Chaplin’s 1931 masterwork City Lights opens, appropriately enough, with a title card labeling it a “Comedy Romance in Pantomime,” a distinction that extols its status as a silent picture in an era fastly falling smitten with diegetic sound. But the word “pantomime,” naturally, c... Read More »
Criterion continues its marvelous series of Charlie Chaplin Blu-Ray releases with a new edition of Charlie Chaplin's understated masterpiece, City Lights. In defiance of the popularity of talking pictures at the time of its release, City Lights stands out as definitive proof of ... Read More »
If Abrams’ copious lens flares and Chris Pine’s distractingly dazzling yet somewhat unearthly blue eyes aren’t visually assaulting the audience, they are lavished with consistent beauty and finesse brought to the screen by advanced high resolution IMAX cameras employed by a creat... Read More »
Chasing Ice is in its most basic form an environmental documentary, a man with a plan ready to educate the general public about the speed and immediacy of global warming in a medium everybody understands – photography. Sounds self-righteous and preachy? Well it isn’t. Read More »
The Iceman is a film suited to Michael Shannon’s sensibilities as a man who masks hidden rage better than any other modern actor. It is the true story of Richard Kuklinski, a hit man for the mob who ultimately killed dozens and dozens of people while managing to carry on a famil... Read More »
The Canadian DVD release of the Studio Ghibli animation feature From Up On Poppy Hill follows the recent announcement that the studio’s co-founder and established animation director Hayao Miyazaki is in full retirement. His eleventh film The Wind Rises premiered in competition a... Read More »
There is huge irony in the film’s title, ‘Now You See Me’ and this is that the film disguises itself in an alluring and seductive trailer that promises to amaze and astound through intelligent and thoughtful storytelling, then ultimately delivers a mediocre and far from magical c... Read More »
Baz Lurhmann’s take on the definitive American novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald is yet another addition to the ever growing collection of The Great Gatsby book-to-film adaptations that now warrants its own genre due to the multitude of motion pictures inspired by the novel. However, ... Read More »
Olympus Has Fallen is a train wreck. Rushed to premiere in March, well ahead of the film that essentially birthed it (the superior-in-every-way White House Down), this film is all sloppy construction without purpose from beginning to end. We open with top Secret Service agent G... Read More »
It is difficult to provide a detailed synopsis of Trance that doesn't give away at least some of the plot points so I will be as vague as I need to be. The story we are first introduced to is one of an art heist devised by auctioneer Simon (James McAvoy) as a way of clearing his ... Read More »
The Mississippi River undulates toward us, the surprisingly lush Arkansas banks directing us, against this current, to infinite open water. Dawn’s fog has yet lifted. It tints this narrows the blue of ghosts. Mud is a film of the unwritten, of how any number of things and tales c... Read More »
