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1-20 of 31 articles from 2009 « Prev | Next »
Criterion Collection DVD & Blu-ray Disc Sale @ Amazon.com
25 November 2009 1:07 AM, PST
| Affenheimtheater
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Bargain time for all you cinephiles out there! Amazon.com has started a Criterion Collection sale with DVDs from $13.99 and Blu-ray Discs from $15.99. The sale includes 29 titles including Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and Kagemusha, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and the controversial Japanese thriller In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no corrida). European buyers should note that Criterion has so far region coded all their releases to Region A, so bad luck for most of us…
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- Ulrik
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Music: Review:Rakim: The Seventh Seal
23 November 2009 10:00 PM, PST
| avclub.com
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Legendary golden-age rapper Rakim opens his first album in a decade with “How To Emcee,” and the regrettable words, “This is your Koran or Bible / To be a true Mc icon or idol / The content you put in your songs are vital.” The song itself is a funky banger that schools listeners in the art Rakim once redefined, but that almighty content quickly drops off a couple of tracks into The Seventh Seal. Impressive rhyme schemes aside, “Documentary Of A Gangsta” takes a narrative tack that pales next to Ghostface’s work, while “Satisfaction Guaranteed” merely flips the theme of
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Geek Gifts: All Criterion Collection DVDs and Blu-rays 50% Off at Barnes & Noble
18 November 2009 10:14 PM, PST
| Collider.com
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Criterion makes the best DVDs and Blu-rays. Their transfers are impeccable and their special features are fascinating. When you pay the $35-$40 for a Criterion Collection movie, you’re paying a premium but you’re getting your money’s worth. But wouldn’t it be great if you could just pay half that?
You can do that right now. Barnes & Noble is having a special sale where All Criterion Collection movies that are currently in print are 50% off their list price (which is what they normally sell for). You probably won’t find another sale like this for probably at least a year so if you’ve been waiting to buy a particular Criterion DVD or Blu-ray, now’s the time. Click here and get yours (but preferably do it after I get mine; I don’t need you taking the last copy of The Seventh Seal on Blu-ray).
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- Matt Goldberg
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Blu-ray Review: Wings of Desire (Criterion Collection)
3 November 2009 3:42 AM, PST
| Rope of Silicon
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Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire is able to capture your attention despite its sparing plot for the main reason you know its about something even if that something takes its sweet time in fully revealing itself. The film follows two guardian angels, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander), as they watch over humanity from up high above the streets of Berlin, and, more often than not, at street level.
As they walk the streets, an often visited library and ride the trains we listen in on the thoughts of others as those Damiel and Cassiel encounter can be heard. However, their thoughts don't come across as a string of cohesive sentences as much as they are fragments of ideas, occasionally offering something of substance, but most often an example of the mundane. To that effect you could say Wings of Desire is about just that, an appreciation for the simpler things in life,
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- Brad Brevet
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[DVD Review] Sauna
30 October 2009 1:00 PM, PDT
| JustPressPlay.net
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I had never really thought about it, but maybe the world does need a good medieval horror film. The unrepentantly brutal and superstitious nature of the era would seem to lend itself to something pretty burly, and the longstanding cult appeal of Army of Darkness would seem to indicate that the popular interest is there. Evidently, the producers of Sauna agreed, and in making this picture, laid the groundwork for that film, for which we should be eternally grateful. It’s not that Sauna isn’t good and spooky, because it is; it simply has the same reasonable amount of clumsiness that one could expect of any filmmaker feeling out an idea. It’s simply more noticeable because you get the distinct feeling that they’re on to something.
