Kubrick An Odyssey. Review by Alan Price. Throughout late 1980’s and all of the 1990’s the question that moviegoers often asked was what’s Kubrick up to now? We were aware that Stanley Kubrick took a long time creating a film because of his fastidious micro-managing of every aspect of filmmaking.
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Yojimbo – 1961 / Sanjuro 1962 – (Kurosawa). Review by Alan Price. The BFI continue their new 4k Kurosawa restorations with two of his most famous samurai films Yojimbo and Sanjuro. Both feature superb performances by Toshiro Mifune as a ronin (a vagrant samurai drifter).
The Barnabas Kos Case. Review by Alan Price. The Barnabas Kos Case is a subtle and witty satire directed by Peter Solan and adapted from the 1954 short story of Peter Karvas. It is a Slovak oddity still retaining its power to disturb and entertain.
Golem – Piotr Szulkin. Review by Alan Price. Golem is a brave oddity: an out to lunch curiosity that equally attracts and repels. It’s great that Second Run have made it available again.
High and Low and Stray Dog (Kurosawa). Review by Alan Price. Crime films with a tinge of film noir are not the obvious genres that spring to mind when you think of the typical output of Akira Kurosawa.
Alfred Hitchcock – All the Films. Review by Alan Price. The first thing to do with a book like this is to check that all of Hitchcock’s films have been covered. And not just the well-known titles but lesser-known works too.
Powell and Pressburger’s War. Review by Alan Price. From 1939-1946 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger produced eight remarkable propaganda feature films but neither felt their artistic integrity was compromised from being backed by The Ministry of Information.
Emilia Perez. Review by Graham Buchan. A story about violence as a musical? A drug lord wanting to transition to a woman? A song by a Thai sex-change surgeon? A singer who cannot sing? A director working in a language he doesn’t know? None of it should work. But it does, brilliantly.
The Hop-Pickers. Review by Alan Price. Before director Ladislav Rychman made The Hop-Pickers (1964) Czech cinema had no tradition of the screen musical.
Directed by Roman Polanski. Review by Alan Price. If you want to know what Roman Polanski was up to in the 1990’s (either to decry his artistic decline or applaud his re-invigoration) then Directed by Roman Polanski has to be seen.
The Stone Tape. Review by Alan Price. Nigel Kneale is a master at fusing the genres of horror and science fiction. He often claimed he wasn’t writing genre TV and film drama but simply good drama. At one level he’s right.
Oil Lamps. Review by Alan Price. Dysfunctional marriages are rife in contemporary film dramas yet often don’t shift gear into a high tragic dilemma set against a backcloth of decadence.
By Alan Price • added recently on London Grip, film • Tags: Alan Price, film