The Devil’s Backbone (El Espinazo del diablo)
December 21, 2003
Chronos (1993) was Guillermo del Toro’s auspicious feature film debut and it established him as an up-and-coming horror film auteur. Hollywood came calling and he made Mimic (1997), a compromised vision that still had del Toro’s stylistic flair but...
Cop Land: Director’s Cut
December 11, 2003
Cop Land (1997) is a homage to police corruption films like Sidney Lumet’s Serpico (1973) and Prince of the City (1981). In many respects, Cop Land is also a modern western, complete with a High Noon (1952) style showdown. A big deal was made about...
The Long Goodbye
December 1, 2003
When The Long Goodbye was released in 1973, MGM promptly bungled its ad campaign. Robert Altman’s film radically reworked Raymond Chandler’s novel of the same name and the studio had no idea how to market the offbeat movie. It polarized critics...
The Glimmer Man
November 30, 2003
Ahh, Steven Seagal, aka, ‘The Portly One’, how I love you! How much pleasure have I derived from your films over the years? Oh trembling hand let me respond! Too much! Thou art a God! On the other hand… How much of my life have I wasted...
Road to Perdition
November 27, 2003
Road To Perdition is a curious beast. It’s polished, poetic and, in some scenes, pretty darn exceptional. It won an Oscar for the late Conrad Hall’s drop dead gorgeous cinematography and the critics lapped it up, even if the public were divided....
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
November 23, 2003
After more than twenty years of failed attempts and missed opportunities, Terry Gilliam has done what many thought impossible — he fully and faithfully realized Hunter S. Thompson’s classic novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, into a wonderfully...
The Ring
November 23, 2003
If you’ve seen the Japanese original, you might automatically turn your nose up at the mere hint of a Hollywood remake, but take a step back and judge this baby on its own terms. A huge box office hit in America last year, The Ring is A) genuinely...
Crime Story
November 17, 2003
Fresh from the success of Miami Vice in the mid-1980’s, Michael Mann used his powerful clout to produce a new TV show entitled, Crime Story. It was a pet project that he developed with good friend, Chuck Adamson. Like Vice, Crime Story was a cop...
Nixon
November 11, 2003
Nixon (1995) was initially available only in a DVD with minimal extras. Recently, Stone has revisited his entire canon with special edition treatments. Nixon was the last hold-out and has finally received a proper two-disc Collector’s Edition complete...
City of God
November 7, 2003
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it was being chased by a horde of young Brazilian gangsters as shown in the opening scene of the excellent City Of God. Set in the mean streets of a Brazilian slum this superb movie is a stunning, intense, gripping,...
