 |
 |
24 Nov
2023 |
|
|
|
|
 |
23 Nov
2023 |
|
|
| The Creator |
| 23 Seconds to Eternity is a compilation of the films made by Bill Butt for the audiovisual duo of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, variously known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords and The KLF. Released in dual-format (Blu-ray and DVD) by the BFI, it is reviewed by Gary Couzens. |
|
|
|
16 Nov
2023 |
|
|
|
|
|
16 Nov
2023 |
|
|
|
|
 |
15 Nov
2023 |
|
|
| 23 Seconds to Eternity |
| 23 Seconds to Eternity is a compilation of the films made by Bill Butt for the audiovisual duo of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, variously known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords and The KLF. Released in dual-format (Blu-ray and DVD) by the BFI, it is reviewed by Gary Couzens. |
|
|
 |
13 Nov
2023 |
|
|
| Fascination |
| After a few years directing pornographic films to pay the bills, Jean Rollin was back in his comfort zone in 1979 with the visually and subtextually charged low-budget surrealistic horror tale, Fascination. A mesmerised Slarek walks where thoughtless men should fear to tread on Indicator’s impeccable 4K UHD release. |
|
|
|
10 Nov
2023 |
|
|
|
|
|
10 Nov
2023 |
|
|
|
|
|
8 Oct
2023 |
|
|
| Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai |
| Forest Whitaker plays a solitary and anonymous mob hitman who lives by the code of the samurai and finds himself hunted by his employers in Jim Jarmusch’s inventive and winningly offbeat 1999 crime drama. Slarek sips some sake and revisits and enduring favourite on a new UHD/Blu-ray combo from Studiocanal. |
|
|
|
8 Nov
2023 |
|
|
|
|
|
5 Nov
2023 |
|
|
| From Beijing with Love |
| James Bond Parodies were not new when directors Stephen Chow and Lee Lik-chi threw their creative hats into the ring, but few others are as daftly inventive as the rich brew of gags and violent action served up by their 1994 From Beijing with Love. Slarek pours a dry martini and toasts some imaginative tomfoolery on Eureka’s recently released Blu-ray. |
|
|
|
30 Oct
2023 |
|
|
|
|
|
29 Oct
2023 |
|
|
| Universal Noir #2 |
| Indicator’s second Universal Noir box set features six movies from the 1940s that may stretch the definition of the term noir a little, but still deliver in (Sam) Spades as entertainment. Slarek emerges from a fortnight of dark dramas, fine audio commentaries and fascinating special features, genuinely enriched and wiser for the experience. |
|
|
|
27 Oct
2023 |
|
|
|
|
|
26 Oct
2023 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
24 Oct
2023 |
|
|
| Three Films by Yasujirō Ozu |
| This BFI Blu-ray set presents three films from the great Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu, from the silent gangster movie Dragnet Girl, to the family dramas Record of a Tenement Gentleman and A Hen in the Wind. Review by Gary Couzens. |
|
|
|
23 Oct
2023 |
|
|
| BFI London Film Festival dispatch #5 |
| Jerry Whyte compares the two searing satires that bookended this year's London Film Festival. Daniel Kaluuya & Kibwe Tavares' dystopian drama The Kitchen revels in the resistance of the underprivileged to gentrification while Emerald Fennell's Saltburn takes a pop at the oblivious overprivileged. We are invited to take sides. |
|
|
|
16 Oct
2023 |
|
|
| BFI London Film Festival dispatch #4 |
| That They May Face the Rising Sun is a lyrically potent, life-affirming gem. It transports us to the stunning beauty of rural Ireland and invites us to ponder life's many meanings as we unwind. Jerry Whyte is grateful to Irish maestro Pat Collins for providing us with sustaining food for thought and a much-needed breath of fresh air. |
|
|
|
15 Oct
2023 |
|
|
| BFI London Film Festival dispatch #3 |
| In his second, illness-delayed dispatch from this year’s London Film Festival, Slarek goes forward and backward in time with two science-fiction tinted debut features, Michael Lukk Litwak’s Molli and Max in the Future and Pablo Chea’s Croma Kid. |
|
|
|
12 Oct
2023 |
|
|
| Girlfriends |
| In 1979 in the US, I first saw Claudia Weill's Girlfriends and was staggered by the performance of its leading lady, Melanie Mayron. She was about as authentic a character I had, up to that point, seen on screen. Released on Blu-ray three years ago, Camus is just as entranced, if not more so, by Girlfriends today… |
|
|
|
11 Oct
2023 |
|
|
| Short Sharp Shocks Volume 3 |
| The BFI’s third Short Sharp Shocks compilation is a two-disc Blu-ray edition containing ten films both short to very short. Reviewed by Gary Couzens. |
|
|
|
10 Oct
2023 |
|
|
| BFI London Film Festival dispatch #2 |
| 50 years after the ‘other 9/11’ (the CIA-backed Pinochet coup that toppled Salvador Allende’s government), Chilean cinema continues to challenge organised forgetting. Felipe Carmona’s Penal Cordillera focuses on five of the Generalissimo’s henchmen as they await trial for crimes against humanity. Jerry Whyte is aghast and impressed, again. |
|
|
|
6 Oct
2023 |
|
|
| BFI London Film Festival dispatch #1 |
| We’ve started late on this year’s London Film Festival, and in his first dispatch, Slarek looks at two excellent, film-related documentaries, Lebanese director Cyril Aris’s Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano, and London-based Iranian filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht’s Celluloid Underground. |
|
|
|
5 Oct
2023 |
|
|
| Touch of Evil |
| In 1958, Orson Welles had editorial control of his brilliant 1958 noir thriller Touch of Evil taken away from him, and 40 years later his version was reconstructed and has now been released in 4K on 2-disc UHD set by Eureka as part of the Masters of Cinema series. Slarek takes a gleeful dive into what is easily one of the best disc releases of 2023 so far. |
|
|
|
28 Sep
2023 |
|
|
| Lorenza Mazzetti Collection |
| Lorenza Mazzetti was an Italian woman in London and a key part of the Free Cinema movement with her short feature Together. The BFI's Blu-ray Lorenza Mazzetti Collection includes this, her two previous films, and a documentary about her. Reviewed by Gary Couzens. |
|
|
|
28 Sep
2023 |
|
|
| No Bears, and the cinema of Jafar Panahi |
| Having been banned from making films for 20 years by the Iranian authorities, director Jafar Panahi keeps finding ways of doing it anyway. His latest, No Bears, so impressed SilverBlueSnow that he not only chose to review the Picture House Blu-ray, but take a trip back through all of the Jafar films available on disc. |
|
|
|
27 Sep
2023 |
|
|
| Targets |
| The lives of an ageing and world-weary horror star and a young man young man on a motiveless killing spree are set to collide in director Peter Bogdanovich's astonishing 1968 first feature, Targets. Slarek puts a favourite film in his critical crosshairs on a superbly featured new Blu-ray from the BFI. |
|
|
|
22 Sep
2023 |
|
|
| The Wicker Man |
| The godfather of folk horror movies, screenwriter Anthony Shaffer and director Robin Hardy’s 1973 masterpiece The Wicker Man has been restored in 4K and is being released on UHD in a 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition by Studiocanal. Slarek and Camus dance around the maypole for a fabulous new release of a favourite film. |
|
|
