Joseph H. Lewis was a great noir director, best known for Gun Crazy (one of the greatest movies made ever) and The Big Combo. There was a big retrospective of his films at the Scala in London in the late 70s or early 80s, during which I believe Time Out tagged The Big Combo as … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – Arrow Joseph H. Lewis Blu-Rays
World on a Wire came midway into Rainer Werner Fassbinder's insanely productive but short career, and marks a real turning point in his work. His early films wear their influences on their sleeve and are incredibly hit and miss, but when he made World on a Wire, he was starting to experiment more and more … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – World on a Wire
Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill remain Seijun Suzuki's best-known films amongst western audiences, although I'm not sure about his native Japanese audience. This was partly due to filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino singing his praises, but also because both films were released as Criterion DVDs early on, which were essentially a port … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – Tokyo Drifter
It's always interesting to see what happens when films get remade over and over again. A Star is Born was first made in 1937, then again in 1954, 1976 and more recently as a Bollywood musical. It's a rags to riches tale for the female protagonist, and a tragedy for the male protagonist who discovers her … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – A Star is Born (2018)
The Fritz Lang film Human Desire was a remake of Jean Renoir’s La Bête Humaine, and based on the Emile Zola novel of the same name. It’s one of his 1950s films, staring Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame, who both starred the year before in The Big Heat. That’s the better film, but Human Desire … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – Human Desire
