The tonally schizophrenic sci-fi actioner ‘Elysium’ and the unfunny mafia comedy ‘The Family’ arrive in Blu-ray-DVD combo packs, and at least one of them is still making an impression.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
2013
It’s not very often that a book about film can serve as both a coffee table book and a critical examination of a movie’s themes, structure, and cultural legacy, but Jason Bailey’s ‘Pulp Fiction: The Complete Story of Quentin Tarantino’s Masterpiece’ does just that.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Of course, the film is full of familiar characters and cutting-edge computer-animated action scenes, yet at times this two-and-a-half-hour middle chapter lacks urgency and its easy to feel the running time.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The fantastic Big Star documentary is opne of the best documentaries of the year, and ‘Smash & Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers’ tells the story of a ring of international jewel thieves.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Although it’s far from Frears’ best work, Philomena is a solid film that offers the chance for Coogan and Dench to spend much of their time alone together onscreen in discussion of everything from trashy romance novels to the existence, and nature, of a higher power.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Out of the Furnace is one of those movies that spends so much time building mood and character that by the time the plot really kicks in, you realize it was in the service of nothing terribly special.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
All is Lost is a stranded-at-sea survival story with almost no dialogue and a soulful lead performance from 77-year-old Robert Redford.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The ’83 US Festival was the second of two festivals Steve Wozniak put on in the hills near San Bernadino, California. A new DVD from MVD Visual is a pretty lame best-of compilation of this massive show.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The danger in remaking a great film is twofold. It draws scrutiny from an existing audience familiar with the source material, but if the remake is too similar, then why create the remake in the first place. Spike Lee manages to fall victim to both.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
‘Nebraska’ bears the familiar Payne stamp of melancholy mixed with hard-edged satire, while still feeling very personal.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
McConaughey is a wonder. The actor lost 50 pounds to play the tightly coiled antihero, and he gives Woodruff a determination that’s practically unhinged.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Catching Fire may be a slight improvement but it suffers from the same weaknesses of The Hunger Game offering plodding action sequel light on action.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Through a rich, grueling portrait of the machinery of institutionalized slavery, Steve McQueen asks us to examine the rotten core of slavery and how it permeates our entire culture, not just to ponder life as it was in the 1840s.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The buddy-cop movie ‘2 Guns’ is surprisingly fun, and Fox re-issues the film that defined multiple personalities forever, ‘The Three Faces of Eve,’ in a beautiful Blu-ray transfer.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Blue is the Warmest Color, the nearly three-hour French character study of a lesbian relationship, is a remarkable film. The film’s notorious sex scenes are just a small part of the larger picture, because the movie asks a lot of timeless questions about love and devotion.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }