DVD: The Shootist (1976) Opening with a black and white montage of clips from John Wayne’s earlier films, Don Siegel’s (Bus Stop, Dirty Harry, The Killers) The Shootist was Wayne’s swan song. Mirroring Wayne’s own illness, this tells the story of John Books, a once lethal killer, who now just wants to die peacefully. Books arrives in […]
DVD & VOD: In Like Flynn (2018) I remember reading Errol Flynn’s biography ‘My Wicked Wicked Ways’, some years back and wondering how much of it was actually true, because to survive, intact, of what he described in his book is nothing short of a miracle. It was however, the most entertaining bio I’ve ever […]
Blu-ray, DVD & VOD: Walkabout (1971) I think Walkabout remains in a lot men’s minds because it features a naked, nubile 16 year old Jenny Agutter. However, Nicolas Roeg’s first foray into directing is a classic piece of cinema. One could say that it’s dated, but I think that’s part of its charm letting us […]
Cinema: The Pretender (2017) Attending the 2019 Manchester Film Festival (review here), it was a delight to watch the UK premiere of The Pretender. It was proceeded by 3 short films: Little Miss Sumo: In Japan women are not allowed to be professional Sumo wrestlers and are only allowed to wrestle in school and college […]
Blu-ray: The Merger (2018) Based on Damian Callinan’s one man play, The Merger tells the tale of Troy Carrington; erstwhile new age hippy (in thought, not in dress), the only Australian rules football player to make it out of the town of Bodgy Creek. A town filled with stereotypical ‘men’. Dubbed the ‘Town Killer’ because […]
Blu-ray: The Last Movie (1971) Dennis Hopper, straight off the back of Easy Rider in 1969, was Hollywood’s new wonder kid. So the studio (run by old, studio system remnants) gave him a million dollars and free reign to make whatever the hell he wanted, with NO interference. Two years, and a long sojourn in […]
Blu-ray: The Fifth Cord (1971) Alcoholic, ‘troubled’, journalist lush Andrea Bild (Franco Nero) is at a swish Italian nightclub spying on his ex-wife and casting his somewhat voyeuristic glance over the assembled Bohemian middle class as they snog and sway to what is possibly one of the oddest film scores I’ve ever heard (by Ennio […]
Blu-ray: Sweeney! (1977) Sweeney 2 (1978) During January 1974, Britain would grind to a standstill on Wednesday nights because a new cop show had begun on ITV. Way before the fluffy cardigan of Starsky, without the wry charm of Jim Rockford and none of the wetness of Macmillan and Wife, ITV had taken a sprinkling […]
Blu-ray: Crimson Peak (2015) Guillermo del Toro is a wonder: male yet able to spin a feminist fairytale as good as any Angela Carter novel. Set in what may be the early 1900’s, a ruined mansion surrounded by blood red clay is the visual centrepiece of Crimson Peak along with real ghosts (amazingly CGI lite, […]
Blu-ray: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) Imagine a time – say 1988, where girls were girls and boys were boys, and there was no such thing as calling your friend a non-binary ‘they’. Imagine a time when it was okay to make risqué jokes about boobs, or even…oral sex. Imagine a time, post Benny […]
