Tiny Furniture Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: One Character in Search of a Relationship
By Shawn Bourdo |
It’s important to start off with a confession. I love “coming of age” films. It’s a genre that never seems ...
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World on a Wire Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: The Nature of Unnatural Reality
By Steve Geise |
Two business colleagues at a supercomputer research facility are enjoying a pleasant conversation before one of them declares that he ...
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World on a Wire Criterion Collection DVD Review: A Superb Piece of Science Fiction
By Greg Barbrick |
What if everything you thought you knew was nothing but a fabrication? This is but one of the many themes ...
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Three Outlaw Samurai Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Genre-Defining Samurai Film
By Shawn Bourdo |
The Samurai genre and the Western are so closely tied by themes and storylines that it’s amazing the great Japanese ...
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Godzilla (1954) Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: The King of Monsters is Back
By Todd Karella |
In 1954 one of the world's biggest monster movies was released to the big screen. Created and directed by Ishiro ...
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Three Outlaw Samurai Criterion Collection DVD Review: Three is the Magic Number
By Steve Geise |
When peasants stage an uprising against their greedy local magistrate, they find an unlikely ally in the form of a ...
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If…. Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Portrait of the Student as an Angry Young Man
By Gordon S. Miller |
Director Lindsay Anderson’s If…. is a film that catches the viewer off guard when its true intention is revealed and ...
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The Moment of Truth Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Heady Symphony of Sound and Image
By Dusty Somers |
The Film Francesco Rosi doesn’t waste his time on extraneous details in The Moment of Truth, a lean symphony of ...
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Godzilla (1954) The Criterion Collection DVD Review: The Legendary Monster Makes its Debut
By generaljabbo |
In 1954, Japan was still reeling from the effects of the World War II atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ...
Read More Belle de Jour Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: How Severine Got Her Groove Back
By Steve Geise |
A young, wealthy housewife goes for a horse-drawn carriage ride in the idyllic French countryside with her dashing husband. So ...
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Traffic Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Thrilling and Uncompromising Look at the War on Drugs
By Dusty Somers |
The Film One of the predominant narratives used in describing Steven Soderbergh’s career is that he’s a director capable of ...
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Sabu! Criterion Collection DVD Review: Adventures With The Immensely Charming Child Star
By Dusty Somers |
Plucked from obscurity as an elephant handler in southern India and vaulted to international stardom largely by the efforts of ...
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Design For Living Criterion Collection DVD Review: The Pre-Codiest of the Pre-Codes
By Will McKinley |
When I was a guest on the Turner Classic Movies podcast last fall, I engaged in a bit of premeditated ...
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Solaris (1972) Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Explorations in Outer and Inner Space
By Gordon S. Miller |
Director Andrei Tarkovsky used Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 science fiction novel Solaris as the basis for his story about a man ...
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Branded to Kill Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Legendary Piece of Cinema You Should Not Miss
By Shawn Bourdo |
I was born in 1967. And in the tradition of all petulant teenagers – I grew to have disdain for ...
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Kiss Me Deadly Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Pulp Science Fiction
By Gordon S. Miller |
When Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer debuted in I, Jury (1947) he was possibly the hardest of hardnosed detectives there was, ...
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Design for Living Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Delightfully Risque Pre-Hayes Code Romp
By Luigi Bastardo |
”It’s amazing how a few insults can bring people together in three hours.” ”It was certainly good to hear all ...
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America Lost and Found: The BBS Story Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review
By Gordon S. Miller |
The story told in Criterion’s The BBS Story box set is a major chapter in the output of producers Bob ...
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Tokyo Drifter The Criterion Collection DVD Review: A Blast of Swinging Tokyo
By Greg Barbrick |
Seijun Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter (1966) is a delirious Pop Art explosion. Working under the yoke of the Japanese Nikkatsu Studio, ...
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Tokyo Drifter Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Style Over Substance
By Steve Geise |
Iconic director Seijun Suzuki’s film isn’t very impressive from a story standpoint, but is packed with wall-to-colorful-wall visual flair. It’s ...
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Branded to Kill Criterion Collection DVD Review: Suzuki’s Absurd Deconstruction of Yakuza Crime Films
By Greg Barbrick |
There has never been a crime film quite like this. Director Seijun Suzuki’s Branded To Kill (1967), did not merely ...
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Three Colors Trilogy Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Forever
By Shawn Bourdo |
Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors Trilogy is a series of three films that were released in 1993 and 1994. ...
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The Rules of the Game (1939) Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Jean Renoir, Je T’aime
By Luigi Bastardo |
I have no choice but to dismiss you. It breaks my heart, but I can’t expose my guests to your ...
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12 Angry Men Criterion Collection DVD Review: Explosive Drama in the Jury Room
By Greg Barbrick |
The stifling, claustrophobic feeling director Sidney Lumet perfected in films such as Dog Day Afternoon (1975), and Network (1976) was ...
Read More Identification of a Woman Criterion Collection DVD Review: Searching for a Way out of the Fog
By Darcy Staniforth |
Identification of A Woman is the story of Niccolo Farra (Tomas Milian) a middle-aged Italian filmmaker who is searching for ...
