Reviews

The DVD Wrapup: Cold War, Betty Blue, Official Secrets, Demons, Olivia, American Dreamer, Land of Yik Yak

Cold War: Criterion Collection: Blu-ray Betty Blue: Criterion Collection: Blu-ray Although Paweł Pawlikowski’s highly personal Cold War (2018) could have been set in any number of Eastern European countries, during the first 15 years of the post-war era, the hint in the director’s surname tells us that most of the film, at least, takes place…

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The DVD Wrapup: After the Wedding, Buñuel in the Labyrinth, Bliss, Nuke ’Em High Redux, Tel Aviv on Fire, They Are We, Hitchhikers, Far Country, Popstar, Truth … More

After the Wedding: Blu-ray In 2007, After the Wedding became the first Danish film in 16 years to be nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar. The competition that year —  The Lives of Others, Days of Glory, Water, Pan’s Labyrinth – was typically intense and Suzanne Bier and co-writer Anders Thomas Jensen’s drama lost…

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The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls’ Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

Ophelia: Blu-ray Shakespearian purists may not appreciate the liberties taken by director Claire McCarthy (The Waiting City) and screenwriter Semi Chellas (“Mad Men”) in their portrayal of one of the Bard’s most enduring and enigmatic characters, but there’s no denying Ophelia’s many sensory pleasures. Set inside and around the medieval Křivoklát Castle, in the central…

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The DVD Wrapup: Lion King, Sisters of Wilderness, My Son, Martin Guerre, Jirga, Horror Guide Part II, Harmonia, Bunuel’s Susana … More

Visually, Favreau admits to being influenced by Julie Taymor’s transcendent stage adaptation of The Lion King. … The things that fooled me, however, were the lifelike appearance, personalities and movement of the hyper-realistic animals.

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Holiday Horror Gift Guide: Midsommar, NEKRomantik, Malvolence, Hill House, Killer Sofa, Devil’s Revenge, Killer Nun, Drone, China Beach, MSTK3 … More

For most of its 147-minute length, Midsommar more closely resembles “Brigadoon” than such classics as The Wicker Man or The Last House on the Left, to which Aster also owes a debt of gratitude.

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The DVD Wrapup: Toy Story 4, Wedding Guest, Genius Party, Family, Ice King, Ulysses and Mona, 900 Days, At War, Toys Not For Children, Peeps … More

If it sometimes appeared as if ‘TS4’ snuck up on the media … kids were fully cognizant of the fact that the animated characters play a more essential role in a series’ success than actors who voice them.

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The DVD Wrapup: Quiet One, Maiden, Itsy Bitsy, Killer Croc, Silent Revolution, Light of My Life, Spare a Dime?, Wax Mask, Prey, Aftermath, Sesame Street … More

If Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones ever decide to make a feature-length encore for “Detectorists,” I’d love to see Wyman in a cameo with his patented metal detector.

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The DVD Wrapup: The Circus, J.C.’s Vampires, Bucket of Blood, Tracker, Black String, Major/Minor, Find Me Guilty, Pitching In … More

It not only represents the last film Charles Chaplin made during the silent era, but also the least heralded and most troubled of his masterpieces. Its production was so traumatic, in fact, that Chaplin left it out of his autobiography.

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The DVD Wrapup: Country Music, Cassandro, Hana & Alice, Hesburgh, Bottom of 9th, Chicago Cab, Socrates, Intimacy, Noir Archive III, In the Aisles, Midsomer … More

The wonderfully nostalgic, exhaustively researched, historically relevant and brilliantly produced series is broken into eight episodes, representing overlapping periods in the evolution of the genre …

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The DVD Wrapup: JW3, Aladdin 4K, Third Wife, Daybreakers, Echo in the Canyon, Rabbi Jacob, Lock Up, Mayday … More

Even though Keanu Reeves deserves much of the credit for the series’ continuing success, there’s something else going on here.

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The DVD Wrapup: Rocketman, Last Black Man, Tasteless, Pixelia, Cruising, Handkerchiefs, Kiarostami, Ozu, More Manson, Planets, Straight Forward … More

A possible three-peat for rock biopics could have the same effect on the Oscar-cast’s slumping ratings as a bona-fide Triple Crown contender has on ratings for the Belmont Stakes.

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The DVD Wrapup: All Is True, Patrick Swayze, Harder They Come, Aniara, Alice Guy-Blache, Akio Jissoji, Orcas, Ronja, Walking Dead … More

I wonder how many of the teenagers who dug ‘Romeo + Juliet’ and ‘O’ in theaters or on video enrolled in Shakespeare courses in college and went on to support local theater companies.

