Reviews

Blu-ray: Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)Devil in a Blue Dress is an odd film of sorts; a snappy whodunnit made in 1995 but based in 1948, with a largely black American cast and directed by Carl Franklin, a black director. It also has to be the most colourful Noir I’ve seen!Based on Walter Mosley’s novel of the same name, it features Denzel […]

DVD & Blu-ray: Born on the 4th of July (1989)Based on Ron Kovic’s bio of the same name, and directed by Oliver Stone, Born on the 4th of July is the film that really made Tom Cruise a ‘star’ and the movie where he finally got to act. The film depicts the life of Kovic over […]

Blu-ray: Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976)Buffalo Bill and the Indians is one of the most ‘Robert Altman’ films I’ve seen. A revisionist western by Altman with a barrage of stars and snappy dialogue that Quentin Tarantino would die for.Based on the play ‘Indians’ by Arthur Kopit, Paul Newman is William F. Cody, also known […]

DVD & Blu-ray: Cape Fear (1991)This 1991 Cape Fear is a remake of the 1962 film of the same name, which was based on John D. MacDonald’s 1957 novel, The Executioners.Starring Robert De Niro as Max Cady, Nick Nolte as Sam Bowden, Jessica Lange as Sam’s wife Leigh, and Juliette Lewis as their daughter Danielle. It also features some the stars from the original […]

Blu-ray & UHD 4K Blu-ray: Cinema Paradiso (1988)Salvatore ‘Totò’ Di Vita (played by 3 actors during various stages of the characters life) is a young boy with a big passion…movies.He is consumed by the whole experience of the moving image and lives for visiting the local village movie house; the titular Cinema Paradiso, where he […]

 Blu-ray: The Night Porter (1974)I was about 9 when The Night Porter came out, so missed the furore surrounding its release, and I’ve read that around the time it came out Hollywood had produced a few Pseudo-psycho-sexual Nazi-ish films (The Damned 1969, Cabaret ’72, Salo ’75) sort of looking at the Third Reich in a […]

Blu-ray: He Came from the Swamp – The William Grefé Collection (1966 – 77)I’ve always been a fan of low budget independent filmmaking and my VHS/DVD/Blu-ray collection includes films by Edward D. Wood Jr, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and Doris Wishman (Nude on the Moon being a particular favourite of mine…go check it out), but for some […]

Blu-ray: Spring (2014)Directors Justin Benson and  Aaron Moorhead (previous collaborations include my previously reviewed The Endless) once again craft a beautiful looking, slow burning narrative that takes you to places (both figuratively and literally) that you weren’t expecting.Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) is a young man whose life is seemingly spiralling out of control and so decides to […]

Cinema & Digital: Host (2020)How do you make a successful film, on a low budget, during a global pandemic, coupled with a lockdown on movement? Ask director Rob Savage because he has nailed it. Starring Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore, Emma Louise Webb, Radina Drandova, and Caroline Ward, Host tells the story of a group of friends meeting […]

Blu-ray: Columbia Noir #1 (1945 – 58)Another great blu-ray box set from Powerhouse Films in their Indicator series of releases, Columbia Noir #1 (#2 is due for release in February 2021) features 6 noir movies, each from a different director:ESCAPE IN THE FOG (Budd Boetticher, 1945)THE UNDERCOVER MAN (Joseph H Lewis, 1949DRIVE A CROOKED ROAD […]