the Film:

I once had a film professor who argued – almost convincingly – that there is no such thing as a truly bad film. The key to grasping this notion, he argued, was perspective. Maintaining that bad films can often help one in appreciating good films sounded reasonable enough at the time, but this was long before the digital revolution. The digital video camera has ushered in the brave new world of democratically just – and, unavoidably, often nightmarishly amateurish – forays into the medium. It is useful to acknowledge that for every Blair Witch Project there are countless other failed attempts at coherent filmmaking at the micro-budget level. I can only wonder what my past instructor would think of UFO Fever, which is situated so firmly at the bottom of the barrel (somewhat by choice, but mostly by sheer ineptitude) that viewing it becomes nothing less...Read the entire review

the Film:

When Errol Morris' remarkable Mr. Death: the Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. was released in 1999, some were concerned that Leuchter's claims of historical revisionism relative to the Holocaust would somehow be given more validity and a larger platform by proxy. Such sentiments - though understandable - were so unapologetically and inherently condescending as to appear aspiring toward the censorious. Morris' concerns in this "documentary" were not merely to offer a platform and refutation of Leuchter's claims. The man himself, his past vocations, and his all-too-human (and scientifically tinged) hubris were so thematically rich that the film ultimately became an exploration of equally vast, troubling, and timeless human traits, no less worthwhile than the ostensible subjects of capital punishment and historical revisionism. Although it is perhaps more comfort...Read the entire review

NOTE: This review has been published as film criticism for the Cinema Gotham column of DVDTalk as opposed to a traditional DVD review. I have, however, provided star ratings per the usual format.

the Film

"This is a fine American mess." – William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis)

Martin Scorsese has maintained – all but sworn, really - that the 167-minute version of Gangs of New York released in theaters (and now on DVD) is the definitive version that he intended to present. Viewing this spectacular mess of a film with distance from the sturm und drang that accompanied its initial release, Scorsese's comments seem more akin to a politician in the throes of a particularly heated campaign than an artist truly supporting his work. Not only politics makes strange bedfellows – just as Boss Tweed and his nakedly ...Read the entire review

the Film:

A noteworthy and widely discussed film upon its release in 1985, My Beautiful Laundrette attempts - largely successfully - to employ a deeply ambitious social critique with a comedic portrait of familial and cultural discord. Adapted by Hanif Kureishi from his own stage play and centered around an extended Pakistani family living in Thatcher's England, the film has a lot on its mind: the immigrant experience in a newly adopted land; class structure and social mobility; the sometimes cruel, illusory nature of capitalism; romantic desires and entanglements versus familiar expectations, etc. This may seem somewhat daunting at first glance, but My Beautiful Laundrette's wry, knowing observations and matter of fact presentation render it a generally winning, if flawed, experience. Director Stephen Frears, who at that point had worked mostly in British television, p...Read the entire review

the Episode:

Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) is a uniquely talented and seriously disturbed individual. An ex-detective with the San Francisco Police now working as a private consultant, Monk was given a psychological discharge from the force shortly after his wife was killed by a car bomb. He continues to work because of his formidable and restless intellect, which effortlessly synthesizes inductive and deductive logic with common sense and keen observational skills. His reputation also tends to precede him, as street cops (as well as other detectives) view him and his seemingly endless powers with a sense of awe and bewilderment. Monk simply makes solving complicated crimes look too easy.

However, he is also obsessive-compulsive to an alarming degree, and is unable to function well - if at all - on his own. Even during his investigations, his nurse / assistant Sharona (Bitty Sc...Read the entire review

the Episode:

Dick Wolf, the creator and executive producer of the multiple Emmy-award winning Law and Order, told anyone and everyone who would listen that Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit were not spinoffs in the traditional sense. He claimed that although they shared the same parentage, they were separate and unique entities that bore little resemblance to the tried-and-true template of the original. Both Criminal Intent and Special Victims Unitare intelligent, taut police procedurals, and, as Wolf suggests, their similarities to the original end there. Further, each show has successfully – and admirably – met respectable degrees of success based solely on their own terms.

Criminal Intent's detectives are aligned with the Major...Read the entire review

the Episode:

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit established itself quickly and intelligently as its own entity, separate and distinct from its famous namesake. Originally conceived as the series Sex Crimes – and unaffiliated with the Law and Order franchise – it ultimately made its way to Dick Wolf, had its name changed, and began its (thus far) successful run. Inspired by its real life counterpoint in New York City and the surrounding boroughs, Special Victims Unit concerns itself with sexually based offenses and, accordingly, consistently finds itself in dark, troubling territory. It also handles such potentially gratuitous (and distasteful) subject matter with a restraint and aplomb that is rare in the current U.S. television climate.

