The Peanut Butter Falcon fits that dreaded phrase, “the feelgood hit of the year.” It’s a Huckleberry Finn-like adventure set in North Carolina. The film ended up becoming a kind of sleeper hit in the States last year, but it sadly didn’t do very well during its very limited release in the UK, because when … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – The Peanut Butter Falcon
Primal is the latest straight-to-DVD/VOD Nicolas Cage vehicle, and it's in the mid-tier of these films. Three of the 2019 ones have been dumped on UK shores in the past month, including Running with the Devil and Grand Isle, No doubt partly to cash in on the upcoming release of Color Out of Space, his best work since the magnificent Mandy. … Continue reading DVD Review – Primal
Rudolph Valentino was perhaps the first heartthrob of the silver screen, and the stock character of the "Latin lover" was actually created specifically for him in the '20s. He died incredibly young at 31 in 1926, so he never was able to transition into talkies, which adds to the mythological aura around him. The Son of … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – The Son of the Sheik
Fail Safe is one of Sidney Lumet's earlier notable films. He cut his teeth on TV plays for Playhouse 90, Kraft Television Theatre and Studio One, and at that time made the extremely controversial The Sacco-Vanzetti Story for NBC. He started making features alongside the TV plays, and it's no coincidence that his first feature, the magnificent 12 Angry Men, was an … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – Fail Safe (1964)
The Point is a bizarro animated ABC Movie of the Week that was based on a story by the singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson, who also supplied the songs. It came out in 1971, which was during Nilsson's most commercially successful period. This when he’d made the absolutely fantastic Nilsson Schmilsson album, which has some of most famous songs, like … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – The Point
