On DVD

Notable Recent DVDs

Nov 13th, 2008 | By Rick | Category: On DVD, Recent Articles

Here are some recent video releases that piqued my fancy. Including Costa Gavra’s “Missing,” Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil,” Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard, and a 33-disc set that you might not be able to refuse.



Thoughts on Sunshine

Oct 17th, 2008 | By Rick | Category: On DVD, Reviews

The problem with Danny Boyle’s Sunshine: it doesn’t know quite what it is. It begins as a fairly straightforward SciFi epic, then veers into monster-land in the last third.



Notable DVDs

Sep 17th, 2008 | By Rick | Category: On DVD

The folks at Criterion have been busy little bees lately.  They’ve released three (!) films by Max Ophüls, a remaster of Pier Paolo Passolini’s notorious final film, plus six films from Janus’ Essential Arthouse collection in economical, bare-bones editions.
Ophüls’ film career spanned 25 years and three countries, beginning in his native Germany in 1931, followed [...]



Oh Frabjous Day!

Aug 28th, 2008 | By Rick | Category: News & Comment, On DVD

Well, maybe not frabjous, exactly, maybe more like groovy, but Carl Th. Dreyer’s Day of Wrath has a new, digitally-restored print.  And now, more people than ever — maybe more than 10? — can see this dark, uncompromising critique of organized Christianity from Denmark’s most illustrious director.  In celebration, here’s a still:

GreenCine Daily has the [...]



Notable DVDs

Aug 7th, 2008 | By Rick | Category: On DVD

Crazed Canadian (I know … sounds like an oxymoron) filmmaker Guy Maddin’s equally crazed, live-orchestra film Brand Upon the Brain! will be released August 12 by Criterion, of all companies. Filmed with Maddin’s usual silent aesthetic, it traveled to major cities complete with it’s own live orchestra, choir and narrators. At one point, [...]



Some Recent Notable DVDs

Jul 25th, 2008 | By Rick | Category: On DVD

Note: My friends over at MovieZeal write about DVD releases once a week, but they don’t include classics. So as a public service, and because I’m just an altruistic kind of guy, here are some of the recent classic art house releases for your viewing pleasure.
At the top of the list has to be [...]



DVD Spotlight: The Killers

May 18th, 2008 | By Rick | Category: On DVD, Reviews

This Criterion DVD represents a rare opportunity to compare multiple screen adaptations of the same story: Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers. There are three adaptations on this two-disc set: Robert Siodmak’s 1946 Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers, Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1958 student film entitled simply The Killers, and Don Siegel’s 1964 adaptation, originally slated to be the [...]