Hickey & Boggs
September 22, 2011
It has been well-documented how the 1970’s were a golden age for American cinema with many risky and unusual films being made and released through a Hollywood studio system in disarray after the surprise breakthrough success of Easy Rider (1969). One...
The Last of the Finest
September 15, 2011
The Last of the Finest (1990) is one of those films that you end up discovering on television late at night when there’s nothing else on and you can’t sleep. It has the feel of a generic cop show, something Michael Mann might’ve knocked off in his...
The Killing: Criterion Collection
August 18, 2011
Before graduating to studio films for the remainder of his filmmaking career, Stanley Kubrick cut his teeth on several lean independent films with producer James B. Harris, chief among them was The Killing (1956), a masterful take on Lionel White’s...
Cul-de-sac: Criterion Collection
August 16, 2011
After leaving Poland for England, Roman Polanski made three films, one of which was Cul-de-sac (1966), before moving on to Hollywood. The film contains many of his hallmarks: dark humor and suspenseful camerawork that puts one on edge. After writing the...
Sweet Karma
June 16, 2011
Sweet Karma (2009) attempts to do what Eastern Promises (2007) did for the Russian mafia in England, only by setting it in Toronto, Canada, and with a smaller budget and minus the big name talent. So, instead of Naomi Watts, this film has Playboy Playmate...
Diabolique: Criterion Collection
May 26, 2011
Diabolique (1955) was director Henri-Georges Clouzot’s seventh film and saw him at the apex of his critical and commercial success in France. It was the second part of a cinematic one-two punch that included The Wages of Fear (1953) and established...
The Mechanic
May 23, 2011
For awhile it seemed like Jason Statham, Vin Diesel and The Rock were going to represent the new generation of action heroes for the new Millennium. Initially, all three men were well on their way until Diesel got mired in the Fast & Furious franchise...
Something Wild: Criterion Collection
May 9, 2011
The 1980’s saw the rise of the Baby Boomers as the dominant class in North America. Many of them embraced the materialism of this decade as they settled into comfortable 9 to 5 work routines and raised families in suburbia. However, there were still...
The Ambulance
April 28, 2011
Eric Roberts has had an odd career that never reached its full potential. In the early 1980’s, he was part of an exciting generation of up and coming actors that included the likes of Mickey Rourke, Sean Penn and Gary Oldman, and delivered intense,...
Blow Out: Criterion Collection
April 26, 2011
Time has been kind to Brian De Palma and his films. When he rose to prominence and made some of his most memorable films in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the director was criticized for making schlocky horror films (The Fury) and, most damning...
