Three years removed from the success of The Apartment, 1963 saw the release of Billy Wilder’s Irma La Douce. This oft-forgotten classic features the repairing of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine in the starring roles, and was a big hit …
Blu-ray Review: The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean Warner Archive Collection / Warner Bros. / 1972 / 123 min / Rated PG / Jul 17, 2018
Riding a wave of acclaim for his screenplay for Jeremiah Johnson, John Milius developed a script The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, that he hoped would be his directorial debut. Unfortunately for him, producer John Foreman felt that …
Blu-ray Review: Elevator to the Gallows (Criterion Collection) Criterion / Spine #335 / 1958 / 92 min / Not rated / Feb 06, 2018
French director Louis Malle (Au revoir les enfants) isn’t generally associated with the noir genre, but his first narrative feature, Elevator to the Gallows, based on the pulp novel by Noël Calef, and set to a haunting score by Miles …
Blu-ray Review: Disobedience Universal Studios / 2017 / 115 min / Rated R / Jul 17, 2018
An elderly British orthodox rabbi is giving a sermon on freedom and choice–a message that hangs over the entire film–to his rapt audience when he suddenly keels over dead. The film then cuts to Manhattan, where a photographer, Ronit (Rachel …
Blu-ray Review: The Complete Monterey Pop Festival (Remastered) (Criterion Collection) Criterion / Spine #167 / 1968 / 79 min / Not rated / Dec 12, 2017
Originally released by The Criterion Collection in 2002, The Complete Monterey Pop Festival consists of three iconic D.A. Pennebaker films: Monterey Pop, Jimi Plays Monterey, and Shake! Otis at Monterey. Held on a June weekend in 1967, Monterey was the …
Blu-ray Review: The Jericho Mile Kino Lorber / 1979 / 97 min / Not rated / Jul 03, 2018
After several years directing commercials in England, Michael Mann spent the latter half of the 1970’s writing scripts for several popular television shows, including Starsky and Hutch, Police Story and the popular Angie Dickinson cop drama, Police Woman. Eventually, he …
Blu-ray Review: Prefontaine (Special Edition) Kino Lorber / 1997 / 107 min / Rated PG-13 / Jul 03, 2018
Co-writer/director Steve James’ (Hoop Dreams) Prefontaine tells the story of Steve Prefontaine, considered by many America’s greatest long-distance runner of all time. Holding the American record in seven different distance track events, Prefontaine was favored to win gold at the …
4K UHD Review: Jack Reacher Paramount Pictures / 2012 / 130 min / Rated PG-13 / Jun 26, 2018
Based on the Lee Child novel One Shot, Jack Reacher hits the ground running. A man drives to a parking deck overlooking the Allegheny River in downtown Pittsburgh, loads a sniper rifle with handmade bullets, and kills five people walking …
Blu-ray Review: Barry Lyndon (Criterion Collection) Criterion / Spine #897 / 1975 / 185 min / Rated PG / Oct 17, 2017
Long an admirer of Stanley Kubrick, I count 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb among my favorite films of all time. However, Barry Lyndon, a period piece based …
Blu-ray Review: 2 Weeks in Another Town Warner Archive Collection / 1962 / 107 min / Not rated / Jun 19, 2018
Vincente Minnelli—one-time husband of Judy Garland and father of Liza—became famous largely as a result of the lavish musicals he directed during his time at MGM. Some of his best-known films include Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), An American …