Annie Hall
January 31, 2006
Prior to Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen was known as a comic, cutting his teeth in stand-up comedy and paying his dues as a comedy writer. When he started making films, his early efforts were flat-out comedies and farces like Bananas (1971). It wasn’t...
Tales from the Crypt: Season 1
January 31, 2006
In the late ’80 and early ‘90s HBO backed an attempt to bring back the famous E.C. comic book Tales from the Crypt in the form of a half hour anthology with a powerhouse group of filmmakers behind the camera that included the likes of Walter Hill,...
The Jerk: 26th Anniversary Edition
January 31, 2006
One of the staples of comedy is the dumb guy movie that features a protagonist so clueless and so stupid that he somehow bungles his way through a series of misadventures. Each generation has someone who excels at this kind of comedy: Gene Wilder, Jim...
Last Life in the Universe
January 31, 2006
Last Life in the Universe (2003) begins with a striking image of a man who has hung himself, his feet dangling with one slipper on and a pile of books underneath. Cut to a shot of the man now standing on the books about to hang himself. It turns out he...
Godzilla: Criterion Collection
January 30, 2006
Godzilla is more than just some guy in a cheesy rubber suit terrorizing badly dubbed Japanese actors and stomping miniature cities. The original film, made in 1954, is actually a tragedy of epic proportions, a potent warning of an escalating nuclear arms...
Le notti bianche
January 30, 2006
When Fyodor Dostoyevsky was 27 years old, he wrote a series of columns for the Saint Petersburg Gazette. They were short pieces about his observations on city life and were eventually published as the Petersburg Chronicle. Luchino Visconti’s Le notti...
Gunner Palace
January 30, 2006
The longer that the United States is mired in the occupation of Iraq the more the situation there draws the inevitable comparisons to the Vietnam War. Our troops are trying to maintain a tenuous peace but are having a tough time against insurgents that...
Fantastic Four
January 30, 2006
Capitalizing on the theatrical release of the live-action Fantastic Four movie, Buena Vista has released the animated TV show that aired in 1994 and 1995. The Fantastic Four was a popular comic book created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the 1960s. It...
Alexander: Director’s Cut
January 30, 2006
Oliver Stone has never been afraid of controversy. Films like JFK (1991) and Natural Born Killers (1994) attracted an incredible amount of media attention, dividing critics and audiences alike. Love or hate his films, Stone can never be accused of making...
Sin City
January 29, 2006
Sin City began as series of graphic novels created by Frank Miller as loving homages to the gritty pulp novels of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane and classic film noirs from the ‘40s and ‘50s. Miller’s world—the dangerous,...
