Tag: Foreign Film Blu Ray Review
Criterion Collection: Mr. Klein (1976) | Blu-ray Review
In Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Chinese Roulette (1976), a venomous marital melodrama, a character played by Margit Carstensen provocatively inquires, “Who would this person have...
Skin is In: Ishii’s Signature Erotic Violence in Inferno of Torture (1969) | Blu-ray Review
An unsung eccentric of Japanese cinema is Teruo Ishii, referred to in his native country as ‘the King of Cult,’ whose forays into Ere...
The Doctor and the Devils: Pabst’s Subversive UFA Propaganda Revisited in Paracelsus (1943) | Blu-ray Review
Austrian born G.W. Pabst remains one of the most celebrated figures of German language cinema in the Weimar Republic, his enduring works featuring Louise...
Dead Again: Fulci’s “Zombie” (1979) Cult Classic Finds New Life | Blu-ray Review
Italian ‘Maestro of Gore’ Lucio Fulci canvassed a wide array of genres. Not unlike his colleague Mario Bava, his filmography resists being pigeonholed, seeing...
Man of Straw: Dearden’s Racially Charged Film Noir “Pool of London” (1951) | Blu-ray Review
For having the distinction of presenting one of cinema’s first interracial relationships between a black man and a white woman, Basil Dearden’s 1951 socially...
Criterion Collection: The Cranes are Flying (1957) | Blu-ray Review
The only Soviet film to ever win the coveted Palme d’Or, Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes Are Flying (1957), gets a loving 2K restoration on...
Criterion Collection: Teorema (1968) | Blu-ray Review
“Whatever the bourgeois do is wrong?” is a question posited in the flurried opening segment of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s arcane arthouse classic Teorema, a...
Caught in a Bad Romance: Clouzot’s Dire Love Story Resurrected “Manon” | Blu-ray Review
Arrow Academy resurrects an early notable work from the filmography of Henri-Georges Clouzot with his 1949 Manon, which won the Golden Lion at the...
Passion of the Christ Figure: Ridley Leans Religious in Stylized “The Passion of Darkly Noon” | Blu-ray Review
In the thirty years since he first became a cult favorite with his 1990 debut The Reflecting Skin, multifaceted English artist/director/novelist Philip Ridley has...
Criterion Collection: Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman | Blu-ray Review
If cinema can be viewed as an evolutionary form, a missing link would certainly be Czech director Karel Zemen. One must first ruminate on...
Three on a Match: Chabrol Breaks Commandments with “The Third Lover” | Blu-ray Review
A prominent member of the French New Wave, often credited as the French Hitchcock, director Claude Chabrol’s first few features were internationally renowned, seminal...
Crime and Punishment: Sautet’s Enthralling Policier an Obscure Neo-Noir “Max and the Junkmen” | Blu-ray Review
An unsung genre masterpiece from Claude Sautet, 1971’s Max and the Junkmen comes to Blu-ray for the first time courtesy of Kino Lorber. Featuring...
When the Walls Can Talk: Forbes’ Forgotten “The Whisperers” Finds New Breath | Blu-ray Review
British director Bryan Forbes is perhaps best remembered for his iconic American horror film The Stepford Wives, which became a genre classic and entered...
Lost in Translation: Lapid Languishes in Enigmatic, Complex Study on Cultural Identities with “Synonyms” | Blu-ray Review
Winning the Golden Bear at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival, Nadav Lapid’s third film Synonyms was one of the best theatrical releases of...
Another Old Dark House: Larraz Gets Derivative with Final English Language Title Deadly Manor (1990) | Blu-ray Review
Arrow Video continues to reconstitute the filmography of Spanish genre filmmaker Jose Ramon Larraz with his final English language thriller, Deadly Manor (originally released...
Lars and the Unreal Girls: The Danish Provocateur Pushes Buttons in Cruel, Grotesque “The House That Jack Built” | Blu-ray Review
The most controversial entry in the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, Lars Von Trier’s The House That Jack Built finally makes its way to Blu-ray...
