James Ivory won a long overdue Oscar when he took it home best adapted screenplay for Call Me by Your Name. It was surprise international hit and widely acclaimed. Since then there has been some renewed interest in Ivory's large body of work, which he made with his long-term life as well as producing partner Ismail … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – Maurice
Phantom Lady is a Robert Siodmak film, one of the best noir directors from the classic era. Siodmak is probably best remembered for a string of noirs made in the 40s, including the 1946 version of The Killers with Burt Lancaster and The Spiral Staircase. He started out in Germany during the last gasp of German … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – Phantom Lady
La Vérité is the penultimate feature by Henri-Georges Clouzot, who was already starting to be seen as old hat by the French New Wave filmmakers. It stars everybody's favourite pouting French blonde bombshell fascist who "only cares about the animals," Brigitte Bardot. The film was hotly anticipated when it came out in 1960 because it was … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – La Vérité
A sort of quasi-sequel/reboot of Class of 1984, Class of 1999 is centred on a school where violence has continued to rise. The chosen solution is to ‘demilitarise’ the school with killer robots instead of teachers, all part of a fascist police state on a massive scale. Electronic signs flash slogans like OBEY, no doubt … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – Class of 1999
Class of 1984 came out in 1982, when the director, Mark L. Lester, and co-writer Tom Holland wanted to an update of Blackboard Jungle with a bit of Lester’s favourite film, A Clockwork Orange, thrown in. It’s set in some kind of just slightly into the future—not so futuristic as its reboot, Class of 1999, … Continue reading Blu-Ray Review – Class of 1984
