HEROES: CLEESE, GILLIAM, IDLE, JONES, PALIN and THE MEANING OF MONTY PYTHON (2013); plus THOUGHTS ON ALEX WINTER’S ZAPPA (2020) As reunions of great collaborators go, it must be one of the least hyperbolic in pop culture history. In 2013, the five surviving members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus—John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry…

The Irishman Blu ray  Criterion 2019 / 209 Min. / 1:85.1 Starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino Cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto Directed by Martin Scorsese Brotherhood, betrayal, bloodshed… memories are made of this. And these days memories are Frank Sheeran’s only companions. He was a man who engaged in crimes at the behest…

  John Schlesinger’s adaptation of Nathanael West’s novel is one of the best ‘Hollywood on Hollywood’ pictures ever, even if it soaks everything about The Golden Age of Tinseltown in an acid bath of cynicism. The perverse dystopia of dreams and vice is beautifully rendered in every respect, and culminates in a finale that caught…