Best DVD/Blu-Ray and Streaming of the Week (12/31/13)

My final professional piece of the year, a round-up of a spotty week for DVD releases but one with at least one gem in the fine DTV movie Ni...

Him: Why Joaquin Phoenix Is America’s Greatest Contemporary Actor

I fell in love with Spike Jonze's newest movie, Her , not only for its nuanced and empathetic view of how technology has rewritten, mayb...

The 10 Best Criterions of 2013

I felt routinely disappointed this year by Criterion's offerings when they were announced each month, yet when I took stock of all I got...

Best DVD/Blu-Ray Streaming of the Week (12/17/13)

Title says it all. Check out my picks at Film.com .

All the Light in the Sky (Joe Swanberg, 2013)

Swanberg’s prolificacy has allowed those who follow at least a portion of his rapidly-multiplying filmography to effectively see him gain mo...

Martin Scorsese, Ranked

I had originally planned to do a long-form essay of some kind about Martin Scorsese for Film.com, but as the year-end deluge of deadlines (t...

White Reindeer (Zach Clark, 2013)

I saw White Reindeer  earlier in the year, and it was in my top 10 until the very last week before I had to submit polls to various publicat...

Year-End Polls

I always enjoy lists; as tedious and nakedly clickbait-y as they can be, I often use the more idiosyncratic lists out there to direct my att...

The Worst Films of 2013

I must confess I no longer get the immature thrill out of lambasting films that I once did, nor are worst-of lists worth the inevitable hass...

Blu-Ray Review: The Big Gundown

Major props to Grindhouse Releasing, who have put out a few Blu-Rays but truly come into their own with their handling of The Big Gundown . ...

The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973)

[The following is a belated Blind Spots entry.] The precision of Raymond Chandler’s prose is rendered almost sleepily in Robert Altman’s The...

My Top 50 First-Time Watches of 2013

This was the year I was fortunate enough to see a notable rise in my freelance bookings, and thus my writing mainly focused on new releases ...

Blu-Ray Review: Assault on Precinct 13 (Shout! Factory)

For a film that holds so few surprises, in which everything has been chosen for its economy, not its mystery, Assault on Precinct 13 nevert...

DVD Review: Computer Chess (Kino)

I belatedly caught up with Computer Chess when I received a DVD copy to review, and oh what an utter delight of a picture, what reassurance...

The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)

Oh, I'm starting to hate Paolo Sorrentino. After his decent but Scorsese-cribbing Il Divo , I never got to his This Must Be the Place , ...

Breakfast with Curtis (Laura Colella, 2013)

Breakfast with Curtis starts out with a man threatening a child and the child's father threatening the man, yet the movie proves otherw...

Faust (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2013)

By turns intoxicating and repellent, Faust is definitely a Sokurov film, but its adaptation of the Faust legend is so perverse I cannot hel...

Blu-Ray Review: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Criterion)

[Originally published at Cinespect] “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion” unfurls with an aesthetic concision that belies its increas...

Charlie Chaplin's Features, Ranked

I've ranked Chaplin's features before on this blog, but I tweaked that list order and some of my thoughts for a revised piece for Fi...

The Best Charlie Chaplin Short Films

Oh, Chaplin. The director I once thought was too simple compared to Keaton and too maudlin in otherwise great comedies has since emerged as ...

DVDs/Streaming Picks 12/03/13

Last week's picks for new DVD and streaming releases for Film.com. I especially recommend the two Criterions, obviously. Read my post he...

Criminally Underrated: Paul W.S. Anderson

I could (and, hopefully someday, will) go longer and more in-depth on Paul W.S. Anderson given the time and inclination, but for now this is...

The Internet in Movies

After seeing the howling bad The Fifth Estate , I got to wondering about how Hollywood repeatedly and utterly fails to comprehend the Intern...

Best DVDs/Streaming of the Week 11/19/13

I've started trading off weekly capsules on the week's best home video and streaming options at Film.com. My first was late last mon...

