French New Wave director Jean-Denis Bonan is among the cursed and damned filmmakers – revered by a few, reviled by most. His formerly shunned A Woman Kills (1968) slips out of the shadowy margins and appears for modern viewers.
Three Films by Mai Zetterling reveal the themes in the controversial director’s work: women’s lives, their fraught and ambiguous relationships with sex and motherhood, and how women interact with each other.
Taken within its lush Hollywood limitations, ‘Raw Wind in Eden’ remains a highly watchable and attractive melodrama that measures a certain depth in the tides of social evolution.
Themes of masquerades and flim-flam in the comedy thriller Gambit see Shirley MacLaine’s Nichole Chang giving Michael Caine’s Sir Harry Dean a much-needed lesson.
The 1951 film-noir Peking Express (not to be confused with Shanghai Express) should be seen as Hollywood’s first attempt to deal with Communist China in the context of the Red Scare.
From gentle satire to something like an anarchist paint bomb tossed into an uptight dinner party, we feature the 10 Best Classic Films on Blu-ray and DVD in 2022 – and we toss in a few more, just for kicks.
Film noir from the 1950s The Unguarded Moment gives off cozy WASP-American TV vibes for its increasingly sinister and sick Technicolor world.
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze’s New Wave film A Game for Six Lovers is drenched in High Culture, while La Dénonciation is high Sixties style and gripping all the way.
Margaret Sullavan’s character in Next Time We Love is canonized for pursuing a successful career separately from her husband, wherever the heck he is.
Argentine noir El Vampiro Negro is a visual mastery of Expressionist nightmare with a bravura style that makes film buffs of the high studio era swoon.
Remastered and on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber is William Dieterle’s The Turning Point, a noir film at the intersection of several crossroads in America’s early ’50s.
Frank Capra’s America is always on the edge of madness and nightmare. The deeper you dig into his Arsenic and Old Lace, the darker and queasier it becomes.
