The rise of Madness, made in 1981 at the height of the band’s popularity. Take It or Leave It is released in dual-format Blu-ray and DVD by the BFI. Gary Couzens listens to the heavy heavy monster sound.
Film4’s classic and much beloved British social drama Brassed Off, starringPete Postlethwaite, Ewan McGregor, Tara Fitzgerald, Stephen Tompkinson and Sue Johnston, is to be released on Blu-ray by the BFI in November to mark its 30th anniversary.
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Chilean cinema has long punched above its weight and the 70th London Film Festival was graced by Manuela Martelli’s The Meltdown and Dominga Sotomayor’s La Perra, Jerry Whyte hails two compatible films that each defy narrative convention while mourning the passing of Chilean maestro Patricio Guzmán, who died a fortnight before the festival began.
In a quick update blog before he scoots off to Japan for a sorely needed and twice delayed break, Slarek briefly outlines why reviews have been seriously thin on the ground in recent months, and considers a hopeful way forward for the site.
A young man who may or may not have killed a man becomes embroiled in events that involve his wife’s murderer and a police chief neighbour in Buffet froid, Bertrand Blier’s surrealistic urban crime thriller, a film in which no-one behaves as logic or tradition would dictate. Slarek stops his head spinning long enough to appreciate Blier’s considerable achievement on Indicator’s recently released UHD.
Horace Ové’s Pressure, the first British feature film made by a Black director, comes out on Blu-ray from the BFI, following a 4K restoration. Review by Gary Couzens.
Another time capsule from the late 1950s to the mid 1960s from the Rediffusion archive, Daniel Farson’s Guide to Britain Volume 2 is a dual-format release from the BFI. Gary Couzens goes back in time.
Don Johnson stars as a drifter who wanders into a small Texas town and a whole heap of trouble in director and co-screenwriter Dennis Hopper’s steamy 1990 neo-noir, The Hot Spot. Genre fan Slarek catches up with a film that previously slipped him by and falls for a work that dares to take its time tying the fate of its lead character in Gordian knots.