Reading the description of a film–and I’m not just talking the marketing spin, but even an honest informative blurb–oftentimes results in false preconceptions about a movie.  That Obscure Object of Desire is just such a film.  “Consumed by his obsessive desire to possess her, his feelings progressively change from overflowing passion to a self-destructive hatred,” inspires visions in tone (if not in content) along the lines of Fatal Attraction.  Not so.

That having been said, such preconceptions did not destroy my enjoyment of the film at all.

Tackling a seminal work of fiction always presents a filmmaker with a unique set of challenges, even more so than book adaptations in general.  For director Joe Wright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard on Anna Karenina, those included not only condensing a mammoth book into a slightly over two-hour movie but doing so in a manner that stood out from the numerous previous adaptations.  The result is a mixed bag with many parts to love individually but a whole that simply falls short. 

Woody Allen seems to elicit strong responses from a large majority of cinephiles, either rapid fandom or extreme distaste. The middle ground, of which I am a member, is relatively small.  I have always taken each Allen film on its individual merits.  Having absolutely loved Midnight in Paris, I eagerly anticipated To Rome With Love, hoping it would continue in that vein. Alas.

Hit the jump my review of To Rome with Love on Blu-ray.

Traditional animation has sadly been all but lost amidst the explosion of computer-generated “big Hollywood” cartoons over the last 15 years.  Even films such as The Princess and the Frog were CG made to look like it was old-school 2D.  Those hand-drawn films that have crept into the US theatrical distribution pipeline recently have largely been imports.  Oscar-nominated (Best Animated Feature Film, 2012) A Cat in Paris (Une vie de chat) is just such a movie ensuring that art form is not lost. Hit the jump for my review of A Cat in Paris on Blu-ray. 

Movie series take many forms. Some, such as James Bond, are almost like non-episodic television, with very little connection between the individual films save for the primary character. On the other end of the spectrum is The Lord of the Rings series, serialized from start to finish, shot together and released on a schedule to maximize such. Somewhere in between lies the Terminator series, available now in the 5-disc Blu-ray box set Terminator Anthology.

What is interesting about the Terminator series as a collection of films is that they at once have that interconnectedness of story, due to their epic scope spanning the series, and episodic individuality, due not only to the vast periods of time that pass in between each story and the movies’ releases.  Hit the jump for my review of the box set.

I have yet to embrace fully the mumblecore genre. I want to love it, having come of age as a filmmaker working on the indies of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, but perhaps that is my problem: I see mumblecore as the natural progression of so many films on which I crewed that never saw the light of day. Like any other genre, simply creating a movie and actually executing a good movie are two different things, and too often mumblecore-type pics feel like a means to an end rather than well-crafted films. Which does not mean the best of the bunch are not good, entertaining films, exactly how I felt about Jeff, Who Lives At Home (and I was not a fan of the Duplass brothers’ break-out picture, The Puffy Chair).  Hit the jump for my review of the Blu-ray.

A few reviews back I wrote about how interesting it is to revisit a film I watched once many years ago and haven’t seen since.  It is a far different experience than viewing a new film, an old film one has never seen, or even an older film one has watched repeatedly.  Chariots of Fire was another such movie for me, and it has not aged a day.  Hit the jump for my review of Chariots of Fire on Blu-ray. 

A sad film about a sad woman who pays multiple prices—including, eventually, the ultimate price—for daring to pursue her dream…so sums up Rodrigo García’s Albert Nobbs.  And in that description lays the film’s primary disappointment.

Albert Nobbs stars Glenn Close as the titular character, a woman who has spent decades masquerading as a man to work as a waiter in a posh Dublin hotel.  Going into Albert Nobbs, it is not as if one expects an uplifting film.  But depressing movies with pained heroes are one thing. To be fair, the film is well-written, but what is frustrating about Albert Nobbs is seeing an already pained person pay such a high cost for daring to dream and make her life better.  What sort of theme is punishment for attempts at improvement?  Hit the jump for our Blu-ray review of Albert Nobbs.

It is a sad fact of film history that, for much of its existence, the movie studios did not appreciate the value of their creations as archive-worthy artistic endeavors—let alone public interest in props, costumes and other tools of the trade (which only truly came to the forefront during the famous 1970 MGM auction).  As such, many—and, in the case of silent films, the majority—movies have been lost for good.  Every now and then, one such lost work resurfaces, but those that do are fewer than not.  It is almost inconceivable to us now that, of all movies, the very first Oscar winner for Best Picture (then “Best Picture, Production”), William A. Wellman’s Wings, could at one time have been lost, but such was indeed the case.  Fortunately for future cinephile generations, Wings is also among the few lost films that have been found.  Hit the jump for our review of the Blu-ray.

When those of us who have grown up watching modern cinema view pre-Production Code movies, it can be easy for us to ask, “What’s the big deal?”  By today’s standards, much of what was considered “morally questionable” enough to spur the introduction of the Code in the 1920s would be considered laughably tame.  Every now and then, however, one has the opportunity to watch a pre-Code film that causes one to understand (with a nod to differing historical norms, of course) how certain movies could indeed generate such uproar.  Ernst Lubitsch’s Design for Living (based on Noel Coward’s play of the same name) is just such a film. Hit the jump for our review of the Criterion Blu-ray for Design for Living.

It is hard to believe that a film considered to be among the greatest of all time was not only ridiculed upon its initial release but also at one time lost for nearly twenty years.  But such was the case with Jean Renior’s The Rules of the Game, the negative for which was destroyed in World War II and the film not reconstructed until 1959 at which point it was recognized for the masterpiece that it is.  Hit the jump for my review of the Criterion Collection Blu-ray release.

The mark of a truly classic film is that its themes and subject matter are timeless, relatable to each successive generation even if the direct circumstances have passed.  Cinema Paradiso falls perfectly into that mold.  I had often heard that Cinema Paradiso was cinema’s greatest ode to motion pictures, and such could not be more accurate. Hit the jump for our review of Cinema Paradiso on Blu-ray.

I love a good marketing campaign, whether it stems from a truly clever idea or creative cross-promotion.  Too often, however, the film (or other product, if we want to speak generally) does not live up to the work executed to promote it.  So when Rio teamed up with iPhone app uber-hit “Angry Birds”, 20^th Century Fox hit marketing gold.  But what about the film itself?  My review after the jump.

Literary adaptations are a mixed bag. A handful of such films (The Shining, for example) actually surpass the books upon which they are based.  Many more are plain awful.  And countless lit flicks—regardless of the films’ merits compared to those of the books—undergo such far-reaching changes, sacrifices and/or additions to make the stories more filmic as to be only loosely connected to their source material. Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre, the latest of many filmed versions of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, scores high marks both for quality and for being an extremely faithful adaptation. Hit the jump for my full Blu-ray review.

I always find it interesting to revisit a film that I watched only once as a kid and see how it holds up years later—particularly if I did in fact enjoy the movie. Does the film stand up to the test of time? Or were my expectations clouded by the transitory appreciations of youth? Platoon was one such movie that I had not seen since its original big screen release. 25 years later, it is still as powerful as ever. My review after the jump.