Richard Roxburgh’s Rake

Running a compact 8 episodes, Rake [M] (2010) may be one of the best shows to come out of Australia, and for the present time it seems it's only available on an (obviously) Australian DVD & Blu-ray.

Star Richard Roxburgh plays Cleaver Greene, a human train wreck in-motion, consistently upsetting the personal and pofessional lives of friends, associates, peers, and family. The lead character is more than faithful to the essence and malicious potential of a rake - one who is morally loose, at odds with conventional society, a great big shit.

Mutiny on the Bounty (4.0)

Marlon Brando struggles to defend the crew against a giant, windy Trevor Howard mug.

Previous filmed in 1916 as a silent, in1933 with Errol Flynn (!) making his starring debut as Fletcher Christian, and in 1935 [M] by MGM with the iconic Clark Gable and Charles Laughton battling egos and lapses of politesse, this fourth go-round at Mutiny on the Bounty was treated to a fortune in studio cash in the hope a literary classic would bring major box office rewards.

Filmed in Ultra Panavision 70 (formerly branded as MGM Camera 65), the 1962 production [M] also involved a replica of the famous H.M.S. Bounty (proudly built in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia) that was slightly longer & wider to accommodate the massive cameras, and allow a full crew to shoot locked and tracking shots on the ship with ease.

On Being Pleased

As is typical during the lead-up to Xmas, things pile up, the day job enforces more time, and when the weekend finally hits, there’s a modest list of Things Not Done, which include emails & replies & mailings that simply sat undone and untouched.

Put another way: Where the heck did last week go?

Soundtrack News & Reviews

On the news front, Screen Archives Entertainment have set Twilight Time’s next Blu-rays for pre-order, and both Picnic (1955) and The Roots of Heaven (1958) will contain isolated score tracks of George Duning and Malcolm Arnold’s respective scores. See, some wishes can come true (albeit when there are like-minded people, and music elements still survive).

'All Hail to the God of Carnage'

Look! It's the stylish French poster which focuses on the bilious mood temperatures within Polanski's angry little movie!

With director Roman Polanski's latest film, Carnage, slated to open in theatres Dec. 30th (yes, he's still trapped in France making movies set in other countries), the TIFF Bell Lightbox have created a thematic lead-in to Polanski's tight adaptation of Yasmina Reza's vicious black comedy of two couples losing their civil artifice as the issue of a maimed child refuses to leave the mind of the affected mother.