Salt Of The Earth (1954)

There are many different reasons why a movie is a ‘cult movie’. I haven’t read Danny Peary’s write up of the film Salt Of The Earth (1954) in his book Cult Movies 2. I presume it has to do with the fact that it was pulled from release and difficult to see for a long […]

The Basilisks (1963)

I’ve only seen one Lina Wertmuller movie and that was Love And Anarchy, which was great. Wertmuller’s debut film The Basilisks (1963; I basilischi aka The Lizards) was featured in the Mubi library in a remastered new edition. One sleepy Saturday morning, I decided to take a gamble on it and after the five minutes, […]

Pather Panchali (1955)

The images in Pather Panchali (1955) directed by Satyajit Ray, have a quality like classic silent cinema – there’s something so luminescent and glowing about them, helped by the remastering and restoration of the film in 2015. A beautiful and quietly devastating movie, it focuses on a family living in rural Bengal during 1910. The […]

Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Ever since the writer character Vincent D’Onofrio played in The Player went to a screening of Bicycle Thieves (1948; Ladri di biciclette aka The Bicycle Thief), championing it as true cinema, I always felt guilty for never having seen it. After copping a DVD copy, and letting it sit on a shelf for a long […]