Full transparency: all Blu-rays reviewed were provided by Kino Lorber and Criterion. Sometimes technology just doesn’t cooperate the way it’s supposed to. This month’s review round-up was all typed and set to go, but due to a computer error, I lost everything but the notes I jotted down in a notebook as I watched this month’s films…. Read more »
Movie Reviews
City Hall is an Invigorating Tribute to Democracy
Acclaimed director Frederick Wiseman has explored many different types of places in the 53 years since he directed his first documentary. He has made films about everything from hospitals to boxing gyms, and shot them in places as eclectic as New York City and the small town of Monrovia, Indiana (a film partially inspired by… Read more »
Physical Media Isn’t Dead, It Just Smells Funny: Blu-ray Reviews for November 2020
Full transparency: all Blu-rays reviewed were provided by Kino Lorber and Criterion. I miss going to the movie theater so much. I would battle God atop a hilltop to even just sit and watch something in a darkened room and crowd full of enthusiastic and virus-free film lovers. Sadly, I cannot “Stone Cold Stunner” the… Read more »
Luminescent Poison: Bringing the ‘Radium Girls’ to Life
Radium Girls (Lydia Dean Pilcher and Ginny Mohler, 2018) takes its inspiration from the infuriating history of watch-dial painters of the 1910s-1930s who were poisoned and then abandoned by the radium industry. Discovered in 1898 by the Curies, radium was all the rage in the early decades of the 20th century. Thought to be a… Read more »
I Used to Go Here and the Processing of Failure
Failure is an underexplored subject in American cinema. The struggles and joys of achieving success are portrayed in blockbuster after blockbuster, while the unique phenomenon of processing failure and tentatively beginning the process of moving beyond it is less common to encounter in a mainstream American movie. Thankfully, Kris Rey’s new film I Used to Go… Read more »
The Complete Films of Agnès Varda: A Love Letter to a Legend
For full transparency: I was sent this box set by Criterion for review. I’d like to think this hasn’t impacted my thoughts on this set, but I thought people should know before they read more. There are figures in art whose image, mannerisms, and reputation are as recognizable and notable as the art they create…. Read more »