In the aftermath of the war between Russia and Sweden (something I was unaware had even happened), brothers Knut (Tommi Eronen
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- Anders Nelson
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Between Greatness and Boredom: Lars Von Trier Retrospective @ Cinéma du Parc
8 October 2009 6:04 AM, PDT
| SoundOnSight
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Lars von Trier may be a self-confessed depressive, but 'schizophrenic' is the epithet which first springs to mind when trying to describe his films. So luckily for me - not a big Lars von Trier fan per se - there seems to be no such thing as a typical Lars von Trier film: from the brutal emotionality of Breaking the Waves (1996) to the bemused distaste left by The Idiots (1998) to the "when-will-it-be-over" of Medea (1988), each von Trier film seems to elicit from the viewer (i.e. me) a radically different reaction. Even the trilogies, supposedly held loosely together by a unifying central character type, come in styles as varied as the Dogme 95-abiding, ultra-realist The Idiots and the highly stylized magic realism of Dancer in the Dark (2000). It would thus seem an absurd enterprise to review the entiretyof von Trier's oeuvre as a monolithic whole bearing a trademark von Trier stamp.
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- Zornitsa
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Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal chess set fetches over £90,000 at auction
30 September 2009 7:17 AM, PDT
| Boxwish.com
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A piece was missing, many were chipped and yet the chess set from 1957’s The Seventh Seal was the star lot at an auction selling belongings from the estate of the classic film’s late writer/ director Ingmar Bergman. The Swedish filmmaker whose career spanned over six decades died in July at the age of 89 leaving instructions for his assets to be sold at auction and as such 337 objects went under the hammer with all proceeds going to his family. In total, the estate earned an incredible 19.9 million kroner (that’s over £160,000) with the chess set contributing more than £90,000 (one million kroner).
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What I Watched, What You Watched: Installment #10
27 September 2009 1:56 AM, PDT
| Rope of Silicon
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Two Paul Newman titles from the recently released Paul Newman Tribute Collection (pictured right) I mentioned on Tuesday, a look at a film I watched in preparation for one of last week's screenings and a reminder of a Blu-ray I recently reviewed make up this week's list.
On top of everything below, on Saturday I went to a screening of the Toy Story and Toy Story 2 3-D double feature, which ended up being a lot of fun as I am pretty sure it was the first time I actually saw Toy Story 2 on the bigscreen. The 3-D is quite good and the opening moments of Toy Story 2 lend themselves so well to the format it's almost surprising it wasn't originally intended to be released in 3-D. Of course, as with all quality films, the 3-D does nothing for the story. These films were never considered classics for
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- Brad Brevet
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DVDs: Japanese Noir? Hai!
9 September 2009 1:43 PM, PDT
| Huffington Post
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Criterion is a peerless company when it comes to preserving and presenting classic films. But don't be surprised if some day they're remembered even more for the relative obscurities unearthed and presented on their "budget" Eclipse line, in which great films without the name recognition of The Seventh Seal or The Bicycle Thief are offered up with a great print, but few to no extras.
New York's Film Forum just ended its highly popular event, British Noir, which played to packed houses. But I just had my own festival with Eclipse Series 17: Nikkasu Noir ($69.98; Criterion Eclipse) , which includes five films from Nikkatsu, the Japanese studio that specialized in their own style of noir, the way Warner Bros. was known for gangster flicks. What an entertaining eye-opener. They are in order:
I Am Waiting (1957) -- a real gem,
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- Michael Giltz
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Paste Presents The Slowest Movies Of All Time, Pt. 2: The Meditative and Marvelous
7 September 2009 4:00 AM, PDT
| Pastemagazine.com
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Today we continue our exploration of slow movies, focusing on films that are worth savoring.
Meditative And Marvelous
The Straight Story (1999): When you’re David Lynch, it’s pretty tough to make a wild left
turn—your whole career is one giant left turn away from filmmaking convention.
But the legendary avant-garde director shot straight on this G-rated picture
about an old man driving cross-country on a lawn mower. The picture moves about
as fast as a riding mower: not very. But it’s a sweet film, a radical bit of
normalcy for Lynch, and a road movie well-acted enough to earn the late Richard
Farnsworth an Oscar nom.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): Straddling the boundary between art film and sci-fi epic, Stanley
Kubrick’s space-age fantasia is loaded with arresting images. The legendary
opening, with the apes and the bone—would you really want that passage hurried?
