Nashville: The Complete First Season
September 30, 2013
Nashville is a television show stacked with pedigree. Created by Callie Khouri (Thelma & Louise), this night-time soap chronicles the turbulent lives of two competing country musicians played by Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights) and Hayden Panettiere...
Charulata: Criterion Collection
August 20, 2013
Often regarded as Satyajit Ray’s greatest film, Charulata (1964) is an adaptation of his mentor Rabindranath Tagore’s 1901 novella Nastawirth (The Broken Nest), a story inspired by the author’s relationship with his sister-in-law who mysteriously...
Seconds: Criterion Collection
August 14, 2013
Seconds (1966) was the conclusion of John Frankenheimer’s informal paranoia trilogy – three films he made during the 1960s that reflected the darker side of America, which can be traced back to the loss of innocence with the assassination of President...
The Devil’s Backbone: Criterion Collection
August 5, 2013
Cronos (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...
Babette’s Feast: Criterion Collection
July 24, 2013
Based on the short story of the same name by famous Dutch writer Karen Blixen (under the pen name Isak Dimesen), Babette’s Feast (1987) is one of the highmarks of Scandinavian cinema during the 1980s. Martine (Federspiel) and Philippa (Kjer) are two...
Lord of the Flies: Criterion Collection
July 22, 2013
Soon after William Golding’s book Lord of the Flies was published in 1954, Ealing Studios bought the film option, but it soon became apparent that they would never make it and sold the rights to producer Sam Spiegel. He hired the experimental theater...
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...
Medium Cool: Criterion Collection
May 30, 2013
Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool (1969) is a prime example of cinema verite with its fusion of documentary and narrative filmmaking to create an immediacy and authenticity. He is a legendary cinematographer by trade (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, In...
Jubal: Criterion Collection
May 20, 2013
Delmer Daves is one of the most underrated directors of westerns and is one that deserves to be ranked alongside the likes of John Ford and Howard Hawks. He had a natural affinity for the West and the Native Americans that inhabited it. Daves had already...
Richard III: Criterion Collection
May 15, 2013
When actor Laurence Olivier unleashed his cinematic adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Richard III in 1955, he was certainly no stranger to the Bard, having acted in several theatrical productions over the years and starred and directed acclaimed film...
