La Cage aux Folles: Criterion Collection
September 17, 2013
La Cage aux Folles (1978) began as a very successful French play that ran for almost 1,800 performances at Paris’ Theatre du Palais-Royal from 1973 to 1978. Written by actor/playwright Jean Poiret, it was an outrageous farce that saw a flamboyant gay...
Slacker: Criterion Collection
September 10, 2013
Even though I know they came out years apart, I always associate Beck’s hit song “Loser” with Richard Linklater’s film Slacker (1990). The former came out in 1993 and the latter had its premiere three years prior, but both took their time finding...
To Be Or Not To Be: Criterion Collection
September 5, 2013
Released on the eve of the United States entering World War II, To Be or Not To Be (1942) was scorned by critics and underperformed with movie-going audiences of the day. Perhaps the razor-sharp satire that saw popular comedian Jack Benny up against Nazis...
Safety Last!: Criterion Collection
July 9, 2013
Along with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd was one of the most popular movie stars of the silent film era with Safety Last! (1923) being one of his signature movies and the shot of him hanging precariously off a tall building’s clock...
Lilo & Stitch: 3-Disc Special Edition
June 25, 2013
Lilo & Stitch (2002) was conceived as a new wave of smaller, less expensive movies originating from an idea Chris Sanders had for a children’s book. He was a storyboard artist for Disney and his drawings for movie provided the basis for its look....
The Emperor’s New Groove: 3-Disc Special Edition
June 21, 2013
The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) started off as a troubled production with Disney hiring two different directors to make their own movies. When one was finally fired, the surviving filmmakers gave the project a complete overhaul and managed to salvage...
Life is Sweet: Criterion Collection
June 10, 2013
For many years, Mike Leigh has been a brilliant and consistent chronicler of the British lower middle working class in cinema. Life is Sweet (1990) was his breakthrough film having cut his teeth previously on plays and television movies where he honed...
Repo Man: Criterion Collection
April 16, 2013
“Not many people got a code to live by anymore,” says Bud (Stanton), the veteran repo man to his protege, Otto (Estevez) near the beginning of Alex Cox’s Repo Man (1984). This film is all about personal codes and philosophies. It seems...
8 Movie Collection: Star-Studded Drama
February 6, 2013
With All the Pretty Horses (2000), director Billy Bob Thornton set out to make a Heaven’s Gate (1980) for the new millennium by adapting Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name. However, movie studio executives took the film away from him and recut...
Weekend: Criterion Collection
December 6, 2012
Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend (1967) is an outrageous pastiche of 1960s intellectual discourse, fusing together the ideas of Karl Marx, Jacques Lacan and Bertolt Brecht (among others). Along with his cinematic contemporaries, chief among them, Pier Paolo...