Capital (Costa-Gavras, 2013)

Oof, Costa-Gavras, how the mighty have fallen. Capital could have been any one of the recent Hollywood spate of disgustingly sympathetic po...

Final Warner Archive Picks

Sadly discontinued (I enjoyed this feature, not to mention free access to Warner's streaming service), here are the last few weeks of my...

Ben Watson — Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation

Despite my love for free jazz, I've long struggled with some of the guitarists to circle around that movement, most especially Derek Bai...

10 Great Silent Horror Films

Ignore the headline chosen for the piece proper: I wouldn't classify these as truly the 10 scariest movies of the silent era; I still ha...

Blu-Ray Review: Violet & Daisy (Cinedigm)

[Originally published at Cinespect] The first 10 minutes of “Violet & Daisy” are among the most unbearable of the cinematic year, a gend...

Toad Road (Jason Banker, 2013)

I hate to kick an independent trying to get their start, but I also cannot abide the laziness with which so many treat horror as a cynical m...

How I Live Now (Kevin Macdonald, 2013)

I've somewhat cooled on this already tepid response in the month since I reviewed it, but I nonetheless feel there are aspects of How I ...

The Cobweb (Vincente Minnelli, 1955)

Vincente Minnelli stages a madhouse drama around the psychological impact of poorly chosen drapes. In other words, this is about as Minnelli...

Paradise (Diablo Cody, 2013)

I've previously been a defender of Diablo Cody's but her directorial debut is everything her detractors have accused her of being: s...

Blu-Ray Review: Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project (Criterion)

Been super busy for a month now, about to be even more so as I take on end-of-year assignments and get set to move to Atlanta. Will be updat...

The Dirties (Matthew Johnson, 2013)

The Dirties  is one of my favorite films of the year, an exceptionally timed black comedy about a lonely, movie-obsessed boy getting lost in...

Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, 2013)

I've been dying to see this film for nearly a year and a half, and I'm thrilled to say that Leviathan more than lives up to its rep...

Pauline Kael—5001 Nights at the Movies

There's been a resurgence in publication of Pauline Kael's work in the last few years after a 2011 mini-renaissance that saw some bi...

The Smashing Pumpkins—Siamese Dream

I was never into the Smashing Pumpkins growing up, but a recent relisten to their catalog has been revelatory. Of them, Siamese Dream  is ob...

I Declare War (Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson, 2013)

Meaningless display of young machismo that mistakes depiction of extremity as commentary. A waste of time. Read my full review at Spectrum C...

24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002)

Post-punk is my favorite genre of music (one of these days, I must get back to my series of posts on The Fall, possibly my favorite band), a...

In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey (James Cullingham, 2013)

John Fahey is one of the best and most overlooked guitarists of the 20th century, and James Cullingham's mini-feature does about as good...

Talking Mystery Train with Allison Kupatt

I loved Jim Jarmusch's latest, Only Lovers Left Alive , so much when I saw it at TIFF that I was eager to revisit some of the director...

The Canyons (Paul Schrader, 2013)

I neither think of The Canyons  as a maligned film maudit nor a justified one. Instead, it is a film whose flaws are readily apparent but al...

Stranded (Roger Christian, 2013)

Poor Roger Christian, director of Battlefield Earth : who else could have a film this bad and it not be the worst of his career by a long sh...

Camille Claudel, 1915 (Bruno Dumont, 2013)

This was my first Bruno Dumont film, and I've heard it's something of a departure for casting so prominent a star as Juliette Binoch...

Halloween II (Rob Zombie, 2009)

Originally published at the now defunct Cinespect. Rob Zombie’s 2007 “Halloween” remake loosely applied the director’s quickly coalescing ti...

Metallica: Through the Never (Nimród Antal, 2013)

I've long outgrown my metal phase, but I still love to listen to Metallica. Even so, I never expected to like Through the Never as much...

Enough Said (Nicole Holofcener, 2013)

Belatedly linking to last week's review of the fine, sometimes beautiful Enough Said , which sports two incredible lead performance that...