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Culture Warrior: ‘Inglourious Basterds’ and the Political Movie Theater
24 August 2009 11:04 AM, PDT
| FilmSchoolRejects.com
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Cinema itself, specifically the movie theater, has played a significant role within the narratives of a few of this summer’s most notable releases. Up perceives the movie theater as a place where dreams are born, encapsulated in a movie made by a studio that continues to progress cinema at large. Public Enemies contained its climactic moments around a movie theater while simultaneously displaying how Hollywood filmmaking has remained the same but different (even when it has abandoned the material of film itself). (500) Days of Summer, between its winking acknowledgment of frequent misinterpretations of the ending of The Graduate to its heartbreak articulated through homage to French New Wave and Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and The Seventh Seal, is a movie that shows how cinema shapes specific ideas of love and heartbreak within the cultural psyche. But with Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, we have been bestowed a major late-summer release that not only frames its entire
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- Landon Palmer
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Ingmar and Mike
30 July 2009 11:31 AM, PDT
| FilmExperience
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Two years ago today death came for Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni. Robert here, thinking back on the day when my two favorite living directors both died. Two men who had a huge impression on me. It was as a young budding movie lover that Bergman and Antonioni taught me how film could be more than popcorn entertainment... it could be art.
Of course one has to admit that Bergman and Antonioni are eternally entwined with the bad name that "art film" sometimes has... and for pretty good reason. After all, Ingmar Bergman directed an entire trilogy on God's silence. Antonioni directed an entire trilogy about the impossibility of love. What do you mean people think art films are needlessly depressing?
And so the reputation of the art film goes: If you want a good time... watch something else.
Still Bergman and Antonioni never really deserved that reputation. The Seventh Seal
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- Robert
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Harry Potter 6: two and a half bloody hours! (and something about a prince)
17 July 2009 9:31 AM, PDT
| t5m.com
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I believe the definition of synergy is something along the lines of, ‘the interaction of two or more agents to produce a combined effect that is greater than the sum of their individual effects’. In which case the only positive-sounding word I can use to describe this film is… well, ‘synergistic’. I suppose it is rather like one of the miraculous potions brewed up by Professor Slughorn at Hogwarts: a drop of this, a rat’s tail, and the juices of a crushed beetle can produce a wondrous concoction.
This film takes the narrative of a half-hour episode of Beverly Hills 90210 (teeny heartbreak, the ‘bad kid’, the ‘cool kid’, sports, etc.), drops in an odd story about a magic cupboard, allows it to simmer for a while… and voila! A two and a half hour epic that does absolutely nothing except stupefy!
I have to confess to not having watched
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- Nicholas Deigman
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Film Print Gives Way To Digital Glint
16 July 2009 10:08 PM, PDT
| NYPost.com
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Symphony Space is presenting a classic film series with a new twist -- instead of being projected on 35mm film, the movies are being presented in a high-definition digital video format.
The series, which kicks off Sunday with Federico Fellini's "La Strada" and Victor Erice's "Spirit of the Beehive," is being billed as the first major digital retrospective series in New York.
Other titles being shown on Saturdays and Sundays -- mostly in double features -- include such repertory favorites as Francois Truffaut's "The 400 Blows," Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal,
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- By LOU LUMENICK
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DVD Playhouse--July 2009
14 July 2009 12:00 PM, PDT
| The Hollywood Interview
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DVD Playhouse—July 2009
By
Allen Gardner
Do The Right Thing: 20th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Spike Lee’s groundbreaking fable about race relations in an ethnically mixed Brooklyn neighborhood during a sweltering New York summer remains as potent, timely and prescient as it was in 1989. Lee is among the cast, which also includes John Turturro, Danny Aiello, Samuel L. Jackson, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Rosie Perez (to name a few), that provide the tableaux-like framework for this stunning work. Criminally ignored by Oscar (it wasn't even nominated for Best Picture, but did garner nods for Supporting Actor Danny Aiello and Lee’s screenplay), it endures as a timeless classic. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Commentary by Lee, Ernest Dickerson, Wynn Thomas, Joie Lee; Documentary; Deleted and extended scenes; Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround.
