Gate of Hell: Criterion Collection
April 30, 2013
Gate of Hell (1953) belongs to the golden age of Japanese cinema that saw several of its filmmakers achieve international acclaim, including Teinosuke Kinugasa whose film won the Grand Prix prize at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival and the Best Foreign Language...
A Man Escaped: Criterion Collection
April 4, 2013
Inspired by the experiences of Andre Devigny, a French lieutenant in World War II who managed to escape from Fort Montluc prison in German-occupied Lyon in 1943, Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped (1956) is regarded as one of the best prison-break films...
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp: Criterion Collection
April 2, 2013
Considered by many to be one of the best British films ever made, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) is undeniably Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s masterpiece – a sprawling epic that spans four decades, from the Boer War through World...
Badlands: Criterion Collection
March 21, 2013
Badlands (1973) was an auspicious debut from Terrence Malick. Based loosely on the real-life killing spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate in 1958, Malick made his film independently and for little money. The end result is...
On the Waterfront: Criterion Collection
March 6, 2013
On the Waterfront (1954) introduced Method acting into the mainstream and Marlon Brando’s moody, muscular performance ushered in a new wave of actors that included the likes of James Dean and Montgomery Clift – thespians that immersed themselves completely...
The Kid with a Bike: Criterion Collection
March 1, 2013
The Kid with a Bike (2011) continues Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s fascination with scrappy, troubled protagonists that exist on the fringes of society. They are interested in telling stories about working class people in a realistic style and this...
The Master
February 28, 2013
When Paul Thomas Anderson started his career with the impressive one-two punch of Hard Eight (1996) and Boogie Nights (1997), he was touted as an exciting young filmmaker that wore his influences on his sleeve, most notably the work of Jonathan Demme...
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...
Two-Lane Blacktop: Criterion Collection
January 4, 2013
In anticipation of its release later that year, Esquire magazine ran a substantial piece on Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) and boldly proclaimed it to be the best film of the year. Despite high praise from such a prestigious periodical, the studio refused to...
Purple Noon: Criterion Collection
December 20, 2012
It has been more than 50 years since Rene Clement’s adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith thriller, The Talented Mr. Ripley, was released in theaters. Entitled Purple Noon (1960), it has been eclipsed in the popular imagination by Anthony Minghella’s...
