant move from low-budget horror towards the mainstream.