Reviews of new releases from Arrow Video, The Criterion Collection, Flicker Alley, Kino Lorber, Milestone Films, and more.
On April 23, 1917, Buster Keaton made his theatrical debut in Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s The Butcher Boy. Three years later, Keaton would strike out on his own, producing one comic short after the other. Three years after that, Keaton made the … Continue reading THE CAMERAMAN
English actor Dirk Bogarde may have lived in the closet, but Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti did not. Visconti also had the luxury of being born into an aristocratic family. So did German novelist Thomas Mann, but he struggled with his … Continue reading DEATH IN VENICE
You just got to play detective, don’t you? Do I go around playing piano? — Capt. Flood, Black Angel 1946’s Black Angel isn’t the most well-known film noir adapted from a Cornell Woolrich novel. That honor goes to 1944’s Phantom Lady, the story of a … Continue reading BLACK ANGEL
No one face embodied the French New Wave more than that of Anna Karina. Born Hanne Karin Bayer in Denmark in 1940, Karina made her way to Paris as a model when she was 17, starring in advertisements for Coca-Cola, … Continue reading LE PETIT SOLDAT
Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. That’s the line that opens the story Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The story of Billy Pilgrim, World War II, sexual desire, post-war suburban malaise, the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, free will vs. fate, and … Continue reading SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE
Silent pictures are the purest form of cinema. —Alfred Hitchcock For many, he was the Master of Suspense. The eyes and hands behind Rear Window, Vertigo, North By Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. The droll voice and the rotund figure behind the popular TV show, Alfred … Continue reading Hitchcock: British International Pictures Collection
Truth is one, but the sages speak of it by many names. —The Rig Veda The Two Popes, one of the most anticipated movies of the holiday season, arrives on the silver screen Dec. 13 before heading to Netflix on … Continue reading THE TWO POPES and THE BELLS OF ST. MARY
Three men work the line at the Checkered Taxi auto plant in Detroit, Michigan. Their lives revolve around hard labor and heavy drinking, getting yelled at by their supervisors and trying to keep their heads above water at home. They’re … Continue reading BLUE COLLAR
It must have come as a surprise to filmgoers in the mid-90s that the next Martin Scorsese feature film would focus on the childhood of the 14th Dalai Lama. Then again, it probably came as a similar surprise in the … Continue reading KUNDUN
Michael J. Cinema 
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