The Brown Bunny
January 14, 2006
After the critical acclaim of Buffalo ’66 (1998), there was a certain amount of anticipation for what its writer/director/star Vincent Gallo would do next. He responded with The Brown Bunny (2003), a film that, to put it mildly, polarized critics and...
Gate of Flesh
January 14, 2006
Based on the novel by Taijiro Tamura, Seijun Suzuki’s Gate of Flesh (1964) explores the harsh world of post-World War II prostitutes in Tokyo, in particular, a group whose already tenuous relationship with each other is put to the test when a wild,...
The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons
January 13, 2006
The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons 3-DVD set features episodes between the years 1969 and 1974 that showcased popular rock music acts such as Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and Sly and the Family Stone. Cavett was the antithesis of most of the slickly...
Kingdom of Heaven
January 13, 2006
There’s a moment in Kingdom of Heaven where our hero Balian asks his enemy Saladin what the city of Jerusalem is worth to him. “Nothing,” he replies. “Everything.” This paradox is the prevailing problem with the film itself;...
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
January 11, 2006
Imagine being a floppy Englishman who wakes one morning to find his house ready to be demolished by a wrecking crew. Imagine, a scant few minutes later, your best friend pulling you down to the pub—then telling you the world will end in 11 minutes....
Austin City Limits Music Festival
January 10, 2006
Austin City Limits has been a staple on public television for several decades. It has always provided a venue for musical acts from all over the world and in all kinds of genres. Known early on for championing country, blues and rockabilly, the show has...
Ghostbusters 1 & 2 Double Feature Gift Set
January 10, 2006
Right from the get-go the Ghostbusters movie (1984) was destined for greatness. The teaming up of, arguably, the three funniest men in the business must’ve seemed like instant box-office success to the studio execs at the time. And it was. The...
Belle de jour: Criterion Collection
January 9, 2006
In 1967, master provocateur Luis Bunuel released one of his most celebrated films Belle de jour, an erotic tale of an unhappy bourgeois Paris housewife who works part-time at a posh brothel in order to act out her complex psychosexual fantasies. It was...
Branded to Kill: Criterion Collection
January 4, 2006
Seijun Suzuki cut his teeth on pop musicals, comedies, action and war films. Over time, he became impatient with his status as a B-movie director while some of his peers were making A movies. Often stuck with substandard screenplays, the frustrated director...
Carlito’s Way: Ultimate Edition
January 3, 2006
There was a lot of anticipation when Carlito’s Way was released in 1993. Director Brian De Palma had just come off a lukewarm reception for yet another Hitchcock homage, Raising Cain (1992) and was in need of a hit to appease the studios. And so, a...
