Reviews of new releases from Arrow Video, The Criterion Collection, Flicker Alley, Kino Lorber, Milestone Films, and more.
Of all Shakespeare’s plays, few hold fascination with artists and audiences quite like The Tragedie of Macbeth. Romeo and Juliet has the romance and Hamlet has the speech, but Macbeth—first published in 1623—is filled with control, corruption, and comeuppance. There’s … Continue reading MACBETH
Something must have been in the water in 1960. All around the world, filmmakers, either at the beginning, middle, or the end of their careers, swung for the fences. In Japan, Akira Kurosawa spun Shakespeare’s Hamlet into a corporate thriller with … Continue reading PEEPING TOM
Some people have all the luck, but Jabez Stone is not some people. He’s a New Hampshire farmer with little more to show than the mortgage he owes Miser Stevens. And he’s not the only one: All the farmers in … Continue reading ALL THAT MONEY CAN BUY
Eddie Bartlett is a victim of circumstance. He enlisted and fought in the War to End All Wars and figured his job, his life, and his room would be waiting for him when he returned. Eddie was wrong. Then, he … Continue reading THE ROARING TWENTIES
She doesn’t ride into town; she walks, dragging her baggage along with her. She has a name she’ll change and a past she can’t. So opens Maggie Greenwald’s The Ballad of Little Jo, a 1993 western that feels less like a … Continue reading THE BALLAD OF LITTLE JO
A skull has turned up in the desert along the Texas-Mexico border, and near it lies a sheriff’s badge. So opens John Sayles’ 1996 Lone Star—newly restored and available on home video from The Criterion Collection—a magnificently constructed story combining history, … Continue reading LONE STAR
It begins with a birth and ends with a death. In between, a hired gun wanders the streets of Manhattan alone on Christmas while a voice in his head—not his voice—prattles on. The voice refers to him as “you,” “your,” … Continue reading BLAST OF SILENCE
When Martin Scorsese sat down with friend and classmate Mardik Martin to pen Season of the Witch—later rechristened Mean Streets—he hardly thought he was changing how movies would look and move. The kid who grew up on Elizabeth Street in … Continue reading MEAN STREETS
The twisting begins before we even meet the hero. A Union soldier makes his way through the carnage of a battle. Confederate bodies litter the ground, and a Yankee survivor plunders them for gold teeth and various effects. Then he … Continue reading A BULLET FOR SANDOVAL
Michael J. Cinema 
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