Short Cuts: Criterion Collection
November 17, 2016
After the critical and commercial success of The Player (1992) put Robert Altman back on the map—within the Hollywood industry—he wisely used his new found (and fleeting) cache to get a personal project of his green-lighted. With Short Cuts (1993),...
Safe: Criterion Collection
January 22, 2015
Safe (1995) was only independent filmmaker Todd Haynes’ second feature film, but it established him as an emerging talent with a unique worldview and a knack for presenting fascinating female protagonists, in this case one played by Julianne Moore who...
The Big Lebowski: Limited Edition
August 11, 2011
It started with a rug that “really tied the room together” and how a simple case of mistaken identity can cause a whole lot of trouble. The Big Lebowski (1998) was just too odd for mainstream audiences and underperformed at the box office. However,...
Blindness
February 18, 2009
After the gritty realism of City of God (2002) and The Constant Gardener (2005), filmmaker Fernando Meirelles decided to shift gears with his next film Blindness (2008), a science fiction parable with a star-studded international cast. The end result...
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)....
Next
September 24, 2007
Cris Johnson (Cage) is a two-bit Las Vegas magician, a second-rate Amazing Kreskin who can also see two minutes into the future but only as it pertains to him. The one exception to his two-minute rule is a recurring vision that he has of a woman in a...
Children of Men
April 2, 2007
Children of Men (2006) may be set in 2027 but it is a film for our times. It imagines a world where women are infertile and this has plunged society as we know it into chaos, plagued by environmental collapse. England has become a police state with armed...
Trust the Man
February 7, 2007
Trust the Man (2006) is a romantic comedy set in New York City so we’re on familiar ground. We knew what to expect because we’ve seen so many of these kinds of movies: white, affluent New Yorkers with relationship problems. Which means that this film...
Vanya on 42nd Street: Criterion Collection
February 20, 2006
Vanya on 42nd Street (1994) began in 1989 as an extended workshop by legendary stage director Andre Gregory. He assembled a cast of actors to rehears Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at the abandoned Victory Theater on 42nd Street in New York City. They...
The Big Lebowski: Collector’s Edition
February 6, 2006
It started with a rug that “really tied the room together” and how a simple case of mistaken identity can cause a whole lot of trouble. The Big Lebowski (1998) was just too odd for mainstream audiences and promptly tanked at the box office. However,...
