Reviews / Blu-ray Reviews
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Godzilla (1954)
“Godzilla was baptized in the fire of the H-bomb. What could kill it now?” -Dr. Yamane Godzilla was released in Japanese cinemas nine years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and just...
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Design for Living
Before the Hays Code shortened Hollywood’s leash in the early 1930s, films like Design for Living scandalized movie houses with sophisticated gaiety and progressive sexual exploits. Thankfully, the concerned citizens behind The Motion Picture...
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Criterion Catch Up
I’d fallen somewhat behind on my review duties after an extended bout with the flu and some general “real world” intrusions. I’m also in production on a short film, which is getting in the...
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The Four Feathers
I’ve never had much use for the story of The Four Feathers. However, I am planted firmly in the minority here, as there have been at least nine filmed incarnations of A.E.W. Mason’s original...
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The Strange Case of Angelica
Manoel de Oliveira’s previous film, Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl, left me feeling impatient and begrudgingly suspicious that I had somehow missed a crucial element. In my review, I suggested that, due to the...
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If….
The history and relevance of Lindsay Anderson’s If…. is bold, beginning as a script that no one would produce, and ending as a reconfigured auteur piece that Paramount was afraid to release. The film...
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Orpheus
Jean Cocteau’s Orphée (the second entry in the filmmaker’s Orphic Trilogy) is a riff on the Orpheus myth, retrofitted with a 1950s setting that transfigures the tragic troubadour into a solipsistic poet. Cocteau’s delightfully...
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Beauty and the Beast
“A film is a petrified fountain of thought.” - Jean Cocteau Director Jean Cocteau opens Beauty and the Beast with a disclaimer urging us to put aside our jaded adult sensibilities and give over...
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Naked
Director Mike Leigh has a fascinating process. He and his actors choose a subject and situation and then build the script through rigorous rehearsals. The script is then refined by Leigh and brought to...
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People on Sunday
People on Sunday, a 1930 silent film, has a peculiar history. What we know is that the film was an early independent collaborative between a group of young German and Austrian filmmakers, many of...