Blu-ray Review: Insignificance
Written and directed by Nicolas Roeg, and adapted from a Terry Johnson play, Insignificance satirizes some of pop culture’s brightest stars of the 1950’s. The year is 1954. It’s a hot and steamy night in New York City, and Marilyn Monroe, Sen. Joe McCarthy, Joe DiMaggio and Albert Einstein all cross paths in a hotel […]
DVD Review: Solaris
Like many others, I’ve always thought of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris as the Russian answer to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Completed in 1972 (but not released in the United States until 1976), this was an era when things done in the West resulted in (or, were the result of) a Russian response. Both films deal with […]
Criterion Announces August 2011 Releases
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS – Blu-ray One of the most influential political films in history, The Battle of Algiers, by Gillo Pontecorvo (Kapò), vividly re-creates a key year in the tumultuous Algerian struggle for independence from the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women […]
Blu-ray Review: Fat Girl
Catherine Breillat clearly prides herself on her reputation as a director who explores sexuality in a variety of frank, explicit and often shocking ways. 2001’s Fat Girl is without a doubt one of her most provocative films. Whether it’s any good is a matter of debate. While Fat Girl, like most of Breillat’s other films […]
DVD Review: Something Wild
Criterion | 1986 | 113 min | Rated R 1986’s Something Wild is a quirky movie that is often lost in the shuffle of director Jonathan Demme’s filmography. It was his first dramatic film following Swing Shift two years earlier, a terrible experience that caused him to consider leaving filmmaking all together. Fortunately for film […]
Blu-ray Review: Smiles of a Summer Night
Criterion | 1955 | 108 min | NR Released in 1955, Ingmar Bergman’s 16th film, Smiles of a Summer Night would give the director his first taste of international success. Few would argue that Bergman was very serious director. While there are a few comedic scenes sprinkled throughout his more serious work, those instances are […]
DVD Review: Blow Out
Criterion | 1981 | 108 mins. | R Brian De Palma is a directorial enigma. In America, many consider him nothing more than a talented rip-off artist who takes from the greats—Michael Powell, Michelangelo Antonioni, Hitchcock, and Kubrick. One of his biggest stateside successes, 1983’s Scarface, was a remake. Regarded as a misogynist in some […]
Blu-ray Review: Kes
Criterion | 1969 | 111 mins. | NR Based on the Barry Hines novel “A Kestrel for a Knave,” Kes is an unsentimental, provocative, and touching portrait of poverty, marginalization and despair. In the poor, working class coal mining town of Barnsley, Billy Casper (David Bradley), is facing a bleak future. An outcast at school, […]
Blu-ray Review: Le Cercle Rouge
Criterion | 1970 | 141 mins, | PG The heist flick has been around almost as long as moving pictures. There so common, most directors follow a familiar formula: gather a group of thieves and give each one of them a special skill. A plan is formed, the plan is executed and everyone lives happily […]
Blu-ray Review: Topsy-Turvy
Criterion | | 1999 | 160 mins. | R In 1885, the team of Gilbert and Sullivan were at the height of their career. Even their decidedly mediocre Princess Ida, which had just premiered at the Savoy Theatre in London, was predicted to be a smash, despite reviews that criticized the pair for the repetition […]