Special Victims Unit is, essentially, an ensemble piece, although its narrative is normally centered aroun...Read the entire review

the Film:

When the Criterion rumor mill began speculating as to the eventual inclusion of films by Alain Resnais, I presumed that the "documentary" Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard) would be included as an excellent extra feature for Hiroshima mon amour or Last Year at Marienbad. Ever full of surprises, Criterion commendably decided to release it as a stand-alone feature. Moreover, in an unprecedented move, they adjusted their otherwise fixed pricing scale to reflect its short duration of just over thirty minutes. Previously available on DVD in Short #3: Authority, Night and Fog's release by Criterion boasts an improvement in video and audio quality and features a few interesting and valuable extras.

The term "documentary" has always been a troublesome, amorphous one, and as P...Read the entire review

the Film:

Hiroshima mon amour is often described as a love story concerning an ephemeral affair between an unnamed French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and an unnamed Japanese architect (Eiji Okada). I have always preferred viewing it as a character study of a melancholy and disturbed woman attempting to come to terms with her troubled past via shifting, subjective memory. Regardless, any attempt to categorize this challenging, deeply felt film in a summary fashion will ultimately prove futile. Hiroshima mon amour is many things to many people: a staggeringly pretentious / utterly ambitious art film that has bored / invigorated many cinema and philosophy students over the decades; a brilliant evocation of time and memory more akin to literature than traditional cinema; a metaphoric, almost abstract representation of the horror and guilt of war as filtered through an intense...Read the entire review

NOTE: The "skip it" rating for this release is based solely upon the transfer TVA elected to utilize for this "Limited Soundtrack Edition," which is truly a shame - with a better transfer, this could have been the definitive version of the film on DVD.

the Film:

There are many moments in The Pianist that register indelibly: a shot of a little girl, alone and scared, at a gathering depot; a dazed walk down a street littered with human remains; bricks accidentally falling from a construction site; a pistol running out of ammunition, perhaps suggesting a respite from its brutal function; the horrific murder of a man in a wheelchair. An otherworldly sequence follows the perspective of Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) as he moves over a wall to survey his ghetto surroundings, now utterly decimated – although presented in a straightforward manner, it achieves a wholly sur...Read the entire review

the Film:

Barry: I'm looking at your face and I just want to smash it. I just want to ****ing smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty.

Lena: I want to chew your face, and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them. Chew on them and suck on them.

Barry: Okay. This is funny. This is nice.

Last fall, when I would attempt to defend - or sell - my admiration for writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson's latest feature Punch-Drunk Love, I decided to use the above exchange as a litmus test of sorts. A typical "what the...?" reaction is certainly in order, but there are two distinctly different "what the...?" reactions to be had: for one, there is the arched eyebrow, smirking one, amused and curious; the other is exasperated and confused, perhaps even indignant. If your reaction is the former, and you can intui...Read the entire review

the Series:The box. The board. Red balls. Adena Watson. If the preceding makes immediate sense to you, then you're likely a fan of Homicide: Life on the Street, the critically beloved (it won a remarkable three Peabody Awards during its run) police drama that was under the constant threat of cancellation during its seven-season run on NBC. Case in point: although it premiered in the highly coveted post-Super Bowl slot in 1993, Homicide's first season consisted of only nine episodes; its second season consisted of merely four, due to immediately disappointing ratings. The release of the first two seasons on DVD is certainly great news for fans of the show. It's also good news for those previously unacquainted, as Homicide: Life on the Street remains one of the finest network programs of the nineties (certainly during its initial seasons), and one ...Read the entire review

the Film:

My knowledge of traditional bluegrass music is something short of wide ranging, but my knowledge of traditional Celtic music isn't, so it was with great anticipation that I viewed The Chieftains / Down the Old Plank Road: the Nashville Sessions in Concert. Recorded at the historic Ryman Auditorium in September of 2002, Down the Old Plank Road unites the Chieftains with a who's who of current bluegrass, country, and folk music in a celebration of the complimentary genres. Since the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack proved such a surprise hit - and helped traditional country, folk, and bluegrass cross traditional listening lines in the United States and elsewhere - Down the Old Plank Road further helps the cause, as it were, for both bluegrass proper and traditional Celtic music. And with the Chieftains and company acting as ambassadors, it's n...Read the entire review

the Film:

Considered by many to be Robert Flaherty's greatest film, Louisiana Story (1948) underwent a collaborative restoration in 1998 by the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, and UCLA Film and Television Archives. Written by Flaherty and his wife Frances, and beautifully shot by cinematographer Richard Leacock, Louisiana Story is also listed in the National Film Registry and placed in the top 10 of the 1952 Sight and Sound International Critics Poll of the best films ever made. Now presented in a similarly extra-packed DVD edition as his Man of Aran by Home Vision Entertainment, Flaherty's Louisiana Story is presented in all of its spectacular – and ridiculous – glory.

The controversies that surrounded Flaherty throughout his career also followed him to Louisiana StoryRead the entire review

the Film:

Much has been made about some of the kinkier shenanigans on display (and expressed verbally) in Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon, his acid-black comedy of 1992 based upon the novel Lunes de Fiel by Pascal Bruckner, and I think that has always done the film a distinct disservice. This is not to suggest that the kinkiness is inconsequential to the story being told – indeed, one of the film's main themes is the extent to which white-hot romance can reasonably be expected to continue, and the ends to which some will go in an attempt to reinforce it as it inevitably wanes. Rather, I think some of the darker elements lurking below the surface have always been either overlooked or misunderstood (or perhaps just understood differently by me, anyway) by the gleeful – and alternately somber – perversity. Bitter Moon is, I think, still one of the most percepti...Read the entire review

the Film:

While viewing the Man of Aran, I could not help but think of Hobbes' comment about life often being "solitary, nasty, brutish and short." When "documentarian" Robert Flaherty traveled to the three harsh, barren Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland to shoot for a period of two years, he knew full well that the inhospitable landscape and laborious manner of life were perfectly suited to his particular brand of filmmaking. The result, Man of Aran (1934), has been given a wonderful, extra-laden release by Home Vision, along with the separate release of his perhaps even more celebrated Louisiana Story(1948). This DVD not only presents his spectacular rendering of "everyday" life there, but also provides a great deal of material which debunks – and adds context to – the "myth" of Aran tha...Read the entire review

the Film:

I have always admired directors that have "dared" to take on Shakespeare in an attempt to render films that are as recognizable to the original work(s) as they are to their own particular concerns. My main reasons are thus: for one, it tends to annoy purists in the academe and others in positions of cultural influence who believe that any addition, deletion, liberty taken, etc., is somehow anathema to the "purity" of the work; and, perhaps more importantly, because the results can be – and often are – so completely stunning. Even if not altogether successful, the films are usually (if not always) interesting. Since Shakespeare's collected works so successfully encompass all of the joys, foibles, tragedies, follies, etc., of human existence, they are never truly in jeopardy of being usurped by another's imprint - they are ultimately resilient. However, in the rig...Read the entire review

The Film:

Having spent a few decades of my life residing in northern New Jersey, I was a bit hesitant in approaching HBO's production of Hysterical Blindness, starring Uma Thurman, Juliette Lewis, Gena Rowlands, and Ben Gazzara. Representations of the "Garden State" vary wildly in American popular culture (and usually veer toward the negative), and the idea of watching a film chiefly concerned with two "big hairs" in late eighties Bayonne was enough to make me shudder. (I should qualify this by stating that this was not only because of potentially lazy and garish stereotyping – since I lived through that particular era in northern New Jersey, I possessed virtually no desire to return to it, even from the relatively safe distance of my living room in New York.) Resolutely inserting the DVD into my player, I was subsequently pleased to discover that not only does the film act ...Read the entire review

The Film:

The name Jack Nance (née Marvin John Nance) will be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with the decidedly odd universe of David Lynch. A character actor who never found the levels of success when venturing outside of that universe as he did within it, Nance created indelible roles in most of Lynch's films. His most celebrated must be Eraserhead, in which Nance played Henry, a man plagued by anxiety and a singularly bizarre haircut. He also appeared in Lynch's Dune, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, and – perhaps most memorably – as Pete Martell in the television series Twin Peaks, wherein he spoke the immortal lines regarding Laura Palmer in characteristically inimitable fashion: "She's dead...wrapped in plastic." (My personal favorite from Twin Peaks is his curiously detached intonation of "two by four...Read the entire review