Archive for the 'The Criterion Collection' Category
August 23rd, 2012 by Gerard Iribe
It’s about time we got some more Ingmar Bergman (Seventh Seal, rules!) on Blu-ray, but we’re taking it back a few years and focusing on his dramatic efforts with regards to love. Yeah, you might be saying that love and Bergman don’t mix, but they do if you add the components of death, despair, and so forth. Summer Interlude is no different and it marks the celebrated director’s TENTH film. He had yet begun to define himself, as some would say. Criterion Collection has done a great thing by bringing Summer Interlude to the Blu-ray format. Keep reading after the jump to see if Summer Interlude is worth owning. Also, keep it here, because we’ve got more Bergman on the way with Summer With Monika. See, I always take care of our readers. 😉 Continue reading ‘Summer Interlude: Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
August 12th, 2012 by Gerard Iribe
In turn-of-the-century Turin, an accident in a textile factory incites workers to stage a walkout. But it’s not until they receive unexpected aid from a traveling professor (Marcelo Mastroianni) that they find their voice, unite, and stand up for themselves. This historical drama by Mario Monicelli, brimming with humor, and honesty, is a beautiful and moving ode to the power of the people, and features engaging, naturalistic performances; cinematography by the great Giuseppe Rotunno; and a multilayered, Oscar-nominated screenplay by Monicelli, Agenore Incrocci, and Furio Scarpelli. Continue reading ‘The Organizer: Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
August 2nd, 2012 by Gerard Iribe
All the great directors have to start somewhere, right? Well, David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago) and famous English playwright Noel Coward would team up for four films in three years. How’s that for plowing through? David Lean was an editor and he and Coward teamed up to create some film magic so to speak. The Criterion Collection has brought us a beautiful boxed set of these early Lean/Coward films for our enjoyment. They come fully restored and fully loaded in terms of extras. How will they stack up to scrutiny? This review will be a doosy, and for all intents and purposes, the overall grading system will be for the films themselves as whole as opposed to rating each individual film separately. The same for the technical specifications. It’s easier that way since I’m reviewing a complete set and not just one film. I hope this makes sense. Let’s get to it! Continue reading ‘David Lean Directs Noel Coward (1942-1945) (Blu-ray Review)’
June 19th, 2012 by Gerard Iribe
I’m all for a good love story or two especially when they’re of the unconventional kind. Certified Copy comes to us from famed Iranian filmmaker (and jack of all trades) Abbas Kiarostami. The film stars the very lovely and talented Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Chocolat) and baritone opera singer, in his big screen debut, William Shimell. The Criterion Collection has seen fit to bring out all the stops with regards to the Blu-ray; it even features one of Abbas Kiarostami’s forgotten films, in its entirety, as part of the supplements package. Seriously, when one of the special features is a feature length film, you’ve already gotten a great start. Let us see if Certified Copy makes the grade. Continue reading ‘Certified Copy: Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
May 20th, 2012 by Gerard Iribe
¡Alambrista! is our next Criterion Collection Blu-ray review, which tackles that pesky subject of immigration and those coming over to make a better life for themselves and their family. If memory serves me correctly, ¡Alambrista! was the first film released theatrically to cover the subject. That would have been in 1977. Whether it remains relevant or not is another question. Then again, it’s in the Criterion Collection vaults for a reason, so I’ll let you take a wild guess on its relevancy. How does ¡Alambrista! stack up 35 years later? I will do my best to shed some light on the film – it’s subject matter I’m too familiar with. Let’s do this. Continue reading ‘¡Alambrista!: Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
May 12th, 2012 by Gerard Iribe
La haine (Hate) is French actor-director-writer Mathieu Kassovitz’s 1995 film that deals with race, riots, police brutality, and class warfare seen through the eyes of young people in the ghettos of France. Criterion Collection has, at long last, brought this important film to the Blu-ray format. The original DVD was also released by Criterion back in 2006 to coincide with its 10 year anniversary at the time. Now 17 years later (the film was released in 1995 theatrically), high definition enthusiasts can see what all the praise is about on Blu-ray. La haine is fully loaded and looks to nail the viewer right between the eyes. Stay sharp! Continue reading ‘La Haine: Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
May 10th, 2012 by Sean Ferguson
The 1992 presidential election was a triumph not only for Bill Clinton but also for the new breed of strategists who guided him to the White House and changed the face of politics in the process. For this thrilling, behind-closed-doors account of that campaign, renowned cinema verité filmmakers D. A. Pennebaker (Monterey Pop) and Chris Hegedus (Startup.com) closely followed the brainstorming and bull sessions of Clinton’s crack team of consultants—especially the folksy James Carville and the preppy George Stephanopoulos, who became media stars in their own right as they injected a youthful spirit and spontaneity into the process of campaigning. Fleet-footed and entertaining, The War Room is a vivid document of a political moment whose truths (“It’s the economy, stupid!”) still ring in our ears. Continue reading ‘The War Room: Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
April 6th, 2012 by Sean Ferguson
On April 14, 1912, just before midnight, the unsinkable Titanic struck an iceberg. In less than three hours, it had plunged to the bottom of the sea, taking with it more than 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers. In his unforgettable rendering of Walter Lord’s book of the same name, A Night to Remember, the acclaimed British director Roy Ward Baker (Don’t Bother to Knock) depicts with sensitivity, awe, and a fine sense of tragedy the ship’s final hours. Featuring remarkably restrained performances, A Night to Remember is cinema’s subtlest, finest dramatization of this monumental twentieth-century catastrophe. Continue reading ‘A Night to Remember: The Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
March 27th, 2012 by Gerard Iribe
We’re back once again bringing you the latest in Blu-ray coverage and this time out we’ve got Letter Never Sent from The Criterion Collection. Letter Never Sent is a Russian film that was released in 1959 by famed Russian director Mikhail Kalatozov. Criterion has brought us a film that has been given the TLC treatment which they’re famously known for. How will Letter Never Sent stack up to the recent crop of Criterion Collection releases? Will it be spilling over from the excess special features or will it be a movie only version? This and more is what we’re here to find out. Continue reading ‘Letter Never Sent: Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
February 25th, 2012 by Sean Ferguson
The Moment of Truth (Il momento della verità), from director Francesco Rosi, is a visceral plunge into the life of a famous torero – played by real-life bullfighting legend Miguel Mateo, known as Miguelín. Charting his rise and fall with a single-minded focus on the bloody business at hand, the film is at once gritty and operatic, placing the viewer right in the thick of the ring’s action, as close to death as possible. Like all of the great Italian truth seeker’s films, this is not just an electrifying drama but also a profound and moving inquiry into a violent world – and it’s perhaps the greatest bullfighting movie ever made. Continue reading ‘The Moment of Truth: Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
February 24th, 2012 by Sean Ferguson
Catherine Deneuve’s porcelain perfection hides a cracked interior in one of the actress’s most iconic roles: Séverine, a Paris housewife who begins secretly spending her afternoon hours working in a bordello. This surreal and erotic late-sixties daydream from provocateur for the ages Luis Buñuel is an examination of desire and fetishistic pleasure (its characters’ and its viewers’), as well as a gently absurdist take on contemporary social mores and class divisions. Fantasy and reality commingle in this burst of cinematic transgression, which was one of Buñuel’s biggest hits. Continue reading ‘Belle de jour: Criterion Collection (DVD Review)’
