Blu-ray Review: ‘Streets of Fire’
★★★★☆ Walter Hill’s rock ‘n’ roll fable Streets of Fire (1984) is thirty next year and unsurprisingly the film’s rain-swept streets, which bring to...
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino’s terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller.
★★☆☆☆ Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s “Abigail” mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit.
★★☆☆☆ Maïwenn’s French period drama Jeanne du Barry is the perfect opening salvo for the 76th Cannes Film Festival. It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.
★★★★☆ Walter Hill’s rock ‘n’ roll fable Streets of Fire (1984) is thirty next year and unsurprisingly the film’s rain-swept streets, which bring to...
★★★★★ The jewel in the crown of the BFI’s ongoing Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film season, F.W. Murnau’s 1922 classic Nosferatu is restored...
★★★★☆ You only have to dip into the latest episode of TV’s Homeland (the third season is currently airing on Channel 4) to see...
★★★☆☆ Austrian actor Anton Walbrook is perhaps best-known for his turn as ballet master Boris Lermontov in Powell and Pressburger’s sumptuous The Red Shoes...
★★★★☆ The BFI continues its Gothic season with three new collections from the BBC archives. There is nothing better as the Christmas season approaches...
★☆☆☆☆ It’s good to be reminded every once in a while that critics aren’t always correct. On the other hand, however, you have efforts...
★★☆☆☆ When Debbie Isitt’s original Nativity! was released back in 2009, Martin Freeman and The Hobbit hadn’t even been mentioned together in the same...
★★★★☆ The outrageous exploits and antics of Hollywood filmmaker John Milius has been the stuff of Hollywood legend for years now, creating an almost...