Criterion Collection: All About My Mother (1999) | Blu-ray Review
Pedro Almodóvar’s most exquisitely dramatic and compassionate film All About My Mother arrived in the final year of the last century, a supercharged queer...
Wrinkles in Times: Hill Tackles Vonnegut’s Time-Traveling Classic “Slaughterhouse-Five” | Blu-ray Review
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who remains one of the modern era’s most celebrated American writers, is a largely untapped inspiration for cinematic adaptation—perhaps because he...
There’s No Love Like Easy Love in Garrel’s Intriguing Farce “A Faithful Man” | Blu-ray Review
Louis Garrel’s sophomore film, A Faithful Man, which was co-written by the esteemed scribe Jean-Claude Carriere, premiered at TIFF in 2018 prior to competing...
Criterion Collection: Cold War | Blu-ray Review
Polish auteur Pawel Pawlikowski ascends to the Criterion Collection with his 2018 success Cold War, which competed at Cannes (winning him Best Director), and...
Love is Like Woe: Duvivier Crashes into Romance in Final Film Diabolically Yours (1967) | Blu-ray Review
Kino Lorber resurrects Diabolically Yours, the final film from French auteur Julien Duvivier, arguably the most neglected member of the “Big Five” of classic...
Criterion Collection: Fists in the Pocket | Blu-ray Review
Criterion re-releases the mordant directorial debut of Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio, Fists in the Pocket (1965), just as the perennial filmmaker ends his sixth...
And Then There Were Nuns in Berruti’s Neglected Camp Classic “Killer Nun” (1979) | Blu-ray Review
Arrow Video resurrects one of nunsploitation cinema’s greatest outliers with the Anita Ekberg headlined Killer Nun, a 1979 oddity about a morphine addicted nun whose...
Whoa, Nelly: Sautet’s Final Neglected Classic “Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud” (1995) | Blu-ray Review
Claude Sautet took home a Best Director Cesar and lead Michel Serrault nabbed Best Actor for their work on the subtle melodrama Nelly and...
Criterion Collection: The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952) | Blu-ray Review
For those accustomed to the bittersweet greatest hits of Japanese auteur Yasujirô Ozu’s later period familial dramas, the lesser known 1952 social satire The...
Ladies They Talk About: Panahi Explores Artistic Repression in 3 Faces (2018) | Blu-ray Review
Jafar Panahi won Best Screenplay at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival for 3 Faces, his fourth feature since being banned from filmmaking by the...
You Gotta Have Face: Kinski Finds Kinky in Freda’s “Double Face” (1969) | Blu-ray Review
Arrow Video seems to be staging a bit of a Riccardo Freda renaissance. Several weeks after recuperating his odd 1971 Irish giallo The Iguana...
Resnais Explores a History of Violins in Doomed Love Triangle “Mélo” (1986) | Blu-ray Review
For the second-to-last feature Alain Resnais made in the 1980s, Mélo (1986) is arguably his most accessible, set in 1920s Paris and based on...
Criterion Collection: Diamonds of the Night (1964) | Blu-ray Review
There’s a reason director Jan Nemec’s name isn’t immediately conjures in superficial conversations on the Czech New Wave, despite his haunting 1964 debut Diamonds...
Pintilie Gets Touchy Feely in Sex Positive ‘Touch Me Not’ | Blu-ray Review
Romanian director Adina Pintilie became one of a handful of women to snag the Golden Bear out of the Berlin International Film Festival in...
Three’s Company in the Sordid Universe of Jose Ramon Larraz | Blu-ray Review
A formidable recuperation for art-house genre enthusiasts, Arrow Video recuperates a triptych of films from the peak period of director Jose Larraz, a master...
Sang-soo Goes for Slight(ly) Sober in B&W Mix-up ‘The Day After’ | Blu-ray Review
Prolific South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo’s twenty-first feature, The Day After, was also his second time competing for the Palme d’Or when it premiered...
A Touch of Class: Chang-dong Returns with Masterful Class Clash in ‘Burning’ | Blu-ray Review
One of the biggest slights of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival was towards South Korean auteur’s Lee Chang-dong’s masterful Burning, a sinister adaptation of...
