Along with forthcoming work on some eye-opening items for 88 films, I’ve been producing booklet essays for a wide variety of genres recently, including a batch for Arrow Films: Jacques Audiard’s cult Western THE SISTERS BROTHERS (with Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly); the eclectic selection of crime films in FOUR FILM NOIR CLASSICS VOL. 2 (with such auteur directors as Robert Siodmak and Douglas Sirk); Mike Hodge’s late-career winner CROUPIER, with Clive Owen — and (for the US market) John Frankenheimer’s tense terrorist thriller BLACK SUNDAY (based on a pre-Hannibal Lecter novel by Thomas Harris). For Network, I’ve written about a fascinating TV re-discovery, COUNTRY MATTERS (based on powerful tales by H.E. Bates and A.E. Coppard, with some strong casts) — and speaking of strongly cast pieces: LES MISERABLES (the original Victor Hugo drama with Anthony Perkins and John Gielgud, not the musical!)
For Eureka, the compelling THE BULLET TRAIN, the original Japanese classic that inspired Speed (rather than the Brad Pitt vehicle Bullet Train). A speciality for me is Italian cinema, and I wrote about Sergio Martino’s edgy crime thriller THE VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS for 88 Films. I’ve also done some enjoyable work for Radiance, Severin Films and Studiocanal.
But its not just booklet essays for me — working with Kim Newman, I’ve recorded commentaries for the classic spaghetti Western, Sergio Sollima’s THE BIG GUNDOWN (Powerhouse Indicator) with Lee Van Cleef, along with work for ViaVision, Kino Lorber and Sony US.
New releases this month and next include FULL CIRCLE: THE HAUNTING OF JULIA, the highly-regarded film from 1978 based on Peter Straub’s novel Julia, returning in a restored 4K version approved by its director, Richard Loncraine for the BFI . Also in 4K – and heavily anticipated – is Tobe Hooper’s still shocking THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE in a limited edition 4K UHD/Blu-ray Box set release from Second Sight Films. From 101, there’s THE LAST SENTINEL with Kate Bosworth, director Tanel Toom’s SF thriller set in a devastated Earth. And still with SF, Studiocanal has regally spruced up THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN in a striking 4K restoration, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro’s follow-up to 1991’s quirky Delicatessen.
A bizarre and surreal film by Robert Sigl, LAURIN is a German/Hungarian co-production from 1988 in which a young girl is plagued by terrifying visions as a child-murderer preys on a 19th century German village. Echoes here of Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and The Company of Wolves.
From Fabulous Films, we have THE INVISIBLE MAN – the complete series. But before you ask ‘Which series?’, this is not the half-hour British show with an anonymous actor loosely based on H.G. Wells, but the work of Harve Bennett (producer of one Star Trek iteration) and Lesley Stevens, the latter most celebrated for the classic science fiction series The Outer Limits. The star is none other than Illya Kuryakin himself, David McCallum, and I asked the actor what his recollections of the series were. They were, he told me, ‘fond memories’, as they were for him of appearing in Stevens’ groundbreaking Outer Limits series. Transfers here are impeccable.
April sees the release from Arrow of THE STREET FIGHTER TRILOGY on Limited Edition Blu-ray, The charismatic and beetle-browed Sonny Chiba plays Takuma “Terry” Tsurugi, the antihero to end all antiheroes, in the bone-crunching martial arts series. The Street Fighter films propelled Chiba to international fame in a part very different from the nervous, under-pressure character in The Bullet Train mentioned above.