Alambrista!: Criterion Collection
May 2, 2012
Illegal immigration, especially from Mexico, is a hot button topic that has become a significant issue on the political landscape in recent years but it has been a problem for some time as evident with the little-seen film Alambrista! (1977). It was considered...
12 Angry Men: Criterion Collection
December 13, 2011
Adapted from the 1954 teleplay of the same name, 12 Angry Men (1957) marked the auspicious feature film debut of director Sidney Lumet who had cut his teeth on live television in New York City. He brought a gritty, edgy realism to this film, an approach...
Welcome to L.A.
December 9, 2011
Alan Rudolph got his start in the filmmaking business as a protégé of the great Robert Altman, working as an assistant director on a few of his films. He was clearly influenced by the veteran director in his own work, which featured ensemble casts often...
Three Colors: Blue, White, Red: Criterion Collection
December 1, 2011
With the unfortunate passing of filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski, cinema lost a great storyteller but he left behind an enduring legacy, most significantly Three Colors, a trilogy of films named after the colors of the French flag: Blue (1993), White (1993),...
Trigger
November 22, 2011
Unlike his contemporaries, chief among them, Atom Egoyan, Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald has never been able to break out internationally with his films. Sure, he’s come close with the likes of Hard Core Logo (1996) and, more recently, Pontypool...
Bright Angel
November 15, 2011
The 1990’s was a time when up and coming actors like Dermot Mulroney and Lili Taylor really came into their own, appearing in notable independent films like Living in Oblivion (1995) and The Addiction (1995) respectively. Some of these films connected...
Blue Velvet: 25th Anniversary Edition
November 10, 2011
By 1984, director David Lynch was on top of the world. He had received critical acclaim and eight Academy Award nominations for The Elephant Man in 1980 and was on the verge of releasing his next film, Dune (1984), an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic...
Identification of a Woman: Criterion Collection
November 9, 2011
Identification of a Woman (1982) is often regarded as an aging auteur resting on his laurels, a minor work that won a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival but was also savaged by several American film critics. To be fair, it is not Michelangelo Antonioni...
The Four Feathers: Criterion Collection
October 18, 2011
Based on A.E.W. Mason’s 1902 best-selling novel of the same name, The Four Feathers was adapted into three different films before producer Alexander Korda gave it a go in 1939. In addition, it was filmed three more times afterwards but many consider...
Call Me Mrs. Miracle
October 17, 2011
Christmas movies are a guilty pleasure of mine. I find it so easy to get caught up in the warm glow of the lights and decorations and the whole spirit of the season that many of these films project, from the classic (It’s A Wonderful Life) to the not...
