Here’s a solid big budget history-based war film about three Jewish brothers that were resistance fighters in WW2. This has a good blend of drama and action. I was a bit torn on recommending Defiance as it’s a borderline blockbuster. What the hell, I liked it.
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This is a fictionalization of a 1989 Montreal mass shooting in which 14 women were murdered. It’s obviously brutal at times, but the filmmakers balanced out the movie well with victim and witness storylines. With its elegant black and white cinematography, and tasteful approach, I would say this is one of the most well made films about a tragic event I’ve ever seen. The director, Denis Villeneuve, went on to make some slightly bigger budget films.
A Blu-ray was released in 2010 but appears to be out of print.
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There’s been a lot written about this movie. I’m just going to focus one one man who helped make Orson Welles’ lost film available for all to see. Bob Murawski.
Who the hell is that?
Well, Murawski first came to my attention as one of the founders of Grindhouse Releasing (the other was Sage Stallone RIP). Before the advent of DVD they released essential cult films like Cannibal Ferox on Laser Disc. Once I finally got a DVD player I bought the disc version of Ferox and was blown away by the quality of the film restoration and the truckload of extras. Every single movie that Grindhouse has worked on is worth seeing, and a few are downright essential to own.
Later I learned that Murawski was a respected film editor. Grindhouse restored Lucio Fulci’s legendary film The Beyond and Bob managed to edit a shot from Lucio’s film into his work on a little movie called Spiderman (2002). How crazy is that?
Years later Grindhouse resurrected the lost cult film Gone With the Pope. The level of work that went into that restoration is mind boggling. Shortly thereafter Bob was contacted to put those film re-animation skills to work on a certain legendary Orson Welles project. Netflix made a documentary related to The Other Side of the Wind, so naturally I assumed that Murawski’s work would be covered. Nope. While the doc They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead is well-worth watching, if you want to know about Bob’s work you’ll have to read the following interview. That ain’t right.
For all the above mentioned awesome things and more let me say this… Thank you Bob. You are a true hero to the history of cinema.
Oh yeah… I enjoyed The Other Side of the Wind too.
Not available on Blu-ray, but it looks like it may be released by Criterion Collection eventually.
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I have poked around quite a bit on the three streaming services I focus on, and there is very little film noir available in HD (thankfully things have improved since I first posted this). One that I did find is by none other than Stanley Kubrick. This seems to be his first film to really show his directorial ability. His previous film Killer’s Kiss was damn good, but does not stick in my memory like The Killing. The one element of this movie that really hangs in my brain is the supporting role by Timothy Carey as Nikki Arcane (how great is that character name?). Carey was a very talented actor, and generally creative guy, who also happened to be functionally insane. I once heard Crispin Glover relate an incident where the two actors hung out. Glover said that it became clear that Carey’s behavior was not an attempt to be funny, or just the antics of an eccentric. He was officially bonkers. Anyhow, come to the show for Kubrick and Nikki Arcane, and stay for everything else The Killing has to offer. It’s a true classic.
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This is one of my favorite cult movies of all time. It’s a one-of-a-kind film based on a short story by Harlan Ellison (who mostly approved of the adaptation). Don Johnson is trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with his dog Blood. He has a telepathic connection with the hyper-smart and talented pup. How do they use this amazing power? For the dog to find his boy some sex partners, of course. Beyond that it’s a trippy, funny, and fast paced adventure that should blow your mind all over your face.
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This marks Takashi Miike’s 100th film. Crazy. I certainly hope he makes much more of his unique brand of cinema. Here we have an enjoyable samurai action movie that is based on a manga series. It’s comic origins show, as the movie is even less realistic than the director’s 13 Assassins. That’s all right though. Blade of the Immortal is a lot of fun to watch.
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I love this one, and have no idea why I didn’t recommend it yet. While I’m a big fan of director Paul Schrader, he hasn’t really impressed me with a film since Auto Focus (2002). However he redeemed himself big time with First Reformed. The story is about a small town minister who struggles with inner conflict. Sounds like a snoozer, right? Nope. The movie starts out slow and becomes wonderfully bizarre. All that is helped by a fantastic score by Lustmord (also his best work in years). See this movie as soon as possible.
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This is easily the finest drama I’ve seen since I started this website. I am a bit biased as I’m a big fan of Ian Holm. Most people know Holm’s supporting roles, particularly as Ash in Alien. Its a pity he didn’t get more lead parts because he was flawless in this film. Sir Ian does a bit of a monologue at around 39 minutes into the movie that blew my mind. I very rarely hit pause because an actor just knocked it out of the park, but that’s exactly what happened. The film is excellent beyond just its lead. It looks great, the script is perfect, and it has a fantastic, reverb drenched, ambient score too. I give The Sweet Hereafter my highest recommendation.
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Here’s a very well-made, history-based, dark, jungle adventure. Well, two adventures. Part of it involves a search for what they refer to in the movie as Caapi (William S. Burroughs called it Yage). If you’ve seen any of the Italian cannibal exploitation movies, this is their grown-up, arthouse descendant (with a bit of Altered States mixed in).
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John Boorman’s Point Blank was a very influential movie. It informed the fractured storyline of Oldboy. It also inspired the look and feel of Vengeance. That makes this movie lean more towards an art film than Five Elements Ninjas. What will bring you down to earth from the fancy heights of cinema is the straight-up, no frills english dubbing by all the same voices that looped the other Shaw Brothers films around the same time. I was hoping there would be the original Chinese dub available to take that cheesy edge off, but that option was not available (on the version I watched anyhow). In spite of that minor flaw, this is a very good, artsy, dark martial arts movie that I personally found quite enjoyable. It’s got a bit more drama than fists a-flyin’ but I give it high marks for it’s look and style.
Not available on domestic Blu-ray.
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