Lolita Starring James Mason, Peter Sellers, Sue Lyon, Shelley Winters Written by Vladimir Nabokov and Stanley Kubrick Photographed by Oswald Morris and Gil Taylor (title sequence) Directed by Stanley Kubrick The headline was inescapable; “How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?” Thanks to the persistence of the Hollywood hype machine, the paying public…
ODDITY – Writer/director Damian McCarthy’s film is a more straightforward entertainment than his previous movie, Caveat, but they both share his own distinctive, off-kilter style. One night, while alone in the country house she and her husband Ted are renovating, Dani is murdered. One of Ted’s psychiatric patients is blamed for it and is later…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, we look at three comedies that see the world through a slightly damaged lens. Our trio of movies this week deals with black humor. That’s not like “black jobs.” See Donald…
Wim Wenders’ tale of one man’s attainment of personal harmony is halfway between documentary and drama, with a strong dose of clear-headed philosophy. A focus on a Tokyo toilet attendant becomes a positive, life-affirming meditation on coping with the modern world’s false goals and confining ‘lifestyle demands.’ The star Kôji Yakusho won a Best Actor…
Enjoy one of Jean-Pierre Melville’s finest, remastered on 4K and looking good. It’s a complicated story of thieves betraying thieves, the wrinkle being the contrast between weary ex-con Serge Reggiani and the slickest of slicksters, Jean-Paul Belmondo. ‘Doulos’ is slang for ‘informer,’ but Belmondo appears to be engaged in a massive con job, framing his…
One of the most accomplished Czech fantasies comes to Blu-ray — nostalgic pulp fiction set in 1900 Prague. Yankee detective Nick Carter finds himself in a life & death struggle against his old arch-nemesis ‘The Gardener,’ the seductive femme fatale Irma, and a monstrous carnivorous plant with the fearsome name Adéla. Cartoonish inventions and weird…
Fans of westerns will love Robert Benton’s takedown of wild west mythmaking: Civil War draft evaders Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown learn the hard lessons of frontier outlawry, scavenging their way across Kansas and falling prey to established outlaws. The experience could be called character-building, except for the part about starvation and getting one’s head…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week we pair wines with some vintage classics from the era of Eisenhower, ducktails and fender fins, the fabulous 1950s. Okay, so Far from Heaven isn’t from the fabulous ‘50s, but the…
It’s a paranoid murder thriller without shoot-outs or car chases. The ‘we’ administer an entirely corrupt system of law and justice that has held for hundreds of years. And heaven help those that rock the boat. Gian Maria Volontè’s academic seeks the truth about his two slain friends, but is distracted by his attraction to…
