• Blu-ray Review: 'The GoodTimesKid' and 'Momma's Man,' two early films from Azazel Jacobs
  • Blu-ray Review: Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project No. 3, from the Criterion Collection
  • Blu-ray Review: Pedro Costa reaches new heights with 'Vitalina Varela,' out now from Second Run
  • Blu-ray Review: Jean Renoir's sublime 'Toni,' from the Criterion Collection
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  • The Vision of Buster Keaton
  • Blu-ray Review Round-up: Films by Serge Gainsbourg, Kelly Reichardt, Jim Jarmusch & more!
  • The West of Fritz Lang
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Dusty Somers reviews Blu-ray upgrades of two early films from Azazel Jacobs, NYFF 2020′s closing filmmaker

GoodTimesKid2

Blu-ray Review: ‘The GoodTimesKid’ and ‘Momma’s Man,’ two early films from Azazel Jacobs

On December 13, 2020 By Dusty Somers
Though his early films appeared contemporaneously with the rise of mumblecore, Azazel Jacobs doesn’t really fit into that admittedly tenuously defined scene. Like many of those filmmakers, Jacobs has waded in increasingly mainstream waters as his career has advanced, with his latest, Michelle Pfeiffer-starring French Exit, closing the New York Film Festival this [...]
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SoleilO2

Blu-ray Review: Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 3, from the Criterion Collection

On October 21, 2020 By Dusty Somers
Long live The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, Martin Scorsese’s passion project that has restored more than 40 oft-neglected films from around the world. Same sentiment applies to the Criterion Collection’s steady stream of home video releases of the project’s restorations, including stellar standalone editions of films like Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl or [...]
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Vitalina

Blu-ray Review: Pedro Costa reaches new heights with ‘Vitalina Varela,’ out now from Second Run

On October 1, 2020 By Dusty Somers
Pedro Costa’s films have always been marked by a deep empathy for the humans they depict — characters does not seem like the right word to describe them — and that’s no different in his latest, Vitalina Varela. Among the film’s many virtues is its ability to transfer its heart-in-throat compassion for its [...]
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Toni1

Blu-ray Review: Jean Renoir’s sublime ‘Toni,’ from the Criterion Collection

On August 20, 2020 By Dusty Somers
Toni (1935) represents a departure for Jean Renoir on multiple fronts. Shot largely on location in the south of France, the film looks unlike the filmmaker’s previous studio-bound work. There’s a whisper of similarity to his father’s en plein air method and the idyllic pastoral settings that result. Like A Day in the [...]
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Grant3

Hitchcock and Grant: Darkness Behind the Charm

On August 13, 2020 By Scott T. Rivers
Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant brought out each other’s best attributes in their four collaborations from 1941 to 1959. Hitchcock was the only director who exposed the dark, brooding side of Grant’s suave image, with a sexual tension that somehow evaded the censors. Grant’s presence, in turn, lent a sophistication and elegance [...]
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Keaton6

The Vision of Buster Keaton

On May 15, 2020 By Scott T. Rivers
The inimitable Buster Keaton has been acknowledged by some cinema historians as the master of silent-film comedy — surpassing Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd.  When examining his creativity throughout the 1920s, Keaton was a groundbreaking filmmaker whose somber but determined vision produced an enduring body of work. Keaton’s stoic persona defied mainstream [...]
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thelimitsofcontrol

Blu-ray Review Round-up: Films by Serge Gainsbourg, Kelly Reichardt, Jim Jarmusch & more!

On February 26, 2020 By Dusty Somers
Antonio Gaudí (1984) The Criterion Collection The buildings of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí don’t look constructed. They look evolved. Organically asymmetrical protrusions, supple curving lines, scaly exteriors — all challenging the notion that the human mind and human hands were involved at all in bringing these creations about. Hiroshi Teshigahara’s reverent documentary about [...]
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Union

The West of Fritz Lang

On January 8, 2020 By Scott T. Rivers
“I love westerns [because] they are based on a simple and essential ethical code,” Fritz Lang said in a 1959 Cahiers du Cinema interview.  “The struggle of good against evil is as old as the world.” Lang’s westerns are unique in cinema history.  The Return of Frank James (1940), Western Union (1941) [...]
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Bless Their Little Hearts

Blu-ray and DVD Review Round-Up: Films by Hu Bo, Billy Woodbery, Josef von Sternberg & more!

On December 12, 2019 By Dusty Somers
An Elephant Sitting Still (大象席地而坐, 2019) KimStim It’s impossible even to entertain the notion of separating art from artist while watching Hu Bo’s An Elephant Sitting Still, the feature debut and final film of the Chinese director, who committed suicide shortly after its completion at age 29. In Hu’s elegant, single-minded opus, several [...]
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Lola.jpeg

Blu-ray Review Round-Up: Films by Bob Fosse, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Karel Kachyňa & more!

On September 28, 2019 By Dusty Somers
The Ear (Ucho, 1970) Second Run The personal is political in Karel Kachyňa’s claustrophobic satire, in which the authoritarianism of the Czech Communists is filtered through a long night’s journey into day inside the home of a senior party official. The domestic space isn’t a respite for Ludvik (Radoslav Brzobohatý) and his wife, [...]
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Recent Posts

  • Blu-ray Review: ‘The GoodTimesKid’ and ‘Momma’s Man,’ two early films from Azazel Jacobs
  • Blu-ray Review: Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 3, from the Criterion Collection
  • Blu-ray Review: Pedro Costa reaches new heights with ‘Vitalina Varela,’ out now from Second Run
  • Blu-ray Review: Jean Renoir’s sublime ‘Toni,’ from the Criterion Collection
  • Hitchcock and Grant: Darkness Behind the Charm

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