Highly Recommended The Movie: Widely considered to be the movie that put Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg on the map in the United States, 1981's Scanners begins with a scene where a man, seemingly homeless, sits in a food court.
Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials and other sources, not the Blu-ray edition under review. Martin Ritt's 1961 jazz-infused drama Paris Blues is one of those films that, once you've seen it, you're kind of shocked that people don't talk about it more
Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from standard-issue DVD included in the Criterion combo, not the Blu-ray. I spent yesterday watching a couple of Woody Allen movies
Recommended The Movie: Directed by Gianfranco Parolini (credited as Frank Kramer), a fairly prolific writer and director of Spaghetti Westerns, sword and sandal pictures and action movies in the sixties and seventies, Sabata stars steely eyed Lee Van Cleef as a bounty hunter who saunters into Daugherty City right around the time that a cool one hundred grand is stolen from the local bank. The …
Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials and other sources, not the Blu-ray edition under review. I wasn't actually familiar with the meaning of “separate tables” before watching this movie. As it turns out, it refers to a perk of a live-in hotel, where the dining room boasts individual tables where guests can eat on their own rather …
Rent It There's a small but adamant minority out there that positively loathes Frank Capra's otherwise beloved holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946). I have one friend, for instance, who hates the film so much he always refers to it as “It's a Wonderful %$#*ing Life.” I happen to like it myself, warts and all, but regardless it would be interesting to know just how many of these Scrooges …
Highly Recommended NOTE: The images used to accompany this article are taken from online sources and do not represent the quality of the Blu-ray under review. The Movie: While American genre filmmakers tend not to shy away from depicting violence and brutality, their gory imaginations rarely scale the heights of bodily destruction realized onscreen by their colleagues working in Asia.
Highly Recommended THE FILMS: Spike Lee is a talented, polarizing director who sometimes lets politics get in the way of his filmmaking. His films of late have been disappointing, but this Spike Lee Joint Collection, Vol.
Recommended THE FILM: The second of six collaborations between director Michael Winner and Charles Bronson, The Mechanic is a tough, slow-burn 1970s thriller often remembered for its dialogue-free opening 15 minutes. Bronson is contract killer Arthur Bishop, who is very good at killing people and getting away with it
Recommended As far as “movie legends” go, Dominique Benicheti's Cousin Jules (1973) is tough to beat. Filmed over a five-year period, this music-free and almost entirely wordless 91-minute production offers an unyielding look at the satisfaction and monotony associated with a daily routine.