Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (Image Entertainment) Wheeler Winston Dixon July 2009 DVD Reviews This 2-disc DVD set from the National Film Preservation Foundation and Image Entertainment covers an era of filmmaking that is almost lost to authentic recall; an era when individual artists were able to make f...
To Catch the Sun in a Net: Slovak Cinema in the 1960s Peter Hourigan July 2009 DVD Reviews A ten-feature box-set from the Slovak Film Institute has Peter Hourigan delightedly continuing his exploration of the cultural heritage of a national cinema that has been widely overlooked since the division of Czechoslovakia.
Michael Powell Down Under: Norman Lindsay’s Age of Consent Scott Murray July 2009 DVD Reviews A Backstory Thursday 27 March 1969 was an iconic day in the evolution of the modern Australian cinema. In Melbourne, at the Forum Cinema, Tim Burstall’s Two Thousand Weeks had its world première. In Brisban...
On Abel Gance’s J’Accuse and La Roue Peter Hourigan February 2009 DVD Reviews Peter Hourigan offers an appreciative evaluation of these two silent-era classics recently released on DVD by Flicker Alley.
Land of Promise: The British Documentary Movement 1930-1950 (British Film Institute) Richard Armstrong August 2008 DVD Reviews Richard Armstrong takes a look at this historically significant DVD compilation from the British Film Institute.
Death in Brunswick: 2 Disc Collectors Edition (Umbrella Entertainment) Peter Hourigan May 2008 DVD Reviews In 1952, non-Anglo-Saxon migrants were such a strange phenomenon that the Australian Government’s Film Division, Department of the Interior, for the Department of Immigration felt the need to sponsor a feat...
They’re a Weird Mob (Roadshow Home Entertainment) Peter Hourigan May 2008 DVD Reviews By the mid-1960s, two near-down-and-outs came together. One was Michael Powell. Despite having made (many with Emeric Pressburger) some of the greatest – and best-loved - British films of the 1940s (The Lif...
Saved from the Flames: 54 Rare and Restored Films 1896-1944 (Flicker Alley) James L. Neibaur April 2008 DVD Reviews The survival rate of films made before 1950 is at such a low percentage that any effort to locate and restore our cinematic heritage is commendable. Thus, the new three-disc DVD set from Flicker Alley, Saved Fr...
Killer of Sheep: The Charles Burnett Collection (Milestone Film & Video) John Fidler April 2008 DVD Reviews A vehicle crawls along a road that cuts across a brown and dusty landscape, where an African-American youngster tends an ailing horse. Three shiftless white men gather on a porch, talking of wasting time, waiti...
Romulus, My Father (Madman Films) Fincina Hopgood March 2008 DVD Reviews Review of the recent DVD release of Richard Roxburgh’s début feature, an adaptation of Raimond Gaita’s acclaimed memoirs about his father.
The Documentaries of Louis Malle (Criterion box set) Peter Hourigan November 2007 DVD Reviews After six months in India you’re not even quite sure that two plus two is four. – Louis Malle (1) In 1967, Louis Malle was established as a major international filmmaker, a decade after his first fiction film...
Avant-Garde 2: Experimental Cinema 1928-1954 (Kino International) Adrian Danks November 2007 DVD Reviews Avant-Garde 2: Experimental Cinema 1928-1954 is a laudable, curious and at times frustrating collection of French and mostly American experimental films made across a 25-year-period. It is a sequel of kinds to ...