Gaslighting’s a Gas in Dark-hearted Lewis Noir ‘My Name is Julia Ross’ | Blu-ray Review
Without a doubt, American director Joseph H. Lewis is best remembered for his contributions to film noir, particularly his 1950 classic Gun Crazy and...
Ercoli Kept the Negatives in The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion (1970) | Blu-ray Review
In many ways, as both its plot and title indicate, Luciano Ercoli’s jazzy 1970 directorial debut, The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion,...
Sapphic Salutations in the Salacious “The Killing of Sister George” (1968) | Blu-ray Review
Thanks to 2017’s “Feud,” it’s a prime time to examine some of the underrated gems from the filmography of Robert Aldrich, an underrated director...
Criterion Collection: Panique (1946) | Blu-ray Review
Initially a box office flop and critical failure, French auteur Julien Duvivier’s 1946 title Panique is now hailed as one of the great technician’s...
Criterion Collection: Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) | Blu-ray Review
As John Simon’s insert essay “The Lower Depths” asserts in Criterion’s Blu-ray re-release of Ingmar Bergman’s 1953 masterpiece Sawdust and Tinsel, the title was...
Cassel Gets Gifted in Deluc’s Gauguin: Voyage to Tahiti | Blu-ray Review
French painter Paul Gauguin receives two noted cinematic approximations in 2018. Edouard Deluc’s Gauguin: Voyage to Tahiti features Vincent Cassel as the tropically consumed...
Love is a Battlefield in Cocteau’s Portrait of Familial Dysfunction Les Parents Terribles (1948) | Blu-ray Review
If Frank Capra had been around to tackle a Harold Robbins’ novel, it might have a vibe such as Jean Cocteau’s forgotten 1948 masterpiece,...
Criterion Collection: Andrei Rublev | Blu-ray Review
“God will forgive you, don’t forgive yourself,” Andrei Rublev is told, the famed Russian iconographer who’s witnessing of the world’s innate and incomprehensible suffering...
Doillon Sculpts Scraps in Dry Biopic in Cannes Preemed Rodin (2017) | Blu-ray Review
Although it’s one of director Jacques Doillon’s most prolific projects in years, his 2017 biopic Rodin, headlined by revered French actor Vincent Lindon, is...
Criterion Collection: Cold Water (1994) | Blu-ray Review
Occasionally, a rare cinematic kernel lost to the ages due to whatever obsequious copyright or distributor issues, manages to resurface despite the odds. We...
Zvyagintsev gets Banished to a Quiet Place in the Country with “The Banishment” | Blu-ray
More exciting than revisiting Zvyagintsev’s 2003 debut is the opportunity to see his neglected 2007 follow-up The Banishment, which is an adaptation of William...
First the Fatherland in Zvyagintsev’s “The Return” (2003) | Blu-ray Review
Russian auteur Andrey Zvyagintsev famously nabbed the Golden Lion at the 2003 Venice Film Festival for his auspicious directorial debut The Return, an allegorical...
Criterion Collection: Dragon Inn (1967) | Blu-ray Review
If martial arts could be spliced into opera, it would look something like King Hu’s 1967 cult classic Dragon Inn, the second of his...
The Spirit of Ferreri Found in Edoardo de Angelis’ Indivisible (2016) | Blu-ray Review
Italian director Edoardo de Angelis received stateside distribution with this third title, the Siamese twin melodrama Indivisible, which picked up a couple of awards...
Criterion Collection: Dietrich and von Sternberg in Hollywood | Blu-ray Review
She would be revered as one of the most famous sex symbols of the twentieth century. He would become renowned as one of early...
Criterion Collection: Manila in the Claws of Light | Blu-ray Review
Before a modern art-house renaissance of Filipino cinema thanks to the international acclaim of directors like Lav Diaz and Brillante Mendoza (who have dominated...
Spetters (1980) | Blu-ray Review
No one marries the cultural complexities of sexuality and its impassioned, sometimes grotesque aftershocks better than Paul Verhoeven, particularly before his uneven Hollywood years...
