Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Blu-Ray Review: Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (Criterion Collection)
Akira Kurosawa is widely considered one of the greatest film-makers in Japanese cinematic history. In 1990, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honoured his contribution to worldwide cinema. He’s synonymous with war/samurai films such as Ran, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress and Yojimbo. However, his other works, whilst less well …
Blu-Ray Review: Punch Drunk Love (Criterion Collection)
Amongst the film-going and critical intelligentsia, Paul Thomas Anderson is vying with Terrence Malick for the title of greatest living American auteur. During the late ‘90s, Boogie Nights and Magnolia defined contemporary film-making. Every new release seems like a media event, with Inherent Vice, The Master and There Will Be Blood all walking away with …
Blu-ray Review: Day For Night
Of all the film directors who have ever lived there’s probably none with a greater love of cinema than François Truffaut. The great French auteur simply lived, breathed and ate film. As one of the greatest directors of the 20th Century and a pioneer of the French New Wave he helped define modern cinema. In …
Blu-ray Review: Don’t Look Back
Musical documentaries tend to fall into two camps. Normally, they’re retrospective stories of band or artists, using interviews and archive footage. There’s also the concert film, which nowadays tend to feature the most main stream ‘pop’ular bands. In Don’t Look Back D.A. Pennebaker follows a young Bob Dylan on his 1965 tour of England. It’s …
DVD Review: The Emigrants/The New Land (Criterion)
In every country there is a book which every schoolchild knows or an author who’s embedded in the fabric of the culture. The Emigrants Suit, written by Wilhelm Moberg, comprises four books (The Emigrants, Unto a Good Land, The Settlers and The Last Letters Home). The novels are classics and considered to be amongst the …
Blu-ray Review: The Cat People
Whilst his name will not be familiar to many, Val Lewton had a profound influence on the way movies are made. Starting with Jack Tourneur’s The Cat People, he produced a number of (mostly low budget) films for RKO Pictures. Indeed, The Cat People ended up saving the studio from financial ruin after a run …
Blu-Ray Review: The In-Laws
Modern cinema is littered with gross-out and offensive comedies. We’ve become studio-fed by Apatow, Rogen, Rudd, Mottola, Macfarlane and the like. And whilst it’s brilliant to see actresses finally being cast in starring roles, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the intelligence of the writing is any greater. Films such as Arthur Hiller’s 1974 comedy In-Laws …
Blu-ray Review: Dr Strangelove: or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Stanley Kubrick is without doubt one of the greatest film makers of the 20th Century. Whilst the image of Alex or his fellow droogs causing havoc in A Clockwork Orange remain the most iconic, films such as Full Metal Jacket, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining and Spartacus are as feted today as they were …
Blu-ray Review: Burroughs: The Movie (Criterion Collection)
William S Burroughs was one of the leading players of the Beat Generation. Along with Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke and Jack Kerouac they changed the narrative around 1950s America for a whole generation. Burroughs himself is best known for his book Naked Lunch, which was published in 1959. Throughout his life he battled with heroin …
Blu-ray Review: Gilda (Criterion Collection)
In the golden days of Hollywood films some of the most bankable stars were those who were given the label of ‘Screen Goddess’. The Studios’ response to the horrors of World War II was glamour, and during the ’40s and ’50s the likes of Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner and Lana Turner set screens …