Czech Republic
Attempting to fit a lifetime of legendary adventure into a two-hour film, Amundsen: The Greatest Expedition doesn’t manage to tell us that much at all.
Daisies is a must-watch for scholars of New Wave, for fans of artistic rebellion, and for lovers of absurdism.
Every week we take a look at the latest home video releases. This week: Ikarie XB 1 (1963), Melvin and Howard (1980) and The Grand Duel (1972).
About an aspiring actress in Iraq, Dream City weaves together both political and personal prospects to capture an immersive slice of life.
When it comes to World War II, there is never a shortage of stories that are needed and are waiting to be told. Anthropoid is one of these stories. The film begins with an introduction to the true events that have led up to the assassination of a high-ranking Nazi official to be rendered a necessary means in a time of war.
Every year I seem to arrive at an impasse with horror films. Like many other lovers of the genre out there, we will always have love for Jason, Freddy, and Michael Myers (just tell Rob Zombie to cut it out). But when you’ve seen one too many teens by the lake, and you hear Freddy say “bitch” one time too many, you realize there’s more to the genre than just blood lust and hockey masks.
When Vêra Chytilová sadly passed away in March of last year, cinephiles across the world mourned the loss of a truly passionate and original filmmaker. Chytilová was the dangerous iconoclast of the Czech New Wave. Both the BFI and Second Run DVD decided that the world must know of her work outside of her nihilistic masterpiece Sedmikrasky (Daisies, 1966), and as such the BFI ran a series showing many of her films at their Southbank cinema, and Second Run released two of her films, Pasti, Pasti, Pasticky (Traps, 1998) and Fruit of Paradise (1970), on their excellent DVD line.
