9 years ago
Reviews (10 posts found)
The Criterion Collection “The River”
Distributor: The Criterion Collection
Release Date: April 21, 2015
MSRP: $39.99
Order at Amazon
Movie: B+/ Video: A/ Audio: A-/ Extras: A-
The iconography most commonly associated with Jean Renoir’s The River (1951) can be linked, in most cases, not only to ...
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“Child 44”
A child gets brutally murdered, but the case will never be looked into. It was a fatal train accident, you see. The dead and the living - everybody knows, but no one will tell. Why? Because "there can be no murder in paradise.” It's the early 1950s in the USSR...
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“Unfriended”
“Horror on a webcam” is neither a fresh aesthetic nor a new idea. Nacho Vigalondo’s unfortunately overcomplicated Open Windows and the 2012 omnibus joint V/H/S both use Skype chats to variable effect; if we want to duck genre, then it’s worth pointing out that...
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“Misery Loves Comedy”
Have you heard the one about how stand-up comics are pathologically needy folks who crave attention and affection from strangers? Oh, okay. Well, how about the one where they tend to have dysfunctional relationships and can only really relate to other comedian...
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“Alex of Venice”
Alex of Venice, actor-turned-director Chris Messina’s first feature film, begins with something of a tour de force moment when George (Messina) abruptly leaves his wife, the titular Alex (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and their son, Dakota (Skylar Gaertner). The se...
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“Monsters: Dark Continent”
In retrospect, Gareth Edwards’ 2010 film Monsters looks more like an audition tape for his covertly profound epic Godzilla four years later. He laid the groundwork for his revival of Toho’s iconic kaiju with Monsters, from the sober-minded assessment of how gi...
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“Monkey Kingdom”
The films released under the Walt Disney Company’s Disneynature banner have a recognizable formula by now: a famous narrator, a slew of eye-popping images captured by sparkling high-definition photography, adorable animals preferably in exotic locales, various...
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“The Dead Lands”
Thirty years ago, give or take, Toa Fraser’s The Dead Lands would have fit in nicely during the period’s boom of heroic fantasy films—Krull, Hawk the Slayer, Conan the Barbarian, Fire and Ice, The Sword and the Sorcerer—save for a paucity of camp. Not that The...
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“Tangerines”
Zaza Urushadze’s Tangerines opens in a tiny village in Eastern Europe—Abkhazia, Georgia to be exact—as a frail, old Estonian man named Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak) meticulously constructs crates one slab of wood at a time. It's the early 1990s and there is a war in the...
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“The Living”
The Living is one of those unfortunate films ignorant of any world outside its author’s head. Main characters live without interests, hobbies or incomes. Massacres occur that should be heard for miles, but no sirens follow. An ostensibly destitute character wo...
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