Topsy-Turvy: Criterion Collection
March 31, 2011
You have to hand it to Mike Leigh, a filmmaker who has the confidence to make a $20 million period musical with limited commercial appeal. In 1999, he released Topsy-Turvy, a musical drama chronicling W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s creation of The...
The Resident
March 29, 2011
Hammer Films was a force to be reckoned with in the 1960’s and the 1970’s as the British studio was the go-to place for edgy and outrageous horror films many of which featured Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Then came the 1980’s and their style...
Black Swan
March 24, 2011
Let’s be honest, there aren’t many ballet-centric films out there and even fewer that are good, with notable exceptions like The Red Shoes (1948) and the underrated Robert Altman film The Company (2003). So Darren Aronofsky had his work cut out for...
The Times of Harvey Milk: Criterion Collection
March 21, 2011
With the release of Gus Van Sant’s superb biopic Milk (2008), which featured an Academy Award-winning performance by Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, there was renewed interest in the inspiring human rights activist and one of the earliest openly gay American...
Every Day
March 11, 2011
The 1980’s were quite possibly the last decade that Hollywood produced decent character-driven dramas for adults. In the 1990’s, visual spectacles based on comic books, television shows, and so on that were enhanced by special effects became the norm....
The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season
March 7, 2011
In the past few years, vampire-themed programs have surfaced on television with True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and, recently, Being Human (both U.K. and the U.S. remake). Sure, there have been more across the board, supernatural fare with shows like...
Faster
February 25, 2011
After retiring from professional wrestling to pursue a career in movies, it seemed like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was destined to follow in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarznegger and become a bonafide action star with films like The Scorpion King (2002)...
Sweet Smell of Success: Criterion Collection
February 24, 2011
While Sweet Smell of Success (1957) was a hit with film critics at the time, it was not a box office smash as fans of the film’s two leads – Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis – were put off seeing their matinee idols portraying unlikable characters....
Senso: Criterion Collection
February 18, 2011
Despite the presence of Hollywood actor Farley Granger and European movie star Alida Valli, Luchino Visconti’s Senso (1954) was not given a proper theatrical release in the United States until 1968 – more than ten years after it was made and given...
Fish Tank: Criterion Collection
February 17, 2011
Fish Tank (2009) is Andrea Arnold’s third feature film and already she’s drawing comparisons to Ken Loach for her unflinching kitchen sink realism approach towards her depiction of working class English people. All three of her films feature young...
