No other company has done more of Australian cinema than Umbrella Entertainment – the home of Ozploitaion, but the Melbourne-based label is also responsible for some of the most random and outrageous Blu-ray releases on the market.
Capping off 2018’s slate of ‘Ozploitation Classics’ Umbrella Entertainment have given Brian Trenchard-Smith’s childhood-centric Frog Dreaming (The Quest, The Go-Kids) a welcome HD upgrade, restored from a new 4K scan. Often dubbed a ‘VHS favourite’ among those who grew up during the mid-80s and early 90s, Cody is young American boy living in Australia, following […]
Blu-ray Review: Frog Dreaming (1986) Read More »
Unjustly criticised upon its release, with some prominent film critics missing the point entirely, George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead has since become recognised as one of the most significant and influential zombie films of all time; on equal footing with its two predecessors, Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead.
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Have you heard of Light Sleeper? I hadn’t either, until a few months ago, but now we can thank Umbrella Entertainment for having dusted off this early 90s classic for a HD upgrade, which hit Blu-ray for the first time worldwide on October 3rd. Written and directed by Paul Schrader, this mid-life metaphor as he
Blu-ray Review: Light Sleeper (1992) Read More »
For a good many years the phrase straight-to-DVD was often a telltale sign of sub-par movie quality, but with the rapidly evolving landscape of home media, this stigma is now lifted. Please Stand By falls somewhere in between, as a film subject to a very limited run in US theatres last year, raking in only
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Due to a limited release on DVD, which until recently fetched a hefty price from eBay sellers, Next of Kin was somewhat of a holy grail among collectors of Ozploitation cinema. One of Quentin Tarantino’s favourite movies and often regarded as Australia’s first on-screen ghost story, the obscure, yet popular titles has been screaming for
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Surviving the apocalypse and being rendered the last person on earth is a fantasy many of us have pondered. It’s also a scenario that has been explore numerous times in film, most famously adaptions from Richard Matheson’s classic novel, I Am Legend. Now available under the latest and sixth volume in Umbrella Entertainment’s Beyond Genres
Blu-ray Review: The Quiet Earth (1985) Read More »
Following a milestone screening at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, which I narrowly missed, Alex Proyas’ (Dark City) debut feature Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds is now the fifth volume of in Umbrella Entertainment’s Beyond Genres series. Showcasing stunning artwork both inside and out by resident illustrator Simon Sherry, this visionary
Blu-ray Review: Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds (1989) Read More »
We’re in the midst of a new Golden Age of television with an abundance of high-quality content available via traditional broadcasting and streaming services, often rivalling theatrically released features. Decades before this big-budget era took hold, made-for-TV movies paled greatly in comparison, especially during the early 90s, which was arguably a low point for the
DVD Review: To Catch a Killer (TV 1992) Read More »
Based on the Tropfest finalist from 2013, filmmakers Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke have adapted their appropriately viral short film Cargo to the big screen, which opened in select cinemas across Australia back in May through Umbrella Films. Four months later the film has made its way to Blu-ray under Umbrella Entertainment, who have produced a
Review: Cargo (2018) Read More »
Francis Ford Coppola’s ambitious jazz peppered crime-drama is the biggest film from 1984 you probably haven’t heard of. Despite critical praise the film was a box office failure, earning less than half of its $58 million budget. Now available on Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment, The Cotton Club springs to life in high definition. An ensemble
Blu-ray Review: The Cotton Club (1984) Read More »