Exclusive articles:
Review: Essential Killing
" Tiny stretches of credibility – that could have easily been forgiven once or twice – begin to enlarge and ultimately dominate the proceedings. By the time all is said and done, the film, much like its taciturn protagonist, withers into a fine powder of blowing snow. And audiences are left to quietly wonder just what veteran director Jerzy Skolimnowski was hoping to achieve."
Review: Griff The Invisible
"The movie works awfully hard to arrive at an empty and obvious allegory, and Ford’s desire to resolve his story in a neat, shiny package feels like glib manipulation. To top it off, Griff the Invisible breaks one of the cardinal rules of scripting: its assortment of odd characters gets less interesting the more we learn about them."
Review: Criterion Collection: Leon Morin Priest [Blu-ray]
The film’s paunchiness is quite surprising considering the taut storytelling of Melville’s popular crime dramas. While attributed with adopting American Film Noir to Europe, the influence flowed both ways, as Melville’s raw, gritty late 60s - early 70s shoot’em ups were stylistically copied by several Hollywood films of the period. His last two films, Le Cercle Rouge and Un Flic were both impressive exercises in gripping hard-boiledness, with the latter even surviving a laughably botched helicopter special effects sequence – filmed in unconvincing miniature, the resulting tableau looked like something from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood – to remain an engrossing entertainment. But this commitment to crystal coherence is sadly lacking in Léon Morin, Priest.
