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 ...
Four Studies by Mikio Naruse Michael Campi May 2007 DVD Reviews The posthumous international triumph of Mikio Naruse is one of the most unique corrections in film history. - Phillip Lopate, quoted in the booklet accompanying the Criterion release of Naruse’s When a Woman A...
Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist (Criterion) Peter Hourigan May 2007 DVD Reviews I am a Negro. Paul Robeson began his 1958 book, Here I Stand (1), with that simple but absolutely unambiguous declaration. Concert singer, actor, All-American footballer, political activist, yes, but for Robes...
Luc Moullet 6-Film Boxset (Blaq Out) Maximilian Le Cain May 2007 DVD Reviews In the course of Gérard Courant’s hugely engaging 2001 documentary portrait of Luc Moullet, L’Homme des roubines (The Man of the Badlands), Moullet approvingly cites Howard Hawks’ opinion that a filmmaker shoul...
Dust Devil – The Final Cut: Two DVD versions James Rose February 2007 DVD Reviews Dust Devil – The Final Cut DVD: Subversive Cinema (USA). Language: English. Ratio: 16x9 widescreen. Length: 01:08:00. Colour. Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo. Extras: Full-length Director’s Commentary, Dust D...
6 or 7 DVDs: Jean-Luc Godard in Region 4 Matthew Clayfield February 2007 DVD Reviews Six years ago, in the pages of this journal, former director of the Melbourne International Film Festival Geoff Gardner described the DVD distribution of Jean-Luc Godard’s films as both “spotty and, really, rat...
The Prisoner of Shark Island (Masters of Cinema) Peter Hourigan February 2007 DVD Reviews At this hour the melancholy intelligence of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, President of the U.S., at Fords Theater was brought to this office. - District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department Blotter, ...
Alice (Lusomundo) Paul Jackson February 2007 DVD Reviews DVD: Lusomundo (Portugal). Language: Portuguese with English Subtitles. Ratio: 16:9. Length: 101.00. Region: 2. Having played successfully at countless festivals – it was nominated for Discovery of the Y...
Mauritz Stiller on DVD: Sir Arne’s Treasure; Gösta Berlings Saga; Erotikon (Kino DVD) Peter Hourigan February 2007 DVD Reviews The decade around 1920 in Swedish cinema is almost always called its First Golden Age, a period dominated by two directors, Mauritz Stiller and Victor Sjöström. Both were directing films by 1912 and, within abo...
Mt. Head: Koji Yamamura Animation Works (Geneon Entertainment) Paul Jackson November 2006 DVD Reviews DVD: Geneon Entertainment (Japan). Language: Japanese with English Subtitles. Ratio: 4:1. Length: 79.00. Region: 2. * * * When discussed in the West, the term “anime” is frequently used simply as a genre ...
Toni (Masters of Cinema) Michael Campi November 2006 DVD Reviews The striking series of DVD releases from Masters of Cinema celebrates an eclectic mix of directors and genres. Cinéphiles should rejoice that there are now such accessible and essential titles providing extende...
The Films of Su Friedrich (Outcast Films) William C. Wees November 2006 DVD Reviews Five disc DVD: Volume I: The Ties That Bind (1984, 55 mins, black and white, 16mm, sound), The Lesbian Avengers Eat Fire, Too (1993, 55 mins, colour, video, sound); Volume II: Damned If You Don’t (1987, 42 ...
Buster Keaton on Madman DVD: The Three Ages, The General, College and Steamboat Bill Jr. Michael Campi July 2006 DVD Reviews Everyone has a desert island list of films that are still out of reach for personal perusal but fortunately we have the major oeuvre of the clowns of the silent cinema period on DVD. The features and short ...
Buster Keaton Collection: The Great Stone Face (Columbia) and Industrial Strength Keaton (Laughsmith Entertainment Inc.) James L. Neibaur July 2006 DVD Reviews Joseph Francis “Buster” Keaton is one of those filmmakers whose work made such an enormous impact on screen comedy, every aspect of his cinematic contribution is worth examining. His first silent films as appre...
Pulse (Toho Company Ltd and Magnolia) Noel Vera July 2006 DVD Reviews DVD: Toho Company Ltd and Magnolia (USA). Language: Japanese with English and Spanish subtitles. Ratio: 1.85:1. Length: 1:18:00. Colour. Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. Extras: Includes a “Making of Pulse” featurette...
Beauty and Talent in an Age Deprived of Gods: BéBé on DVD Scott Murray May 2006 DVD Reviews I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is composed of truths that become lies, mythology of lies that become truths. One characteristic of our age is that it creates instant myths in every field....
Free Cinema (British Film Institute) Richard Armstrong May 2006 DVD Reviews DVD: BFI (UK). No: BFIVD717. Language: English. Ratio: 4:3. Length: 7:55:00. Black and white. Extras: Small is Beautiful documentary; additional shorts; 40-page booklet. Region: 2. * * * The late-1950s were...
Yes (Optimum) Richard Armstrong May 2006 DVD Reviews DVD: Optimum (UK). No: OPTD0256. Language: English. Ratio: 1.85:1. Length: 1:39:00. Colour. Extras: two featurettes; trailer. Region: 2. * * * Longing to believe that in a world fractured by strife ther...
Seven Men From Now (Special Collector’s Edition, Paramount) Sean Axmaker May 2006 DVD Reviews Budd Boetticher directed more than 40 features in a career that is still largely known only by the most dedicated film scholars and Western buffs. Poorly represented on VHS at the height of that format, his fil...
The Olive Thomas Collection (Milestone Film and Video) James L. Neibaur May 2006 DVD Reviews In the 6 January 1920 issue of Exhibitor’s Trade Review, screen actress Olive Thomas gleefully announced during an interview that she had a movie projector in her home where she would run some of the latest mov...
Robert Bresson on DVD Geoff Gardner May 2006 DVD Reviews 1. Breaking the Bresson ice Accent Film Entertainment is the first Australian company to release the works of Robert Bresson on DVD. The three films are Pickpocket (1959), Procès de Jeanne d’Arc (incorrectly...
Buried Treasure: Feuillade and Franju on DVD Geoff Gardner April 2005 DVD Reviews There is much to admire about the silent cinema artistry and poetic beauty of director Louis Feuillade and the man who remade one of his classic films, Georges Franju.
Possession: DVD Review Victor Galstyan April 2005 DVD Reviews The singular vision of polish director Andrzej Zulawski's 1981 film is examined, and found to be as powerful as ever.
Forest of Bliss Brian L. Frye January 2003 DVD Reviews Brian celebrates the DVD release of what he regards as one of the finest documentaries ever made.
