27 Dresses
September 13, 2008
The New York Times recently ran an article about the current state of the chick flick. It cited The Devil Wears Prada (2006) as the most commercially successful film of the genre and suggested that less women were going to these films than before. And...
My Blueberry Nights
June 27, 2008
For years, Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai has resisted the lure of the United States, content to make his films in his native country (with the exception of Happy Together which was shot in South America) without any Hollywood movie stars. This has...
The Lovers: Criterion Collection
May 16, 2008
When Louis Malle’s film The Lovers (1958) debuted at the Venice Film Festival, it caused outrage in Catholic Italy. Two months later, it was released in France and shocked and angered Conservative audiences with its sexual frankness. However, the film...
Pierrot le fou: Criterion Collection
February 29, 2008
Based on Lionel White’s crime novel, Obsession, Pierrot le fou (1965) was originally going to star Richard Burton as a man who leaves his family to hook up with a younger girl to be played pop singer Sylvie Vartan. However, both were unavailable, so...
Becoming Jane
February 19, 2008
Having broken through to the mainstream with The Devil Wears Prada (2006), actress Anne Hathaway tries her hand at the period film, a necessary step for anyone who wants to stretch themselves and demonstrate that they have range. Still early in her career,...
Suburban Girl
January 28, 2008
How does an adaptation of best-selling book The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alec Baldwin, go direct-to-video? The obvious answer is that the film isn’t that good and that it was rightly relegated to obscurity....
Eagle vs Shark
January 23, 2008
Eagle vs Shark (2007) is reminiscent of quirky films like Harold and Maude (1971) and blends together the sensibilities of Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) with oddball outsiders that lead colourful lives. Lily (Horsley)...
Wedding Daze
January 18, 2008
It really isn’t fair that an awful film like License to Wed (2007) received a wide theatrical release while Wedding Daze a.k.a. The Pleasure of Your Company (2006) is released direct-to-video (it did receive a limited theatrical release in England in...
Breathless: Criterion Collection
December 18, 2007
Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960) is arguably the most famous example of the French New Wave, a group of film critics who were inspired by classic Hollywood films to become filmmakers themselves. Breathless certainly wasn’t the first French New...
Paris, Je T’aime
December 18, 2007
The short film, much like the short story, is an artform unto itself. It takes a certain set of skills as a storyteller to be able to tell a tale succinctly. People who make commercials have even less time. Unfortunately, outside of television stations...
