Russell proposes that there may be no real barrier between the caustic worldview he wears and the sense of childlike wonder he sells.
What pushes the film, at long last, into the icy river, is its very design, as a monument to slick, mercenary grandeur.
The filmmaker discusses cinephilia, cinema technique, and the deceptive simplicity of Carol’s romantic pas de deux.
It will stress you out, but it won’t leave you in a fetal position. Compared to most of his filmography, this is “happy Haneke.”
Frederick Wiseman’s documentary grasps the powerful distinction between a neighborhood and a community.
To hear him speak about his process and his professionalism, you wouldn’t think he’d skipped a beat since Flight of the Red Balloon.
In order to make the walk, and in order for it to matter to him, Philippe Petit has to comprehend it as real and impossible.
The film goes in for the idea of texture, tics, and human behavior, but there’s no conviction, and no real push for eccentricity.
Stillman’s “urban haute bourgeoisie” are redeemed because the filmmaker takes custody of them, their idiosyncrasies, their flaws.
Criterion’s Blu-ray release goes lean on supplemental material, but rewards with stellar picture and sound presentation.
Writer-director Paul Harrill’s Something, Anything turns what at first appears as Kodak moments into a study of a soul in transition.
We may try to make the old things new, but we had one Ernst Lubitsch, he’s long gone, and we aren’t getting another one.
One may feel mildly insulted by the presumptuous attitude the film seems to choose as it sends us on our way.
As funny and batshit insane as the movie often is, the fact that 22 Jump Street knows it’s a tiresome sequel doesn’t save it from being a tiresome sequel.
A good platter for a great, underappreciated classic of British cinema—light on supplements but strong in presentation.
Not a big job but glowing with Criterion’s imperial sheen and resplendent sound mix. Maybe the less said the better?
Verbinski’s real purdy (and genuinely entertaining) big-budget western has been snuck out on video under cover of darkness.
A staple of Mr. and Mrs. America’s home-video library graduates effortlessly into the HD era.
Almost reflexively declared to be one of the greatest films of all time, City Lights arrives on Blu-ray with modest accompaniment.
The film plumbs enormous tension by resisting precisely the kind of sensationalism that seems to be the siren’s call for this kind of story.