Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb: Criterion Collection
July 7, 2016
With the rather turbulent times in which we live in and the current state of the warring political parties in the United States, Stanley Kubrick’s savage black comedy about nuclear war, Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love...
Mulholland Drive: Criterion Collection
November 17, 2015
Mulholland Drive (2001) started as a television pilot that did not get picked up by an American network. Instead of just letting it go and moving on to something else, David Lynch reunited his cast and crew for reshoots, filmed new material, which transformed...
Hearts and Minds: Criterion Collection
July 16, 2014
Peter Davis’ powerful, Academy Award-winning documentary Hearts and Minds (1974) was made before the war in Vietnam ended in 1975. Not surprisingly, it became immediately embroiled in controversy as the United States was deeply divided and conflicted...
A Hard Day’s Night: Criterion Collection
July 10, 2014
When A Hard Day’s Night (1964) was released in theaters, the Beatles had already performed on The Ed Sullivan Show and conquered America with their insanely catchy songs. Richard Lester’s irreverent film cemented their reputation as the most popular...
Foreign Correspondent: Criterion Collection
March 4, 2014
While Foreign Correspondent (1940) was Alfred Hitchcock’s second Hollywood film, the director considered it his first, true effort. He regarded Rebecca (1940) as not one of his films because it lacked humor thanks to the meddling of David O. Selznick....
Fantastic Mr. Fox: Criterion Collection
February 21, 2014
When it was announced that Wes Anderson would be adapting Roald Dahl’s short story Fantastic Mr. Fox, it came as something of a surprise. Up to that point, Anderson had only made films based on original material that he created himself or with a co-collaborator....
The Blob: Criterion Collection
April 23, 2013
The Blob (1958) is one of the classic monster movies made during the 1950s. Common origins for a lot of creatures from these kinds of movies were either as a result of atomic energy or from outer space. Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.’s movie opts for the latter...
Weekend: Criterion Collection
December 6, 2012
Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend (1967) is an outrageous pastiche of 1960s intellectual discourse, fusing together the ideas of Karl Marx, Jacques Lacan and Bertolt Brecht (among others). Along with his cinematic contemporaries, chief among them, Pier Paolo...
Magical Mystery Tour
October 17, 2012
By the time The Beatles made Magical Mystery Tour (1967) they had complete creative control over their art. When it came to make their next film, they took Richard Lester’s advice and decided to do it themselves. He had, of course, directed them in...
Enter the Ninja
December 8, 2011
Those of us who grew up in the early 1980’s were witness to a mini-renaissance of ninja films spearheaded by Cannon Films – owned, at the time, by those scrappy Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. – with Enter the Ninja (1981). It proved...
