Powerhouse Indicator continues its series of exotic attractions from the house of Hammer — productions that found new ways to shock audiences than tradition-breaking gore and violence. Two are war pictures with sharply contrasting themes, and the second pair constitute a popular-cinema referendum on racist colonial attitudes. Hammer Volume 3 Blood and Terror Blu-ray…

  Perhaps the top cinematic output of Cuban filmmaking is this investigation of a man that doesn’t embrace the revolution. Wishing to remain apolitical, the handsome Sergio prefers to pursue attractive women, as well as illusions of his own superiority. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s account of life with Castro doesn’t shirk from an honest view of…

Had I not recently revisited Don Siegel’s dusty, nail-hard crime thriller Charley Varrick, in fact just the night before seeing Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Three Times, it stands to reason that I probably would not have found myself thinking about the Walter Matthau-starring crime thriller midway through the Taiwanese director’s film. After all, Siegel’s tale of morally…