A bureaucrat, emotionally dead and cut-off from both his job and his family, discovers that he has only months to live. He has scarce time to make his empty life meaningful. He will find that meaning in Akira Kurosawa's 1952 masterpiece, Ikiru. The name translates into English as To Live. Note: I re-edited this article on … Continue reading A+ List: Ikiru; also a Blu-ray review
Category: Blu-ray Review
Miracle Mile: A quirky romantic comedy thriller about the ultimate disaster. My Blu-ray review
I usually review Blu-rays of well-loved classics. This time, I'm covering a little-known film you've probably never heard of. But it should be a well-loved classic. Miracle Mile starts as a quirky, one-of-a-kind romantic comedy. Harry (Anthony Edwards) woos Julie (Mare Winningham)--in a science museum--with his wit and his slide trombone. He meets her grandparents. … Continue reading Miracle Mile: A quirky romantic comedy thriller about the ultimate disaster. My Blu-ray review
Hoop Dreams (my Blu-ray review)
I'd be hard put to name another documentary that feels so much like a narrative feature. Not that Steve James' Hoop Dreams looks like a fiction film; it most certainly does not. The hand-held cameras, extreme lenses, and low video resolution makes it look like the cinéma vérité documentary that it is. But James and … Continue reading Hoop Dreams (my Blu-ray review)
Death and families: Bergman’s Cries and Whispers (Blu-ray review)
No horror movie can come close to the fear, dread, and dark hatreds of Ingmar Bergman's great chamber drama, Cries and Whispers. To watch it is to face the end of a slow and painful death by cancer. But that's not all. This film, centered around four women and set almost entirely in one house, … Continue reading Death and families: Bergman’s Cries and Whispers (Blu-ray review)
Fantasy for the family that thinks together: Time Bandits on Criterion Blu-ray
At his creative height in the 1980s, Terry Gilliam wrote and directed some of the dizziest, imaginative fantasies ever projected. He would mash up well-known myths, social satire, amazing (but cheap) special effects, the surreal comedy of Monty Python (he was, after all, their token Yank), and a busily baroque visual style all his own. … Continue reading Fantasy for the family that thinks together: Time Bandits on Criterion Blu-ray
The Mediocre Fascist: The Conformist comes to Blu-ray
Fascist states don't really need that many committed fascists. But they do need ambitious, unscrupulous, and cowardly people. In Bernardo Bertolucci's brilliant character study of a man lacking character, we see political murder as an act of a bureaucrat. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Marcello Clerici as a confused, emotionally cut-off cog in the wheel of Mussolini's … Continue reading The Mediocre Fascist: The Conformist comes to Blu-ray
Tombstone as Myth: My Darling Clementine on Blu-ray
By all rules of the western genre, John Ford's My Darling Clementine shouldn't work. The plot, the primary motivations, and the action all but disappear for the whole middle part of the movie. And yet it's one of the greatest westerns ever made. Ford's westerns, at their best, danced along a thin line between reality … Continue reading Tombstone as Myth: My Darling Clementine on Blu-ray
Red River on Blu-ray: Of men and cattle
To those who consider westerns mindless shoot-em-ups, and dismiss John Wayne as a talentless reactionary symbol, I can think of no better answer than Howard Hawks' Red River. And outside of a movie theater, I can think of no better way to see it than in this new Criterion Blu-ray release. In Tom Dunson, Wayne … Continue reading Red River on Blu-ray: Of men and cattle
Comedy and Popularity: Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman on Blu-ray
It might be possible to watch Harold Lloyd's 1925 masterpiece, The Freshman, without laughing, or without hoping that the protagonist will win the popularity he so deeply wants. But it wouldn't be easy. Every shot in this film is brilliantly designed to make you either laugh or care--or both. Lloyd's "glasses" character truly came into … Continue reading Comedy and Popularity: Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman on Blu-ray
Kurosawa has fun: My Blu-ray review of Hidden Fortress
In Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa used the samurai genre to examine the limits of human knowledge and objectivity. In Seven Samurai, he told an epic story of small-scale war and a feudal system in crisis. In Throne of Blood, he adapted Macbeth to meditate on fate. In The Hidden Fortress, he pretty much just had fun. … Continue reading Kurosawa has fun: My Blu-ray review of Hidden Fortress
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