Notorious: Unrated Director’s Cut
April 30, 2009
Christopher Wallace aka the Notorious B.I.G. was a larger-than-life rapper who worked his way up from the streets of Brooklyn to become one of the most popular rappers in the 1990s until his tragic death in 1997. His brief but colourful life was certainly...
Chaplin: 15th Anniversary Edition
October 17, 2008
Adapted from My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin and Chaplin: His Life and Art by David Robinson, Chaplin (1992) was a prestigious, big budget biopic about the life of legendary English comedian Charles Chaplin. While the film was criticized for taking...
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters: Criterion Collection
July 14, 2008
Initially, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) seems like the odd man out in writer/director Paul Schrader’s filmography. It takes a complex look at the life of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima who ended his own life by committing the ritual act of...
Control
June 2, 2008
Ever since Ian Curtis, lead singer of the British band Joy Division, died in 1980, he has achieved the iconic status of an emerging artist showing signs of brilliance before meeting an early, tragic end. In Curtis’ case, he committed suicide on the...
I’m Not There: Two-Disc Collector’s Edition
May 2, 2008
If you want to do a decent biopic on a musician it helps to have their approval (or that of their estate) so that you have access to their catalogue of music. This has gotten harder with the debacle that was Oliver Stone’s take on The Doors (1991)....
The Fall of the Roman Empire: Limited Collector’s Edition
April 24, 2008
It’s a cliché to say but they really don’t make films like The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) anymore. Anthony Mann’s magnum opus is part of a grand tradition of big budget historical epics like Ben-Hur (1959), Spartacus (1960), and El Cid (1961)....
Becoming Jane
February 19, 2008
Having broken through to the mainstream with The Devil Wears Prada (2006), actress Anne Hathaway tries her hand at the period film, a necessary step for anyone who wants to stretch themselves and demonstrate that they have range. Still early in her career,...
Factory Girl: Unrated
July 17, 2007
Charles Taylor’s recent article in the New York Times documented the checkered production history of Factory Girl (2006), a biopic about Andy Warhol star, Edie Sedgwick. The shoot was plagued with a shifty financial backer, delays and re-shoots. Then,...
Breach
June 18, 2007
Based on one of the most significant lapses of national security in the history of U.S. intelligence, Breach (2007) continues director Billy Ray’s aptitude and interest for factually-based exposes featuring antagonists with a knack for deception. His...
Miss Potter
June 14, 2007
When it was announced that the very American actress Renee Zellweger was to play the beloved British literary heroine Bridget Jones, fans were in an uproar. How dare an American play such a quintessential British character?! However, she silenced all...
