…have I got the film for you - Profound Desires of the Gods. It’s available via the Masters of Cinema line, on Blu-ray only and restricted to play just on Region B or region-free machines so the possible audience for this release is limited. If you have those capabilities or simply want to read my [...]

The bookends of Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux sans visage) consist of a wordless journey, given demented affection by Maurice Jarre’s score, to dispose of a female corpse dressed in men’s clothing and the escape of one animal after another, culminating in the brutal poetry of angry dogs attacking their captor and [...]

There’s an exhilaration that comes from watching a Sam Fuller picture. You know it’s Fuller who wrote it. You know he was the one barking from behind the camera between cigar puffs. You know he took pieces of his own experiences - maybe something from the newspaper days or his time in WWII - and [...]

When I attended a conversation with Kirk Douglas a couple of years ago he mentioned that his personal favorite among all of the films he’d done was Lonely Are the Brave. I wasn’t familiar with that title, but soon learned that there had not yet been a DVD release either in R1 or the UK. [...]

Steve McQueen’s guarded blue eyes drive this Peter Yates film just as the actor forcefully guides his title character’s ‘68 Mustang in that iconic car chase. The number of close-ups Yates gives McQueen is surprising until you realize each and every one works. When Yates cuts to McQueen as San Francisco Police Lt. Frank Bullitt, [...]

The Film Forum retrospective on Jules Dassin has just ended, right when I return to the area. Anyone arriving to this piece via search or otherwise who caught The Rehearsal, A Dream of Passion, or He Who Must Die is encouraged to share an opinion. Those were the titles I didn’t get a chance to [...]

Drastic measures require as much self-advertisement as possible when it comes to the films of Jean-Pierre Melville and only a smidgen of views over at DVD Times. I’m not sure what happened, but suspect the new look of the DVD Times site may have resulted in fewer visitors and, thus, fewer peeks at reviews. Whatever [...]

I propped up Mister Buddwing a couple of weeks ago in my weekly TCM picks. Some minor research left me hesitant but entirely intrigued. James Garner as a guy who wanders around the streets of Manhattan in search of himself sounded familiar. I’ve never experienced memory loss or found myself in Central Park without any [...]

Forever transforming intricate layers of sleaze into something profound, Shohei Imamura continued on the same path he’d journeyed in 1963’s The Insect Woman with its follow-up, Intentions of Murder. The 1964 film approaches many of Imamura’s favorite subjects, notably an unremarkable and unhappy woman dragged through conflict and emerging with complicated victory. The women in [...]

Living where I do and having an interest in some form of the popular arts (film, music, literature) has allowed for many opportunities to view people whom I admire up close. It’s a weird sensation, undoubtedly, but even stranger is when it stops seeming like a big deal. I never have anything worthwhile to say [...]