Blu-ray Review: Letter Never Sent (Criterion Collection)
Based on the eponymous book by Valery Osipov, Letter Never Sent centers on three geologists and their guide, sent into the Siberian tundra to find diamonds that would be a huge help in growing the Soviet economy. All involved are veterans of these types of searches but have yet to taste success. Finding the diamonds […]
Blu-ray Review: Vanya on 42nd Street (Criterion Collection)
Beginning in 1989, theater director Andre Gregory and actor Wallace Shawn undertook a unique theatrical experiment: gathering together a group of actors, they started performing Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in and around New York City, in any available space they could find. The troupe didn’t worry about costumes and sets; the drama of the words was […]
Blu-ray Review: La Jetée/Sans Soleil (Criterion Collection)
French filmmaker Chris Marker is a unique talent. His views are unlike any of his contemporaries. He rarely appears in public or gives interviews; Marker wants his ponderings on time, perception, and memory to stand on their own. Don’t spend a lot of time looking for a lot of narrative, forget it. Marker shuns that […]
Blu-ray Review: The Moment of Truth (The Criterion Collection)
Tired of working on the family wheat farm, and facing a life of financial hardship, Miguel Romero (Miguel Mateo), travels to Barcelona in search of a new life. Given his limited skills, Miguel finds it impossible to find work. Wandering into the Spanish countryside, he finds his way to a torero training school run by […]
DVD Review: Branded to Kill (Criterion Collection)
Having recently watched Seijun Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter, I was eager to see Branded to Kill, the 1967 film that led to his dismissal from Nikkatsu studios. A black and white film noir, at the time, Branded to Kill represented a new kind of surrealism with Suzuki’s bold style choices and its unquestionably perverse characters. Hanada […]
DVD Review: Tokyo Drifter (Criterion Collection)
During the 1960’s, Japan’s Nikkatsu Studios hired Seijin Suzuki to make a series of crime melodramas that were to play on the bottom-half of double features. Because these where low budget films, shot in a month’s time, Nikkatsu gave the director’s free reign as long as the final result included plenty of gunfights and violence. […]
DVD Review: Design for Living
I’ve long pondered exactly what “the Lubitsch touch” was. I’ve enjoyed many of his most political satires (Ninotchka, To Be or Not to Be), and been amused by others (Heaven Can Wait, That Uncertain Feeling) In The Cinema of Ernst Lubitsch, Leland Poague defines “the Lubitsch touch” as his cinematic wit, charming and fluid style. […]
DVD Review: 12 Angry Men (Criterion Collection)
On the face of it, a movie which takes place almost entirely in one room, consists of 12 men who do nothing but talk—and don’t even have names—should be anything but a searing experience. 1957’s 12 Angry Men an undisputed classic, is an inspiring and well crafted masterpiece. The story is a simple one: 12 […]
Blu-ray Review: Identification of a Woman (Criterion Collection)
The most openly erotic of Michelangelo Antonioni’s films, Identification of a Woman stars Tomas Milian as Niccolò, a film director who is at the end of his rope both personally and professionally. Dabbling with the idea of making a film about the ideal woman, he’s also carrying on with a number of lovers. One in […]
Blu-ray Review: Dazed and Confused (Criterion Collection)
Given time, nearly every generation gets a film made about them. Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused is for the survivors of the 1970s: that group of Americans who came of age when bellbottoms, love beads, mantras, and marijuana were in vogue, drinking and driving hadn’t become taboo, and safe sex only meant preventing pregnancy and […]