Rent It With an industry cranking out more product faster than ever, “middle class” cinema has all but disappeared, Between the major blockbusters and studio “independents,” there used to be a range of $20 and $30m comedies and dramas to help round out a studio’s release schedule, but these days such films are generally doomed to a DVD premiere, despite a cast and crew that would’ve warranted a …
Highly Recommended THE FILM Please Note: The images used here are taken from promotional materials, not the Blu-ray edition of the film under review.
Recommended The Movie: In the early 80s, divorce suddenly became a big subject in the media, particularly when it involved couples with kids. Irreconcilable Differences , released in 1984, addressed not only the divorce of parents but of their daughter filing for legal divorce, or emancipation, from them as well. The movie begins with what was the biggest moment in the trailer and other …
Highly Recommended THE FILM I must confess to never having seen director Joseph Losey’s mid-career debacles (or masterpieces; depends on whose take you listen to) Modesty Blaise (1966) or Boom! (1968), but judging from what I’ve read and heard regarding those films, Losey — an expat German who fled the Nazis and made films in the U.S., the U.K., and France over a long and unusually varied …
Recommended Released between 2009 and 2012, five animated adaptations of Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel’s most celebrated books made their Blu-Ray debut courtesy of Warner Bros., who also did wonderful restoration work on Charles Schulz’ beloved Peanuts animated shorts
Recommended Like Network and several other films before and since, Paul Michael Glaser’s The Running Man (1987) seemed far-fetched decades ago…but it hits a little closer to home these days.
Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials, not the Blu-ray edition under review. The 1941 winner of the Best Picture Oscar, How Green Was My Valley is one of John Ford’s nostalgic tributes to a foreign land and a foreign time. Narrated from a modern vantage point, but set in a Welsh mining village at the outset of the 20th Century, the …
Recommended I feel the need- the need for- 3D? Well, color me surprised. I had heard a couple years ago that Top Gun was going to be re-released in converted 3D, and I immediately thought that would be an extremely pointless endeavor
Recommended THE SHOW: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from the series’ promotional materials, not the Blu-ray edition under review. When I first watched The Hour sometime back, I actually thought it was a one-off. It seemed fairly self-contained and complete as a miniseries.
Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials, not the Blu-ray edition under review. It’s rare to find a film as sincere and assured in its emotional intent as Ann Hui’s celebrated A Simple Life