Class Dismissed: Revisiting Losey and Pinter’s Misunderstood Masterpiece, The Servant
They also serve who only stand and annihilate
Category: Movies
O Bruder, Where Art Thou? The 8th European Union Film Festival (Chicago)
Doing the Continental
Losing Liam: On Ken Loach’s Realist Masterpiece, Sweet Sixteen
The best British film of its time?
African American · DVD & Blu-ray · Music & Musicals
The Good, the Bad, and the Disingenuous: Jazz on DVD
You get what you pay for, if you’re lucky
Quickies: Random Short Reviews from Angel Blue to Ruan Lingyu to The Toilers and the Wayfarers
“Here’s to lost beauty. May it always be nearby with the potential to keep you warm.”
Maybe Next Year: Slim Pickings at Berlinale 2005
When good ideas go wrong
Distribute This! Blast of Silence (Allen Baron, 1961, U.S.A.)
This missing noir masterpiece enters the canon in first place
Baby, Take a Bow: That’s Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood continues to surprise and thrill
Quickies: Random Short Reviews from Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean to The Witch Who Came from the Sea
“God made us all perfect, truly he did!”
The Aviator: Marty and Leo Do Howard
It all started when his mother washed his balls
Directors · Drama · DVD & Blu-ray · Experimental & Underground · Reviews
Doing What Moves Them at the Moment: Five of Cassavetes’ Best on DVD
The master of improv gets his due courtesy of Criterion’s extras-laden box set
Theda Bara’s Eyes: The 40th Chicago International Film Festival, Part 2
Angelopoulos to Zhu: “This is an artistic film. You wouldn’t like it.”
No Cellos, Please, I’m American: Mike Nichols’ Closer Is Haute Merde
All glitz and no guts
Drama · Historical & Epic · Reviews
Plumbing the Depths: Renoir and Kurosawa Do Gorky
Criterion’s double-feature DVD features two minor works by two major auteurs
In the Realm of Natural Transcendence: Emir Kusturica’s Life Is a Miracle
Out of the pastoral
Sideways: Sideways to Hell, Maybe!
Alexander Payne’s new indie is headed in the wrong direction
Mike Leigh’s 20th Century Snaps: Vera Drake and Naked
Two sides of the same desperate coin
Unhappy Together: Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046
“Why can’t it be like before?”
Body and Soul: Bresson’s A Man Escaped and Lancelot of the Lake on DVD
Death, destruction, and … hope
DVD & Blu-ray · Music & Musicals
Shocking Times: Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue on DVD
While the counterculture turns on, Miles plugs in with startling results
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