Philip Concannon revisits Basil Dearden’s British classic of repression and shame, on the occasion of its Blu-ray debut as part of Network’s series “the British Film”.
Category Archives: DVD
Too Late Blues
Philip Concannon watches the new blu-ray of this early picture from John Cassavetes.
Jacques In A Box
Niall Anderson watches the complete work of Jacques Tati, a man for whom the ridiculous and the sublime were indistinguishable
The Driver
Indy Datta revisits Walter Hill’s influential 1978 car-chase classic, released on Blu-ray today.
Remo Williams: A Tale of Three ‘Taches
MarvMarsh delights his teenage self by watching the new Blu-ray issue of Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. His adult self is less thrilled.
Nashville
Susan Patterson watches the new Blu-ray edition of Robert Altman’s Nashville.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Jim Eaton-Terry is charmed by the 50th anniversary reissue of Jacques Demy’s classic New Wave musical
“I’ve never expected metal ships!”
Indy Datta takes a look at the top-notch new Blu-ray of Philip Kaufman’s remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, released by Arrow Video on Monday.
London Film Festival: The Witches
In the first of today’s two LFF updates, Ricky Young reflects on a handsome restoration of an ugly film
Today sees the LFF unveiling of the restored version of overlooked Hammer potboiler The Witches. Directed by Cyril Frankel and written by Nigel Kneale, it stars Hitchcock Oscar-winner Joan Fontaine in what would turn out to be her last cinematic role.
The Witches rarely gets much of a mention when discussing Hammer’s output – none of the big Hammer names or stars are involved – and despite the admittedly glorious-looking restoration, it’s not hard to see why. Even at their tackiest, the Hammer greats always had a spark of audience-pleasing oomph at their core. The Witches’ most exciting moment features six seconds of runaway livestock. Make of that what you will. Continue reading London Film Festival: The Witches
“Ain’t she a beautiful sight?”
Caulorlime watches out for smokies with a can on his back. Come on!
“I don’t know where to start with this” is a terrible cliché. It’s used by lazy writers to suggest bewilderment at the oddness of a concept that usually turns out, after a little unpacking, to be utterly mundane. It’s apt here, though, because trying to write about Convoy, the 1978 Sam Peckinpah movie about lorry drivers that was based on a novelty song, left me with, literally, too many choices about where to start.
I’m a smart-arse. That should really go without saying. Being a smart-arse is sort of my thing*. It didn’t serve me well here. Every time I started writing about this film I ended up ridiculing a different aspect of the weirdness, and that didn’t work. You can’t just pick this thing apart and mock its constituent pieces. You need to try and mock it as a whole. Convoy isn’t really a product of the paranoid seventies**, or a product of right-wing America***, or of an occasionally great director phoning it in****. It isn’t even a cautionary tale about attempting to construct a coherent narrative out of a three minute pop song sung/rapped in a baffling slang*****. I mean, it’s all of those things, but it’s also much, much less. Continue reading “Ain’t she a beautiful sight?”
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