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The DVD Wrapup: Endgame, White Crow, Vault, Trial by Fire, Shiraz, Keaton, Rafiki, Damned Summer, Anti-Nowhere League. … More

By bringing back hundreds of Marvel characters, actors and voicing talent – from Dr. Stephen Strange and Spider-Man, to Nick Fury and Groot – ‘Endgame’ effectively serves as a monumental memorial to franchise co-creator Stan Lee, who died last November, at 95.

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The DVD Wrapup: Charlie Says, Reflecting Skin, Girl in the Fog, Souvenir, Girls of the Sun, Deep Space Nine, Sweet Alice, Penguin Highway, Jamestown, Patrick Melrose … More

The motivations behind such slaughter remain unfathomable. It was a freakish occurrence in the Season of the Witch … far less portentous than the current wave of massacres at Walmarts, schools and garlic festivals.

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The DVD Wrapup: Long Shot, Mountain Rest, Brighton Rock, Wildland, Ayiti Mon Amour, Hammer, Leopard Man, Woodstock, Manhunt and more

The filmmakers took an unlikely, illogical and intermittently off-putting concept and delivered a commercial comedy that should have done better at the domestic and international box office than barely break even.

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The DVD Wrapup: Ash Is Purest White, Fast Color, Dogman, High Life, Space 1999, Big Bad Fox, Fassbinder’s BRD, Klute, Baker’s Wife, Noir Archive, Master Z, Keaton 2, Hellboy 4K … More

Qiao’s pursuit takes her on a ferryboat ride down a scenic stretch of the Yangtze River, to a city that soon will be swallowed by the rising waters behind the Three Gorges Dam. Millions of people will be displaced to feed the country’s insatiable appetite for electrical power.

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The DVD Wrapup: Facets, Eliana, Moullet, Pet Sematary, The Loveless, Transit, Kanarie, Escape Plan 3, Island Earth, Tough Ones, Pretenders, Broad City … More

In 1978, the odds of Facets succeeding against the Goliaths were roughly the same as the Cubs making the World Series. Both persevered, however.

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The DVD Wrapup: War & Peace, Heiresses, Styx, Maze, Felix Austria, Winter Passage, Fatso, Horror, 24-Hour Party People, FM, Cavett’s Baseball Heroes … More

The USSR must have been pretty flush, if it could afford to send ballistic missiles to Cuba and greenlight one of the most expensive movie epics of all time … anywhere.

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The DVD Wrapup: Slaughterhouse Rulez, Silver Lake, Dark Sense, Swing Kids, Cherry Grove, Karloff/Lugosi, Running Man, Between the Lines, Crypto … More

What begins as a darkish teen comedy, set in an elite British boarding school, makes an abrupt midcourse correction by adding monsters, a corrupt dean and fracking, of all things.

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The DVD Wrapup: Michelin Stars, Captain Marvel, Sower, Cielo, Frank in Palm Springs, Swing Time, Can’t Stop the Music, Entity, Blood … More

Although professional sports may have next to nothing to do with haute cuisine and fine dining experiences, the awarding of a Michelin Star to a world-class restaurant may be as significant as any trophy … OK, there’s the Oscars.

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Reviews

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

rohit aggarwal on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

https://bestwatches.club/ on: The DVD Wrapup: Diamonds of the Night, School of Life, Red Room, Witch/Hagazussa, Tito & the Birds, Keoma, Andre’s Gospel, Noir

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Sleep With Anger, Ralph Wrecks Internet, Liz & Blue Bird, Hannah Grace, Unseen, Jupiter's Moon, Legally Blonde, Willard, Bang … More

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

GDA on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

Larry K on: The DVD Wrapup: Sleep With Anger, Ralph Wrecks Internet, Liz & Blue Bird, Hannah Grace, Unseen, Jupiter's Moon, Legally Blonde, Willard, Bang … More

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Shoplifters, Front Runner, Nobody’s Fool, Peppermint Soda, Haunted Hospital, Valentine, Possum, Mermaid, Guilty, Antonio Lopez, 4 Weddings … More

gwehan on: The DVD Wrapup: Shoplifters, Front Runner, Nobody’s Fool, Peppermint Soda, Haunted Hospital, Valentine, Possum, Mermaid, Guilty, Antonio Lopez, 4 Weddings … More

Gary J Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Peppermint, Wild Boys, Un Traductor, Await Instructions, Lizzie, Coby, Afghan Love Story, Elizabeth Harvest, Brutal, Holiday Horror, Sound & Fury … More

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon