My head's been consumed the art of movies & its creation ever since I was old enough to know what the word 'consumed' meant. The only way to reduce the pressure buildup is to write, edit, and direct. Chocolate milk also helps.
My first trip to space, on Criterions’ dime, takes me all the way to Mars. But it’s not the traditional sense of Mars you and I are quite used to. It’s something different, and it’s pulling me. Robinson Crusoe on Mars tells the story of two astronauts named “Kit” Draper (Paul Mantee) and Dan MacReady (a really young Adam West)
It’s been four years since we were introduced to Hiccup and Toothless, the two behind perhaps the greatest tale about a boy and his dragon. In How to Train Your Dragon, the two of the overcame insurmountable odds to convince their village and humans and dragons could co-exist in harmony instead of fighting each other. Now, in …
Before I even know where I’m going next on my Criterion journey, I find myself driving in the desert, in a red top convertible. And I hear screeching in the sky. My god…I’m in bat country. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, from beloved writer and doctor of gonzo journalism Hunter S. Thompson, tells …
New York, present time(ish) is my next stop for my journey through the Criterion catalog. I decided I wanted something immensely upbeat this time, and just like the run time of my newest title Frances Ha (85 minutes), my visit was brief, but rewarding. The newest film from writer/director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale…
Goldberg and Eisenberg, the title characters of this romp, are the definition of mismatched, although they never should have been matched to begin with. Goldberg (Yitzhak Laor) is a lonely computer programmer, a dog lover, and he’s looking for love, although he’s not very subtle about it. He asks girl and girl out, even married ones, and…
This is not the first time the moral dilemma of intention vs. quality has come up here on this site for me. I highly doubt this will be the last time. I really don’t like when it has to become an issue. But it is what it is, and in the case of the documentary known as Nana, George and Me, it’s an unwatchable mess…
After being thrown around in the sea, I finally lay my hand on an island, seemingly deserted. My journey through Criterion’s treasures has now taken me to familiar territory. In a sense. I’m in the land of the Lord of the Flies. Peter Brook wrote and directed this first cinematic adaptation of William…
It must have been the cheers that come with a big city. Usually the sounds of joy attract me. But since I was walking the path that’s been laid out by the Criterion catalog, I figured it could be anything that brought me to Germany. The mysterious fog had lifted, long enough for me to see…nothing.
It was like a ghost town. Streets, shops and playgrounds that would have housed happy people and their children now brought to an eerie vibe of nothingness. It was the aftermath of a horrific event. This German town had just seen hell. The evidence was posted up on a street pole.
The Battery tells the story of Mickey (Adam Cronheim) and Ben (Jeremy Gardner, who also wrote & directed), two baseball players who saw their careers get cut due to something known as the zombie apocalypse. The start of the film already sees the duo doing what they can to survive, whether it’s playing loud music through a giant pair of headphones to drown out the madness, or fishing just to find some peace. While raiding an empty house, they discover some decently working walkie talkies, and that in turn leads to the discovery of a possible sanctuary. The two argue about whether or not they should try to find the place, but first they have to deal with the world around them. A world that now has complete control of their fate…
Leaving behind one of Japan’s greatest gifts was hard to do, for my first stop on my new journey through the Criterion collection. As I walk on my path, I start to get the feeling I might be back in my home country of North America. Turns out I’m in Chicago, in an empty basketball court. It’s worn down. The nets a barely there; maybe a few strands are left on the orange hooks. A lot of dreams were gained here. Also, a lot of punishment, and defeat. It was all around me. This is just one of the settings for one of the most acclaimed documentaries of all time, Hoop Dreams.
The mid-90’s was my time of development, so watching acclaimed documentarian Steve James (The Interrupters) capture the that time was an ultimate sort of flashback. Now I didn’t have the upbringing that the two subjects here had, but that wasn’t going to stop James and his cameras obsessed for the story. Said story, both in front and behind said cameras, is severely attractive. This was originally meant to be a 30-minute segment for PBS, but apparently James and his crew couldn’t stop. Thank god. What started as a summer assignment turned into a five-year fascination into a great unknown. Whether they liked it or not, Arthur Agee and William Gates were about to have their lives turned every which way.