David Lean’s IN WHICH WE SERVE, THIS HAPPY HOUR, BLITHE SPIRIT, and BRIEF ENCOUNTER Criterion Blu-ray Reviews

by Andre Dellamorte    Posted: May 21st, 2012 at 7:00 am

David Lean has been canonized as one of the great directors, an honor that he’s earned, even if his body of work is inconsistent. If his later years were less good, and some of his earlier films are weak, it doesn’t matter. He directed Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai. The Criterion collection has brought together his first four films, and they were all adaptations of Noel Coward’s work (hence the title David Lean “Directs Noel Coward”). The films are In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Blithe Spirit and Brief Encounter. And our review of the Blu-ray set of David Lean Directs Noel Coward follows after the jump.

BEFORE WATCHMEN: First Thoughts on the WATCHMEN Prequel

by Tommy Cook    Posted: May 20th, 2012 at 8:03 pm

Is it possible (and/or right) to continue Watchmen without Alan Moore?  The question is so oft posed and the resulting criticisms so well documented, it almost feels tiresome to repeat.  Art vs. commerce and yadda, yadda, yadda… I have nothing new to add to the ol’ Moore vs. DC debate.  I love Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen.  On general reflex, I considered a prequel without their involvement at best foolhardy.  But also understand that from a market standpoint, Watchmen prequels are good business and an inevitability with or without the creators.  And so here we are with Before Watchmen – a prequel nobody really asked for, but one everyone still wants to read regardless (myself included).

This past week, I was invited to DC headquarters to sample the initial issues from the seven runs of Before Watchmen (each run focusing on an individual character or group: e.g. The Comedian, Rorschach, Nite Owl, Ozymandias, Silk Spectre, Dr. Manhattan and Minutemen).  I’ve been sworn to secrecy on plot points and narrative spoilers, but allowed to share general thoughts (I think) on whether or not you should pre-hate this comic you’re probably still going to buy anyways.  For more thoughts (some of which surprised myself), hit the jump.

THE DESCENDANTS Blu-ray Review

by Brad McKay    Posted: May 19th, 2012 at 7:00 am

Living in paradise is not as glamorous or care free as many outsiders may believe, and the King family is a perfect example of it.  The Descendants, an Alexander Payne film adapted from the novel of the same name by Kaui Hart Hemmings, follows Hawaii-based lawyer Matt King (George Clooney) on his painful, yet often comedic quest to reunite his family after his wife suffers a tragic accident.  While the film tugs on heart strings towards the end, it mostly infuses audiences with almost uncomfortable laughter and anticipation for when the story will kick into gear.  Hit the jump for our review of The Descendants on Blu-ray.

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE Blu-ray Review

by Andre Dellamorte    Posted: May 18th, 2012 at 7:14 am

Sometimes a performance overwhelms a movie. On paper, Stanley Kowaski is an important role in A Streetcar Named Desire – of that there’s no doubt – but the showcase role should be Blanche DuBois. Blanche is a fragile woman who’s come to New Orleans after leaving her home city under dubious circumstances. And nothing against Vivien Leigh’s work in the film, but it’s Marlon Brando as Stanley who owns the movie. Brando was ready to pop when the film was released in 1951 – he’d done a film before, but when partnered with director Elia Kazan his method acting changed the way films were made. Seriously. Our review of the Blu-ray of A Streetcar Named Desire follows after the jump.

THE DICTATOR Review

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 15th, 2012 at 8:33 am

Anyone can be offensive.  The skill comes with trying to get people to laugh at it.  Sacha Baron Cohen, the mind behind the semi-scripted comedies Borat and Bruno, has shown a great skill at getting audiences to laugh at light comic fodder like incest, rape, anti-Semitism, screaming dickholes, and carrying bags of shit to the dinner table.  He also tends to throw in a little social criticism for some spice.  The Dictator marks his first feature-length, fully-scripted film, and while the blade may be a bit more polished, the edge remains razor-sharp.  Despite a slapdash plot and a cop-out ending, The Dictator is brilliantly irreverent, juvenile, cartoonish, and it will have you laughing, feeling guilty about laughing, and then laughing even harder.

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE Blu-ray Review

by Jeff Ames    Posted: May 14th, 2012 at 9:44 am

Movies like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close are difficult to review.  On the one hand, part of me wants to rip Stephen Daldry’s film to shreds and call it a manipulative, corny, over-the-top, Oscar-seeking mess.  But the other part of me wants to drop the cynicism and enjoy the heartfelt emotional journey for what it aspires to be: a film that attempts to cope with the aftershocks of 9/11, and mourn those we lost in the fire.

Watching Extremely Loud on Blu-ray over the weekend, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.  While not exactly the masterpiece it thinks it is, Daldry’s film at least sidesteps the problems I had with the director’s previous efforts, especially the overtly saccharine The Reader and the morbid, depressing The Hours – both of which tried to do too much and therefore lacked focus.  Hit the jump for my review.

LET THE BULLETS FLY Blu-ray Review

by Rob Vaux    Posted: May 11th, 2012 at 10:33 am

You won’t see many Chinese movies as irreverent, mischievous or iconoclastic as Let the Bullets Fly. The nation is better known for works of gravitas and dignity: celebrating its rich history or exploring serious aspects of the human condition. Bullets is more Hong Kong than Beijing, with Stephen Chow its obvious spiritual kin. The distinction doesn’t necessary make it a great movie, though it certainly helps it to stand out from the crowd. Hit the jump for the full review.

DARK SHADOWS Review

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 10th, 2012 at 11:35 am

Tim Burton‘s Dark Shadows is a series of flawed assumptions resulting from remarkable incompetence.  Burton believes he’s blended a gothic style with a campy comedy, but his film is neither.  The characters act at being a bunch of kooky, Addams Family-style misfits, but they’re nothing more than vague, one-dimensional sketches or, in the case of the protagonist, a confused contradiction.  Seth Grahame-Smith‘s script thinks it has balanced out the story elements into a compelling narrative, but it’s a poorly plotted mess that eschews character development in favor of a softball joke or clumsy dark humor.  With the exception of a great performance from Eva Green, Dark Shadows flails wildly at concocting a strange brew, and only comes up with weak tea.

CONTRABAND Blu-ray Review

by Andre Dellamorte    Posted: May 9th, 2012 at 5:58 am

It’s nice to see a down and dirty action movie, and Contraband offers a number of things that are fun. It’s got Mark Wahlberg in the lead, and a supporting cast that includes Kate Beckinsale, J.K. Simmons, Ben Foster, Giovanni Ribisi, and Lukas Hass.  It’s got a no-nonsense plot about smuggling, and at least one good shootout. But it’s also imminently forgettable. Our review of the Blu-ray of Contraband follows after the jump.

Seasoned: Matt Reviews THE WIRE – Season 3

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 4th, 2012 at 11:29 am

Up until the past 15 years or so, television series were firmly episodic.  Serialized TV (outside of mini-series) risked alienating viewers since it stopped anyone from coming in mid-season.  However, with the rise of DVDs, OnDemand, and digital downloads, serialized TV series have become firmly established.  Some shows still retain an episodic nature, but some series—particularly dramas—have been built around telling one long story over the course of an entire season.  Our new feature, Seasoned, will review a TV series by season rather than by episode.

Hit the jump for my review of the third season of The Wire; here are my reviews for season one and season two.

HAYWIRE Blu-ray Review

by Andre Dellamorte    Posted: May 4th, 2012 at 9:30 am

Steven Soderbergh approached Haywire as a chance to turn Gina Carano into a movie star. As she’s been cast in the next Fast and Furious movie, it’s likely that we’ll see more from her. But Soderbergh approached doing an action movie as an art project, so he played with the structure and style of the modern action film. It’s ambitious, and not entirely successful. But he was right on the money that Carano can carry a movie. Haywire costars Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum, Ewan McGreggor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas and Bill Paxton, and our review of the Blu-ray follows after the jump.

THE AVENGERS Review

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 2nd, 2012 at 1:17 pm

Nothing like The Avengers has ever been attempted in Hollywood history.  No major motion picture has ever been the culmination of four different blockbuster franchises, each with its own protagonist, and crossing them over into one gigantic film.  It’s bigger than a sequel or even a planned trilogy.  Marvel had to take pieces from their previous superhero films to assemble The Avengers.  The studio wedged set-up into Iron Man 2, wove the covert government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. into Thor, and tacked bookends to Captain America: The First Avenger.  The plan for The Avengers was audacious to the point of near-hubris, but writer-director Joss Whedon has managed to deliver an absolute powerhouse of a payoff that’s truly worthy of Marvel’s astonishing ambition.

POTTERMORE Review

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 1st, 2012 at 8:39 am

I rarely re-read books, but I’ve re-read J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter series numerous times because I love being in the world she’s created.  I always want to see what’s behind every corner, and what’s happening beyond Harry’s point-of-view.  I wish Hogwarts: A History was a real book, and that Professor Binns had new and exciting pieces of information about the Wizarding World rather than being brushed off as a boring history teacher.  I also wanted to know about Rowling’s thought process in writing the books; a kind of “Author’s Commentary” that went beyond annotations and provided something deeper.

The new online experience, Pottermore, provides all of this through a nice interactive experience that continues to respect fans and let them be a part of Harry’s world like never before.  Hit the jump for my full review.

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST and VANYA OF 42ND STREET Criterion Blu-ray Reviews

by Andre Dellamorte    Posted: April 28th, 2012 at 6:00 am

The Martin Scorsese who put out The Last Temptation of Christ is not the Martin Scorsese we know today. He had yet to make Goodfellas, and though Raging Bull netted Robert De Niro an Oscar, Scorsese spent much of the 1980’s in the wilderness, making niche films which were considered disappointments, only to secure financing through directing a for-hire hit movie (The Color of Money). Christ was most notable for the controversy it engendered, as it was protested by a number of religious groups, which kept it out of most big chain theaters. Vanya of 42^nd Street is a project that transcends its set-up, and acts as a follow-up to Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre. It reunited Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn with a cast (that includes Julianne Moore) that performed Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya on the fly for years. Both have come out from Criterion on Blu-ray, and our reviews of both follow after the jump.

THE RAVEN Review

by Bill Graham    Posted: April 27th, 2012 at 7:16 am

Sometimes a film makes you wonder if Hollywood truly is running out of ideas. Or maybe director James McTeigue just wanted to put John Cusack in period dress and the Sherlock Holmes franchise was already taken. Tone-deaf, The Raven squanders an intriguing idea with dull action set pieces and an unfocused theme. The plot revolves around grisly murders that replicate Edgar Allan Poe’s most horrific works in an attempt to get the not-so-famous Poe to solve the case in Baltimore. For those unaware, this isn’t based on a true story. Hit the jump for my full review.

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