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Rushmore Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Wes Anderson’s Best Film Dazzles in High-Def
By Dusty Somers |
The Film By and large, there’s been quite a backlash against the films of Wes Anderson, and even though I’m ...
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Dazed and Confused Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Celebrating Being Caught Between Dreaming and Adulthood
By Shawn Bourdo |
Can one film ruin a genre? I guess you can look at it from two angles. Did Titanic ruin the ...
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Fanny & Alexander Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Bergman’s Documentary Trumps Feature Film
By Steve Geise |
As a newcomer to Fanny & Alexander, I was surprised to learn that the original format of the project was ...
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Identification of a Woman Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Futile Search for Romantic Fulfillment
By Dusty Somers |
The Film Among those disinclined to enjoy films without a clear story arc, well-defined conflict, and a resolute conclusion, the ...
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Kuroneko Criterion Collection DVD Review: Expressionistic Horror in Feudal Japan
By Dusty Somers |
A spooky, poetic Japanese ghost story, Kuroneko is the kind of film that captivates you by virtue of an astonishing ...
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Smiles of a Summer Night Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: All’s Well That Ends Well
By Gordon S. Miller |
Though legendary director Ingmar Bergman is well known for creating films that deal with serious subjects about life and death, ...
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The Four Feathers (1939) Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Offers Quite a Bit of Excitement
By Shawn Bourdo |
The A.E.W. Mason classic adventure book The Four Feathers (1902) has been adapted into at least seven films directly. The ...
Read More Island of Lost Souls (1932) Criterion Collection DVD Review: Are We Not Men?
By Greg Barbrick |
”Do you know what it means to feel like God?” asks the fiendish Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) at one point ...
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The Killing Criterion Collection DVD Review: A Day at the Races
By Joe Garcia III |
The Criterion Collection has scored big again with the DVD release of The Killing, Stanley Kubrick's 1956 film noir classic. ...
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The Four Feathers (1939) Criterion Collection DVD Review: One Man’s Journey of Redemption
By Todd Karella |
Harry Faversham (John Clements) comes from a long line of heroic officers in the British army. But ever since he ...
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Criterion Collection Eclipse Series #29 DVD Review: Aki Kaurismaki’s Leningrad Cowboys
By Greg Barbrick |
Not since the likes of Sigue Sigue Sputnik have a band with so little to offer gained such mass attention. ...
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Kuroneko Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Things That Go Bump In The Night
By Steve Geise |
Although classified as a horror film, Kuroneko isn’t very scary. Instead, it delivers atmosphere and oddities, making it more akin ...
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Harakiri Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: The Samurai Condition
By Steve Geise |
When a bedraggled masterless samurai, or ronin, approaches the estate of a large warrior clan and asks for permission to ...
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Buy the Disc, Take the Ride
By Gordon S. Miller |
First appearing in the pages of Rolling Stone, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas details the drug-fueled ...
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My Life As a Dog Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Boy’s Eccentric Journey to Manhood
By Shawn Bourdo |
When you further categorize the films that I love the most, you’ll find that the majority of them speak to ...
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The Phantom Carriage Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Spooky Silent Cinema That Transcends Genre
By Dusty Somers |
The Film Victor Sjöström’s intensely atmospheric, technically brilliant The Phantom Carriage was highly influential on the career of Ingmar Bergman, ...
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Le Beau Serge and Les Cousins Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: The True Origins of the French New Wave
By Dusty Somers |
The Films The French New Wave evokes thoughts of two films above all others — François Truffaut’s and Jean-Luc Godard’s ...
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Carlos (2010) Criterion Collection DVD Review: An Extraordinary Movie
By Greg Barbrick |
From the opening explosion of a car bomb in Paris, through the anti-climactic, somewhat pathetic ending – Carlos is a ...
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The Phantom Carriage Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Impressive Ghost of Cinema Past
By Steve Geise |
I don’t spend much time watching silent films, especially foreign silent films, but The Phantom Carriage has me rethinking that ...
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The Phantom Carriage Criterion Collection DVD Review: The Pinnacle of Swedish Silent Filmmaking
By Greg Barbrick |
Swedish director Victor Sjostrom’s (1879-1960) The Phantom Carriage (1921) is a profoundly emotional film, and was a seminal influence on ...
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The Golden Age of Television (Criterion Collection) DVD Review: An Important Historical Document of Timeless Stories
By Gordon S. Miller |
What most people remember from Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow's "Television and the Public Interest" speech given on ...
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Orpheus Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Cinematic Magic from a Familiar Tale
By Dusty Somers |
The Film Jean Cocteau had a knack for applying a distinct surreal stamp to familiar tales. He did it in ...
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Cul-De-Sac Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Roman Polanski Leads Down a Dead End Road
By Shawn Bourdo |
With new releases from The Criterion Collection, the ones I look forward to the most aren’t always the major works ...
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Topsy-Turvy Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: It Is the Very Model of a Modern-Day Blu-ray Release
By Gordon S. Miller |
After five films, Mike Leigh took a break from modern-day kitchen-sick dramas and created Topsy-Turvy, a marvelous historical biopic about ...
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The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara DVD Review: Diverse Dispatches from the Japanese New Wave
By Dusty Somers |
Watching the five films in Criterion’s latest Eclipse offering, The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara, one gets the sense that ...
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