The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
June 8, 2006
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) is a film that deals with the consequences of one’s actions. It’s a gritty, modern western in the tradition of Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) albeit no where near as nihilistic. Pete...
Brilliant But Cancelled: Crime Dramas
June 1, 2006
This DVD collects four different episodes from four different crime shows that had brief but (sometimes) memorable runs on television because they failed to capture a large enough audience to ensure a prolonged existence. It has become even more cutthroat...
Platoon: 20th Anniversary Edition
May 30, 2006
While Platoon (1986) was certainly not the first film about the Vietnam War, it was one of the first to focus on the average foot soldier in an honest and authentic way. Oliver Stone’s film really put you in the jungle with these guys as only someone...
Kingdom of Heaven: Director’s Cut
May 23, 2006
Kingdom of Heaven (2005) was Ridley Scott’s costly epic about the Crusades that promptly flopped at the box office in North America. Clearly, the studio and Scott were hoping for another zeitgeist galvanizing response to this film like with Gladiator...
Viridiana
May 19, 2006
The making of Viridiana (1961) not only saw a return to Spain for filmmaker Luis Bunuel (he left in 1939 when fascism took over) but a return to international notoriety. He made some great films in Mexico, including Los olvidados (1951) and El (1952)...
25th Hour
May 1, 2006
Set in a post 9/11 New York, Spike Lee’s latest ensemble drama converges around a convicted drug dealer’s last day of freedom before being hauled off to serve seven years in jail. Based on a book and screenplay by David Benioff, the writer...
An Unfinished Life
May 1, 2006
An Unfinished Life (2005) is one of those character-driven kinds of movies that takes its time letting us gradually get to know its characters. It isn’t terribly original but a well-made effort nonetheless. Einar Gilkyson (Redford) leads a simple existence...
Baise-moi
May 1, 2006
Ok, so my French isn’t exactly brilliant (that’s grade ‘F’ for ‘French’). But surely in my five years of secondary school education, the vulgar words that any healthy 11 year old boy looks up on his first encounter with a phrase book couldn’t...
Knots Landing
April 27, 2006
Originally a spin-off of popular primetime soap opera Dallas, Knots Landing went on to develop its own devoted following and enjoyed mainstream success, lasting 14 seasons, an impressive feat by any standards. It was created by David Jacobs and Michael...
Casualties of War: Extended Cut
April 25, 2006
Casualties of War (1989) came out towards the end of the trend of Vietnam War movies in the 1980s after the likes of Oliver Stone, Stanley Rubric and others had tried their hand at it. By the time Brian De Palma’s film came out the public had grown...
