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Mubi's retrospective The Captive Man: Roland Klick's Neo-Genre Cinema is showing September 2 – November 8, 2019 in the United States.DeadlockEvery film culture, probably, has that one maverick genius defying induction into the national cinema pantheon—that one auteur seemingly every generation has to re-discover. Well, that's the wrong word, really—re-embrace feels better, more to the point. In the Federal Republic of Germany, that eternal wild card would be Roland Klick: the master without pupils proper, the director who wasn't able to create a career for himself. The latter is actually meant to be understood in double-edged way: as it is an interesting question whether the obstacles put into his pathway were simply too huge to push aside, or whether Klick, due to his character, was his own stumbling block. About the former we can say: While his contribution to Young German Cinema was officially cherished by certain cinephiles and audiences alike,...

Consider West German cinema and the familiar crop of names will rear its head: Fassbinder, Wenders, Herzog, Schlondorff… and, barring expertise, it’s here that the gas starts running low. To our fortune, New York’s Quad Cinema (working with programmers Dominik Graf and Olaf Möller) are about to commence the delightfully named” Fighting Mad: German Genre Films from the Margins,” which seeks exposure for an entire swath of, to quote Graf, “masters of the expressive, the outrageous, the subversive – they show how it looks and feels when the proverbial Teutonic order collapses and things go ballistic.”

If you aren’t in New York City, allow their program list to be your signpost and their trailer–which the Quad have kindly offered us as an exclusive–a peek at what awaits. Taking in its swirl of antiquated fashion, gunshots, blood smears, and screaming (so much screaming) will have you, at the very least,...

Through his films Sam Peckinpah frequently explored the relationships between men and violence and the relationships between men thrust together, but Cross of Iron stands out as being his only foray into the war film genre, although films such as The Wild Bunch and Major Dundee certainly flirt with similar thematic concerns.

In venturing into the then somewhat overstuffed area of WWII war films Peckinpah unsurprisingly chose to do something a little different, framing the conflict not from the side of the Allied forces but making a film that embeds us in the trenches with the German troops. Shot mostly on location in Yugoslavia Cross of Iron reconstructs the Eastern Front circa 1943 and centres on the German troops fighting there.

Arriving at the front-line early in the film is Captain Stransky (Maximilian Schell), a stuffy Prussian officer desperate to win the prestigious Iron Cross. At the front he finds a...

Father’s day is on the horizon and a whole bunch of cool Blu-ray’s are being released to celebrate that fact, a few films of which are particularly some of my Dad’s favourites.

Sam Peckinpah’s bloody anti-war movie Cross of Iron (out June 3rd), the British Wwi classic The Cruel Sea (June 13th) and the excellent Ice Cold Alex (June 13th), all digitally restored and available on the first time in Blu-ray. Excitedly if you are in London on father’s day weekend, the Odeon Panton St are showing Cross of Iron and Ice Cold in Alex from June 17th!

Owf have three copies of all three films to give away…

6 June: Cross Of Iron – Only On Bluray – Digitally Restored

Heralded as the most anti-war war film ever made, Cross Of Iron is a bloody and thought-provoking depiction of the horrors of war featuring an epic battle...

To celebrate the release of Cross of Iron on 6th June, Optimum Home Entertainment have given us three copies of the movie to give away on Blu-ray.

Synopsis: Heralded as the most anti-war war film ever made, Cross Of Iron is a bloody and thought-provoking depiction of the horrors of war featuring an epic battle of wills between aristocratic Prussian Officer Stransky (Maximilian Schell) and gutsy Sergeant Rolf Steiner (James Coburn). Director Sam Peckinpah has served as an inspiration for everyone from Tarantino to Kathryn Bigelow.

Extras: All New! Passion & Poetry – Sam Peckinpah’s War (46:00): A documentary by Mike Siegel featuring James Coburn, Senta Berger, David Warner, Vadim Glowna, Roger Fritz, Katy Haber & Sam Peckinpah. 5 featurettes with 1976 on set audio interviews: Sam Peckinpah (5:06) / James Coburn (5:30) / James Mason (6:05) / Maximilian Schell (4:35) / David Warner (3:14) / Featurette KRÜGER Kisses Kern (8:27) / Letters From Vadim & Sam Featurette (3:48) / Vadim...