In its own way, the film is just as stylized a take on the crime genre as something like Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy.
Unlike most action films, Mission: Impossible’s distinct appeal operates not so much on suspense but on improbability.
The film is an exemplum of Jean Renoir’s skill at linking narratives of complex human beings to progressive sociopolitical readings.
However you slice up postwar Japanese cinema, Shohei Imamura is one of its premiere figures.
Like most great westerns, Dead Man holds the American West and its (white) inhabitants up to close scrutiny.
For Bresson fans, this DVD edition of the film is as good as it gets for now at least.
One could say that the film is about nothing more than the clanging of armor or the movements of legs.
The film organizes its space within a nodal web of slightly claustrophobic locations, always shrouded in fog or cigarette smoke.
Win Blu-rays of Shanghai Triad and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Season 2 and DVDs of Satan’s Slaves