Recommended Marty (1955) was the little film that could, an almost-art film reportedly produced as a tax write-off that ended up winning four major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay) while earning rentals ten times its modest ($350,000) cost.
Recommended The Movie: “You dirty, lousy Mick! You got no rules!” Of course not. When you're a tough, old supercop who is a little Dirty Harry , a little Bullitt , and all John Wayne, you make your own rules. That's the conceit, at least, of the 1975 fish-out-of-water cop thriller Brannigan .
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. My goodness, but how wonderful is Judy Holliday? If we were to do some serious consideration of cinema's best comedic performance by a woman, her turn as Billie Dawn in George Cukor's 1950 adaptation of Born Yesterday would be hard to beat …
Recommended Ping Pong Summer Blu-ray Review Nostalgia can be a lot of fun. Ping Pong Summer isthe latest in a number of films to remember this idea and to carry italongit's independently minded (and produced) journey. This film is a lovesong tothe joy of the 80's and the good times that the filmmaker experiencedwithclassic 80's cinema and music
Recommended The Film: Going into Noah with the expectation that Darren Aronofsky's going to color within the lines of gospel would be a mistake, though it's understandable why some might expect him to do so. The name Noah in itself and the premise lying underneath his narrative are, after all, modeled from a brief, fantastical story told in the book of Genesis (and also appears in other religion …
Recommended Based on James Clavell's eponymous best-selling novel, Shogun (1980) served as one of the era's most popular and acclaimed mini-series events alongside the likes of Roots (1977), Jesus of Nazareth (1977), and Lonesome Dove (1989). Originally airing on NBC over five nights in September, the 547-minute Shogun was also the first—and, to this day, the only —American mini-series shot …
Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials and other sources, not the Blu-ray edition under review. The western framed as a chase picture. A cowboy drama about racial politics.
Recommended I don't review a lot of (relatively) new movies, but was drawn to Devil's Knot (2013) because its director is Atom Egoyan, the Canadian filmmaker behind such excellent and unique films as Exotica (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), and Ararat (2002). Devil's Knot , adapted from Mara Leveritt's 2002 book and based on the West Memphis Three murder investigation and subsequent trial …
Rent It The Film: The cast brought together for Transcendence plays like reunion of sorts for the supporting players in Christopher Nolan's oeuvre — Rebecca Hall! Morgan Freeman! Cilian Murphy! — gathering together with cinematographer from Memento and Inception , Wally Pfister, for his grand directorial debut. To say that he's picked a subject for his unveiling that's both ambitious and …
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.