Tag: U.S. Indie Film Blu Ray Review
Criterion Collection: love jones (1997) | Blu-ray Review
An under-appreciated diamond in the rough which arrived during an explosion of Black indie cinema in the 1990s, love jones, the directorial debut...
Shallow Grave(s): Revenge Twice Told in Zarchi’s Landmark “I Spit on Your Grave” Blu-ray Box Set Review
Chances are, if you’re familiar with grindhouse/exploitation films of the 1970s or the output of later auteurs these titles influenced, you’ve heard and likely...
Exes and Ohs: Regression Tension in Tewkesbury’s Debut “Old Boyfriends” (1979) | Blu-ray Review
“What happens when you see them again?” reads the tagline for Old Boyfriends (1979), the directorial debut of screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury, a question which...
Criterion Collection: Bruce Lee – His Greatest Hits | Blu-ray Review
Bruce Lee is and forever will be the world’s greatest martial arts film star, perhaps only rivalled in iconicity by Jackie Chan. Both martial...
Woman Thou Art Loosed: McKee Mines Our Brutal, Inherent Misogyny in Grisly “The Woman” (2011) | Blu-ray Review
Arguably director Lucky McKee’s most radically troubling film is his 2011 hotbed of subversive themes, The Woman, which generated much distress upon its premiere...
Diamonds Aren’t a Girl’s Best Friend in Pallardy’s Camp Saga “White Fire” | Blu-ray Review
In the realm of failed art exists a select category of cinema so terribly conceived those deserving of its distinction are worthy of timeless...
Written on the Wind: Mastorakis’ Grecian Thriller a Find for Foster Fans with “The Wind” | Blu-ray Review
Arrow Video continues to champion and resurrect the filmography of B-movie director Nico Mastorakis with his 1986 title The Wind, which was released theatrically...
Criterion Collection: An Unmarried Woman (1978) | Blu-ray Review
Academy-Award nominated writer/director Paul Mazursky makes his first entry into the Criterion canon with his sixth feature, the seminal (first-wave) feminist landmark An Unmarried...
Criterion Collection: Husbands (1970) | Blu-ray Review
Husbands (1970), the fourth feature of auteur John Cassavetes, patron saint of American independent cinema, would end up being the first showcase for the...
Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema II | Blu-ray Review
Kino Lorber unleashes their second volume of forgotten film noir classics with Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema II which includes three distinctly...
Dancing Like She’s Never Danced Before: Lustig’s Grisly Grindhouse “Maniac” Gets an Ultra Redux | Blu-ray Review
Perhaps one of the oddest inspirations which resulted from William Lustig’s grindhouse narrative debut, which became a major cult classic, was Michael Sembello’s song,...
Babes in Toyland: Brasloff’s Kooky Kink Surfaces in Toys Are Not For Children | Blu-ray Review
If you’re in search for a forgotten psychosexual oddity, look no further than director Stanley H. Brasloff’s second (and unfortunately last) 1972 feature Toys...
Some Like Them Young in Wilder’s “The Major and the Minor” (1942) | Blu-ray Review
Billy Wilder became an indelible fixture of American cinema with his iconic noir masterpiece, 1944’s Double Indemnity, going on to direct some of the studio...
Criterion Collection: Klute (1971) | Blu-ray Review
“I have no idea what I’m going to do,” and “I have no idea what’s going to happen,” are among some of the lines...
Catholics for the Kill in Sole’s Classic Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) | Blu-ray Review
Outside of Larry Cohen and Brian De Palma, there’s a dearth of high-profile genre auteurs in the canon of 1970s American horror cinema. One...
Criterion Collection: Hedwig and the Angry Inch | Blu-ray Review
Few queer films have pierced the contemporary cultural nexus as effectively as John Cameron Mitchell’s beloved 2001 directorial debut Hedwig and the Angry Inch,...
Lelio Runs Pell Mell with Ms. Gloria Bell (2018) | Blu-ray Review
Sebastián Lelio scored his best domestic box office success to date with Gloria Bell, his English language remake of 2013’s Gloria, clocking in at...
Criterion Collection: Wanda (1970) | Blu-ray Review
A director and a film unfortunately stymied shortly after its premiere, Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970) remains a singularly unwavering portrait of neo-realistic gender identity...
Criterion Collection: Detour (1945) | Blu-ray Review
An old American proverb reads “Excuses are merely nails used to build a house of failure.” It’s also a succinct paraphrase for the trajectory...
Criterion Collection: To Sleep with Anger | Blu-Ray Review
Interlopers have long been meddlesome disruptors in cinema and literature. From those whose presence is expected to those who are unpleasant surprises, their catalyzing...
Criterion Collection: Mikey and Nicky (1976) | Blu-ray Review
Of the four noted directorial efforts from writer-director Elaine May, whose career behind the camera ended after the critical debacle of 1987’s infamous...
Schnabel Paints Another Portrait of an Artist with “At Eternity’s Gate” | Blu-ray Review
Director Julian Schnabel broke an eight-year hiatus with At Eternity’s Gate, a film destined to enter a pantheon of cinematic snapshots on troubled artist...
Perilous Passions in Aldrich’s Neglected “The Grissom Gang” (1971) | Blu-ray Review
And the final nail in the coffin of Aldrich Studios was 1971’s The Grissom Gang, an adaptation of famed UK noir writer James Hadley...
