Enter the Ninja
December 8, 2011
Those of us who grew up in the early 1980’s were witness to a mini-renaissance of ninja films spearheaded by Cannon Films – owned, at the time, by those scrappy Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. – with Enter the Ninja (1981). It proved...
Chillerama
December 5, 2011
One of the staples of the horror genre is the anthology film, comprised of several stories, often linked together by a common thread. The 1980’s was the last time a good crop of these kinds of films were harvested with the likes of Heavy Metal (1981),...
Three Colors: Blue, White, Red: Criterion Collection
December 1, 2011
With the unfortunate passing of filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski, cinema lost a great storyteller but he left behind an enduring legacy, most significantly Three Colors, a trilogy of films named after the colors of the French flag: Blue (1993), White (1993),...
Trigger
November 22, 2011
Unlike his contemporaries, chief among them, Atom Egoyan, Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald has never been able to break out internationally with his films. Sure, he’s come close with the likes of Hard Core Logo (1996) and, more recently, Pontypool...
Island of Lost Souls: Criterion Collection
November 21, 2011
Based on H.G. Wells’ 1896 novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Island of Lost Souls (1932) was a controversial film for its time being banned in 12 countries, including England, for its blatant references to vivisection and a blasphemous reference to God....
Love, Cheat & Steal
November 18, 2011
During the 1990’s, neo-noirs were all the rage with some good (The Hot Spot), some not so good (Malice) and some great (L.A. Confidential). Lie, Cheat & Steal (1993) falls somewhere in the middle with its cast of B-movie stars and paint-by-numbers...
Bright Angel
November 15, 2011
The 1990’s was a time when up and coming actors like Dermot Mulroney and Lili Taylor really came into their own, appearing in notable independent films like Living in Oblivion (1995) and The Addiction (1995) respectively. Some of these films connected...
Blue Velvet: 25th Anniversary Edition
November 10, 2011
By 1984, director David Lynch was on top of the world. He had received critical acclaim and eight Academy Award nominations for The Elephant Man in 1980 and was on the verge of releasing his next film, Dune (1984), an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic...
Identification of a Woman: Criterion Collection
November 9, 2011
Identification of a Woman (1982) is often regarded as an aging auteur resting on his laurels, a minor work that won a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival but was also savaged by several American film critics. To be fair, it is not Michelangelo Antonioni...
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
November 8, 2011
Despite wrapping up the numerous narrative threads in the third Pirates of the Caribbean film (2007), its massive commercial success pretty much assured another installment in this popular franchise. The only question would be who from the last film would...
