Serangoon Road

serangoon road

Are you like me? When you watch a TV show or a movie and there is an actor that catches your fancy, do you immediately look up what else they’ve been in? Do you get excited when you see them in something else? I do. I find myself rooting for certain actors that I like, especially when they aren’t already big stars.

So it was with Don Hany. I first caught him in an Australian series called East West 101. He was quite good in that, so I was excited to see him in this series for HBO Asia (and now I’m excited to see that Joan Chen – whom I just enjoyed in Twin Peaks – also starred in this series). To be honest, I’ve not seen Hany in anything else, and had kind of forgotten about him until now. But I just looked him up and was happy to see he’s still steadily working.

You can read my full review of this series here.

Lilies

lilies tv

One of the reasons I’m a physical media collector is that I always have access to the DVDs/Blu-rays that I own. I’m not subject to the whims of streaming services deciding which movies/TV series I can watch.

Lilies is a good example of this. It ran for but a single season (just eight episodes) on the BBC. As far as I can tell, it is not available to stream anywhere. Yet I can watch it anytime I want because I own it on DVD.

Not that I want to very often, but I could if I wanted to right now. Anyway, you can read my review of the series here.

Into the Woods (2014)

into the woods

After reading my rather raving review of this Rob Marshall-directed adaptation of the Steven Sondheim musical, I was surprised to look at Letterboxd and see that so many of the people I follow hate this film.

The problem seems to stem from the fact that the film severely changes a big chunk of the second act, making it much more Disney-friendly than the stage version. I’ve never seen it live, so I guess I wasn’t bothered by any changes.

While I did seem to have enjoyed it, it is worth noting I’ve never bothered to watch it again. Take that for what you will.

Nicolas Le Floch, Vol. 2

nicolas le floch dvd

There was a period of time, back around 2015, when I was reviewing a lot of International Mysteries. These were mostly put on DVD by a company called MHZ. They weren’t all good, but it was fun seeing how other countries handled their murder mysteries. Then I got busy, and the well ran dry.

I’ve recently subscribed to a streaming station run by MHZ and am once again enjoying my international mysteries.

I don’t really remember this French series, but you can read my review here.

International Settlement (1938)

international settlement dvd

One of the things I love about going through my old reviews is that I find films that I had forgotten I’d ever even watched. I don’t remember this film at all. I certainly don’t remember writing a review of it. Yet here we are and here it is.

The funniest thing about this review of this B-movie thriller is that I apparently didn’t know who George Sanders was ten years ago. He’s become one of my favorite actors, yet apparently I didn’t recognize him. How crazy that is to me now.

Bruce Force (1947) & The Naked City (1948)

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I review a lot of movies for Cinema Sentries. Sometimes I get stacks of them, and I have to push out reviews fairly quickly. Once in a while, I decide it is easier to bundle my reviews up, reviewing two or three movies in a single post and letting them bounce off each other a little bit.

So was the case with these two film noirs from Jules Dassin. Brute Force is a down-and-dirty little prison escape film, while The Naked City is the precursor to a lot of by-the-books procedurals like Dragnet and even Law & Order. You can read my reviews here.

V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayals

I grew up in the late 1980s/early 1990s and I have many, many fond memories of going to the video rental store looking for something interesting to watch. I went enough that I had generally seen all the big new releases so I often went digging through the old stuff. I loved finding weird, low-budget genre films full of sex, and violence, and goofy action.

In Japan these straight-to-video releases were called V-Cinema and Arrow Video has just put out a cool little boxed set full of them. You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries.

The Last of Us: Season One

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Just in time for Season Two hitting the small screen Season One of this terrific television series dropped a couple of weeks ago in a swell looking 4K UHD steelbook.

If you don’t know, The Last of Us is based on a popular video game series about a zombie like apocalypse and how two people – a middle-aged man and a teenage girl – survive it. I’ve never played the game but I love the series. You can read my full review over at Cinema Sentries.

Sadie McKee (1934)

sadie mckee bluray

Sadie McKee is a Pre-Code film starring Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone. It is a weird film in that is profers Crawford three bachelors to choose from, but it seems to want her to love the one most ill-suited to her. He’s a jerk, one who literally leaves her at the altar, but hey its true love so its all okay, I guess.

It isn’t a great film, but Crawford is great in it. You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries.

Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXV Blu-ray Review

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I’ve reviewed so many of these sets I don’t know what else to say about them. This one has three films from Republic Pictures directed by John H. Auer, whom I’d never heard of before.

The films are The Flame (1947) a melodramatic Double Indemnity-esque caper with too many characters and a couple of blondes I couldn’t tell apart. City That Never Sleeps (1953) is a docu-style drama filled with loads of interesting characters and some terrific noir cinematography. Hell’s Half Acre (1953) is an exotic noir set on the mean streets of Honolulu.

They are all pretty good, actually, and you can read my full review over at Cinema Sentries.