Darkness: Unrated Version
October 5, 2005
Ever since the success of Re-Animator (1985) launched his career as a horror film producer, Brian Yuzna has remained independent and to keep it that way he’s gone from making his movies in the United States to Europe where it costs less. His latest...
F for Fake
October 5, 2005
Made late in Orson Welles’ life, F for Fake (1972) is an odd movie. Not exactly a documentary but rather a film essay on forgeries and the nature of authorship. The movie also continues the filmmaker’s life-long fascination with magic. He performs...
House of Flying Daggers
October 5, 2005
Fresh from the success of Hero (2002), Zhang Yimou and his current muse, Ziyi Zhang, reunited for another breathtaking martial arts epic, complete with some of the most impressive action sequences since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Like these...
Divorce Italian Style
October 5, 2005
Divorce Italian Style (1962) was originally intended to be a drama but the final result is a biting satire of Sicilian machismo. Baron Ferdinando “Fefe” Cefalu (Mastroianni) and his wife, Rosalia (Rocca), have been married for 12 years. She adores...
National Treasure
October 4, 2005
Nicolas Cage has run the gamut of the action film genre. He’s played the reluctant action hero in The Rock (1996), a cartoonish icon in Con Air (1997) and the amoral bad guy in Face/Off (1997). With National Treasure (2004) he essays a new variation—the...
Dogtown and Z-Boys
October 4, 2005
In the mid-‘70s, California was hit by a crippling drought that made it impossible to surf any kind of decent waves. The locals in an area of West Los Angeles known as Dogtown always had skateboarding to fall back on when the surfing wasn’t any good....
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: Two-Disc Special Edition
October 4, 2005
There’s always a certain amount of trepidation when a filmmaker like Wes Anderson, known for making intimate and personal films, starts making movies on a more ambitious scale – bigger budgets and movie stars in an attempt to appeal to larger audience...
The Longest Yard: Lockdown Edition
October 3, 2005
Most sports movies are riddled with cliches and like any genre this is what makes the exceptional films stand out. They either subvert the cliches or they define them. The Longest Yard (1974) is arguably one of the best football movies because, along...
Joan of Arcadia: Season 1
October 2, 2005
Since 9/11 it’s no secret that people have been anxious, asking questions and feeling unsafe. They have been looking for something comforting and the TV show Joan of Arcadia came along to fulfill this need. In some respects, it is the My So Called Life...
Seinfeld: Season 4
October 1, 2005
The fourth season of Seinfeld is, arguably, when the show really hit its stride creatively. The show about nothing decided to make fun of the concept by having Jerry (Seinfeld) and George (Alexander) write and then pitch a TV show where nothing happens....