Criterion Collection: Sisters (1973) | Blu-ray Review
“What the Devil hath joined together, let no man cast asunder,” reads the gleefully blasphemous tagline of Brian De Palma’s 1973 horror film Sisters,...
Post Rings Twice with Devious The Baby (1973) | Blu-ray Review
A prolific television director throughout the 1950s and 60s (the 1955 series “Waterfront” would land him a Primetime Emmy nod), Ted Post benefitted from...
Criterion Collection: Smithereens (1982) | Blu-ray Review
Known primarily for generating Madonna’s acting career in 1985 with her sophomore film Desperately Seeking Susan, director Susan Seidelman was one of the most...
Criterion Collection: The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez | Blu-ray Review
Criterion revisits the neglected 1982 indie classic from Robert M. Young, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, a revisionist, recuperative Western which formulated the tragic...
Tuesday Blus: Anguished Oppressors in Fleischer’s The New Centurions Richard Fleischer
While he maintained a curiously uneven track record throughout his five decades as a director, Richard Fleischer’s career was speckled with as many underrated...
Criterion Collection: Election (1999) | Blu-ray Review
During the final throes of the 1990s, as the last vestiges of Generation X began to crown into adulthood and the budding millennials were...
Criterion Collection: Desert Hearts (1985) | Blu-ray Review
As impressive a directorial debut as it is a cinematic landmark, Donna Deitch’s 1985 masterpiece Desert Hearts joins the ranks of the Criterion Collection...
Tuesday Blus: Max Ophüls’ Letter from an Unknown Woman, Nolan’s Dunkirk & Bigelow’s Detroit
This week’s edition of Tuesday Blus includes the following titles: Dunkirk (2017) - Warner Bros., Detroit (2017) - Twentieth Century Fox, Letter from an...
This World, Then the Fireworks (1997) | Blu-ray Review
Had American culture not been subjected to the neutering forces of the Catholic Legion of Decency and the Hollywood Hays Code (enforced stridently from...
Wind River | Blu-ray Review
Arriving just in time to have the soured name of its US distributor The Weinstein Company shaved off prior to its awards season screenings...
Kidnap | Blu-ray Review
Halle Berry continues her unwavering dedication to remaining a B-movie maven with Luis Prieto’s Kidnap, a lean, mean adrenaline pumping slice of 1990s style...
The Dinner | Blu-ray Review
Premiering in competition at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival, Oren Moverman’s The Dinner went on to receive a successful return at the box...
The Lovers | Blu-ray Review
A classy, complex affair, Azazel Jacobs scores his greatest achievement to date with The Lovers, taking a break from the adolescent, man-child ennui which...
Song to Song | Blu-ray Review
Terrence Malick runs into his usual refrain in his latest, Song to Song, a film replete with aching, lost souls whose various interconnected narratives...
The Lost City of Z | Blu-ray Review
Although it’s one of the best theatrical releases of 2017 (and a novel change of pace for James Gray), the epically conceived The Lost...
The Zookeeper’s Wife | Blu-ray Review
Jessica Chastain and her furry co-stars are the only the real reason to experience Niki Caro’s high-profile adaptation of Diane Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife,...
Criterion Collection: Ghost World | Blu-ray Review
Although most widely recognized for his 2003 black comedy Bad Santa, director Terry Zwigoff’s particular idiosyncrasies are perhaps best captured in his 2001 narrative...
The Scar | Blu-ray Review
Originally released as Hollow Triumph (easily the more poetically layered metaphor of a moniker), Steve Sekely’s 1948 film noir classic The Scar lapsed into...
Criterion Collection: Rumble Fish | Blu-ray Review
The 1980s began roughly for Francis Ford Coppola, one of the most lionized American auteurs ever, whose streak of the 1970s was an unmitigated...
Daughters of the Dust | Blu-ray Review
Potent words open up Julie Dash’s masterful debut, the landmark independent feature Daughters of the Dust (1991). A matriarch, grappling with her family’s (including...
The Delinquents | Blu-ray Review
While Robert Altman is revered as the most prominent figure amongst the auteurs of the 1970s New American Cinema, he actually began his directorial...
ZPG (Zero Population Growth) | Blu-ray Review
Today, director Michael Campus is best remembered as an alum of Blaxploitation, thanks mostly to 1973’s The Mack, which featured an early role for...
Criterion Collection: Multiple Maniacs | Blu-ray Review
Since the possibility of a new John Waters feature now seems unlikely (considering his last film was 2003’s A Dirty Shame), it’s with colossal...
Chilly Scenes of Winter | Blu-ray Review
Among the many interesting elements of Joan Micklin Silver’s 1979 title Chilly Scenes of Winter is the film’s troubled theatrical release. Based on a...
Manchester by the Sea | Blu-ray Review
Hailed as a masterpiece by many a major critical outlet immediately after it premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Kenneth Lonergan’s third title...
American Honey | Blu-ray Review
For her third time playing in the Cannes Main Competition, Andrea Arnold also took home her third Jury prize for American Honey, the British...
Equity | Blu-ray Review
Director Meera Menon scored notable attention for her 2016 sophomore film Equity, an indie corporate thriller marketing itself as the first female centric Wall...
