They say You Can’t Go Homer again, but it’s no problem making a slam-bang fantasy Iliad tuned to the star chemistry of Brad Pitt and the new (in 2003) ability to fill the screen with thousands of Greeks battling with sword ‘n’ shield. David Benioff’s script is intelligent and the dialogue isn’t bad; Pitt swings…
Is it surreal, or psychedelic? The source novel dates from 1813. This mind-blowing exercise in narrative puzzle-making is a classic with unique qualities, and its Polish director Wojciech Has is a genius. Investigating a strange book found on a Spanish battlefield, soldier Zbigniew Cybulski is plunged into a fantasy vs reality labyrinth that darn near…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, our films center on battlefields of one type or another. After the fight, a wine pairing for each. The Battle of Algiers is a 1966 Italian-Algerian film, co-written and directed by…
At the peak of the style called film noir are a few classics that approach perfection, and Jacques Tourneur’s supremely poetic film is certainly in the top ten. Daniel Mainwaring’s pulp novel has plenty of macabre twists but the adaptation benefits from the electric charge generated by Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer. Her fugitive is…
Two decades later, this daring documentary is still the only authoritative reportage on a near-taboo subject: the gross and gory graphic auto accident movies once shown to high schoolers with the idea of scaring them into driving more safely. Filmmaker Bret Wood has reconstructed and partly revised the docu, which tells the full story of…
Hud 1963 – 112 min. – 2.35:1 Criterion – 4K Blu-ray Starring Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Brandon de Wilde, Patricia Neal Written by Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank Jr. Directed by Martin Ritt Much of the glamour of Western movies lies in their lack of glamour. Often filmed in black and white against some of America’s…
Paul Morrissey wrote and directed this sprawling, comic/serious neighborhood saga that scrambles ethnic identities, lopsided honor codes and the twisted ‘normality’ of mob rule in the borough of Brooklyn. Do we like our hero Spike? He’s an arrogant, entitled Italian-American, macho to the core. He impregnates both of his girlfriends, Maria Pitillo and Talisa Soto….
I saw this film in a theater, and two women were sitting next to me. During the credits, one asked the other, with a hopeful tone, what she thought of the movie. The recipient of the question answered it, as if somewhat amazed that her response wouldn’t be obvious: “I don’t like films about children…
Trailers From Hell Guru Allan Arkush’s The Last Reel video essay series preps a scrumptious cinematic meal! Get ready for Dinner and a Movie with Ernst — Lubitsch, that is! In this Last Reel, Allan hopes to explain why Ernst Lubitsch ranks among Allan’s all-time top five directors. Allan saw To Be or Not To…
