Blu-ray Review: The Last Tycoon
Based on the unfinished F. Scott Fitzgerald novel of the same name, 1976’s The Last Tycoon marks the first time Robert De Niro played an even remotely likable character. Set in the 1930’s, the film follows Monroe Stahr (De Niro, a thinly veiled Irving Thalberg) a young Hollywood mogul as he navigates studio politics as […]
Blu-ray Review: Elevator to the Gallows (Criterion Collection)
[amazon_link asins=’B077HKJXTH’ template=’ProductAd’ store=’moviegazett03-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’315380ea-940a-11e8-b549-adc0364a85f4′]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 Davis, is as dark and suspenseful as any crime drama […]
The Immortal Story (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray)
Originally broadcast on French television and later released in theaters, The Immortal Story was Orson Welles’ first color film and his last completed fictional feature. An adaptation of a story by Out of Africa author Isak Dinesen, Welles cast himself in the lead role of Charles Clay, a wealthy yet miserly world-weary merchant bachelor living in […]
The Bride Wore Black (Blu-ray)
In 1962, FrançoisTruffaut was able to sit down with director Alfred Hitchcock for several extended interviews, where the auteur discussed each of his films. Later published in 1967, as Hitchcock/Truffaut the book has become a classic, and a staple of film schools everywhere. In 1968, Truffaut released The Bride Wore Black (La Mariée était en […]
La Notte (Blu-ray)
The second installment in his trilogy of discontent, Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte attempts to examine a couple who have essentially lost themselves in a society dominated by technology, and conspicuous consumption. Once passionately in love, the couple are mere reflections of their former selves as they try to rediscover what brought them together in the […]