Coraline (Universal) A young girl moves into an old Victorian house with her parents
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- The Hollywood Interview.com
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Raymond Benson Reviews Two Major Ingmar Bergman DVD Releases From Criterion
27 June 2009 10:05 AM, PDT
| Cinemaretro.com
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By Raymond Benson
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The Seventh Seal –
2-disk Restored Edition
(The
Criterion Collection; 2009)
Woody
Allen once said Ingmar Bergman was the greatest filmmaker since the invention
of the cinema, and his favorite of the many masterpieces created by the auteur
is The Seventh Seal (originally
released in Sweden in 1957). While an
earlier edition of the film was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection
years ago, the company has seen fit to restore and re-release it in a special
2-disk set (both on Blu-Ray and DVD). In
short, the results are magnificent.
The Seventh Seal is one of those
classic films that has been parodied so many times it isn’t funny anymore. And when something is parodied so much that
it’s become cliché, then the source material must have been pretty darned
good. How many times have you seen a
figure
…
- nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
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Blu-Ray Review: ‘The Seventh Seal’ Still Dazzles From Criterion
23 June 2009 5:00 AM, PDT
| HollywoodChicago.com
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Chicago – What more is there to write about “The Seventh Seal”? Dozens of scholars more renowned than myself have already examined virtually every shot of the film. It has been dissected and discussed in dozens of languages and continues to be one of the most influential pieces of work in the history of its medium. The new Criterion Blu-Ray edition makes it clear why.
Blu-Ray Rating: 4.5/5.0
Since it won the Special Jury Prize at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, “The Seventh Seal” has become a world-renowned masterpiece of cinematography and symbolism. Writing again about its significance in the history of film would be merely repetitive. Instead, let’s look at the remarkable edition that Criterion has released for it.
Death played by Bengt Ekerot and Antonius Block, the knight played by Max von Sydow
Photo credit: Courtesy of the Criterion Collection
In case there are some of you out there completely unfamiliar with “The Seventh Seal,
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- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
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Watch: [p]Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey
18 June 2009 5:00 AM, PDT
| TribecaFilm.com
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It's nice that the sequel for the goofiest, dumbest movie in the world features an extended riff on Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. And it's always fun to spend time with one of the prettiest actors ever to grace the screen, Keanu Reeves. The dopey stoner pleasures of the Bill and Ted series are fairly evergreen - so get ready to (once again) have the utopian future saved by your favorite band, Wyld Stallions!
…
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The Seventh Seal: Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review
17 June 2009 8:52 AM, PDT
| TheHDRoom
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By the time I saw Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957), I had unknowingly witnessed multiple parodies and homage to the film's iconic imagery. The stark embodiment of Death played memorably with grim resolve by Bengt Ekerot and the silhouetted Dance of Death are the most notable that have seeped into our cultural consciousness. I would guess that many first viewing the film today would have a similar reaction even if they could not exactly put their finger on why (the game of Battleship played with Death in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey is one of my favorite references).
No less influential are the film's themes. The Seventh Seal is the definition of "art house," yet it may be hard to fully appreciate its significance in a world where so many "important" films are available at arms reach on DVD and popular cinema is juxtaposed against film criticism. In American
…
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The Seventh Seal Blu Ray Review
17 June 2009 8:12 AM, PDT
| FilmJunk
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I’ve never had much interest in writing about ‘the classics’ because it seems as though everything that can be said about a film like The Seventh Seal has already been said a million times before by film scholars and critics that are much smarter then myself. I will say that although the film's content and presentation may seem intimidating to the casual movie fan, the story is actually quite accessible. And now, thanks to the newly released Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition of the film, The Seventh Seal has never looked better.
Criterion’s Blu-ray release rate has slowly picked up, averaging about two discs a month. I’m not entirely sure how their selection process works, but The Seventh Seal seems like a bit a of a no-brainer in regards to getting their most crucial content on to the high definition format. This is the Criterion's fourth black and white feature to hit Blu-ray,
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- Jay C.
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