THE BEST NEW HOLIDAY DVDS, BLU-RAYS AND 4KS
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. Whether you’re stuffing the stocking of a physical-media fan or just building up your own holiday home-video library, there’s an…
NAPOLEON MEETS HIS WATERLOO
It’s a shame that this ambitious movie is a muddle, for director Ridley Scott has staged some of the most astonishing battle scenes ever put on film. Gigantic in scale and scope, they make the viewer feel like a…
MAESTRO IS MAGNIFICENT
I don’t know where or how Bradley Cooper got the ambition to make this powerfully challenging film, or the fortitude to both direct and co-script it while playing the leading character, but it is clearly a labor of love. Many passion projects lose something on…
MAY DECEMBER
Todd Haynes would seem an ideal choice to direct a story inspired by the real-life case of schoolteacher Mary Kay LeTourneau, who made headlines in the 1990s when she raped a 12-year-old student, then married him and raised a…
FALLEN LEAVES: A QUIET GEM
I’m a relative latecomer to the charms of Aki Kaurismäki’s work, but I’ve become a proselytizer to make up for lost time. The Finnish writer-director who brought us Le Havre and The Other Side of Hope is backwith a thoroughly entertaining, completely unpredictable…
THE KILLER
David Fincher’s films are often cold-blooded and I was wary of him adapting the graphic novel The Killer. Sure enough, this cheerless bit of 21st century pop existentialism is schematically laid out, following an assassin as he performs one hit after…
PRISCILLA: A MINIMALIST BIOPIC
I think I’ve just seen the first minimalist biopic ever made. Most movies about famous people’s lives come from the opposite direction, embellishing their feats, triumphs and failures. This one simply observes, almost without comment, the—uh—unusual relationship between Priscilla…
