Blu-ray: Crime and Punishment (1935) Directed by the infamous Josef von Sternberg (The Blue Angel) and adapted by Joseph Anthony and S.K. Lauren from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel of the same title, Crime and Punishment was more or less a vanity project for Peter Lorre who starred in the lead role of Raskolnikov (here named Roderick […]
Blu-ray: Hold Back The Dawn (1941) Back in 1941 when we were balls deep in WW2, America was making romantic dramas like Hold Back the Dawn, to alleviate the…you know…. guilt. Told in flashback to a Hollywood producer (stay with me…), Charles Boyer is Georges Iscovescu, a Romanian gigolo who is trapped in Mexico waiting […]
Blu-ray: FM (1978) Films always reflect the time in which they’re made, and FM has to be top of that list. Q-SKY radio station manager Jeff Dugan (Michael Brandon) employs an eclectic bunch of ‘kooky’ DJ’s. He soon finds that corporate management expects Jeff to use the station’s position at the top of the ratings […]
Cinema: Gwen (2018) Writer/director William McGregor (in his first full length film) gives us an eerie foray into the dark industrial revolutionary Hills of North Wales in Gwen. Set in 1855, Elen (Maxine Peake) and her daughters Gwen (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) and Mari (Jodi Innes) work the small holding up in the Snowdonia Hills while dad […]
Blu-ray: Double Face (1969) I can forgive Klaus Kinski anything, no one does deranged quite like him. On seeing Werner Herzog’s ‘Aguirre, Wrath of God’, then Fitzcarraldo, and then Crawlspace, I knew here was a man who, not unlike Dennis Hopper and Oliver Reed, was rather bonkers, but had the saving grace of being able […]
Blu-ray: Scum (1979) Scum was a play before it was a film, and gained infamy because the late ‘great’ Mary Whitehouse thought it so abhorrent, she took the BBC to court over it, and won. Made by the (truly) great Alan Clarke (Made in Britain, The Firm, Rita, Sue and Bob Too) Scum was made […]
Blu-ray: Nightfall (1956) Based on a book written by David Goodis, and Directed by Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, Night of the Demon), Nightfall is a quirky little ‘Noir’ starring Aldo Ray as Jim, Brian Keith as bad guy John, Anne Bancroft as love interest Marie and James Gregory as Ben; an insurance investigator whose case […]
Blu-ray: Black Joy (1977) Directed by Anthony Summers and released in ‘flares-tastic’ 1977, Black Joy is based on Jamal Ali’s acclaimed stage play ‘Dark Days and Light Nights’ and tells the story of Ben (Trevor Thomas), a naïve Guyanese immigrant who learns the hard way about life on the streets of Brixton. As soon as […]
I’ve always had a bit of a ‘thing’ for Hugh Jackman. You see dear reader, to me, Hugh is the perfect man. Handsome, manly, WOLVERINE, sensitive, can sing, can DANCE, a bit camp, funny, seems sincere, talented, charismatic, a complete package in more ways than one. The perfect man, because he could tap dance up […]
Blu-ray & DVD: Mary Reilly (1996) Perhaps I should mention that Julia Roberts who plays Mary Reilly was nominated for Worst Actress by the Razzie Awards, and Stephen Frears was nominated for Worst Director…both lost. However, that should tell you the reader that Roberts performance in Mary Reilly is nothing short of magnificently awful. Reilly […]
