DVD / Bluray
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Belle (PG)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen-era dramas attract large and devoted audiences. Add to the mix a real-life heroine who is the daughter of a British aristocrat and African slave, and the potential for tear-jerking, romantic moments grows exponentially. If only Belle, directed by Ghanaian Amma Asante, had a clever script or […]
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Braveheart (R)
When Steven Spielberg brought audiences Jaws in 1974, the ripples carried through decades of film. It is a defining point in the development of the world of movies. The term “blockbuster” was coined; gore on the screen was pushed to new levels; a fear of sharks settled deep in the bones of Americans. As influential […]
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Falling Down (R)
I used to live about three miles from where I worked, which is close enough, although twelve stoplights separated the front door of my house from the front door of my place of business. On the wrong afternoon drive home, the fact that Cain’s first great project after slaying his brother was to build a […]
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Pulp Fiction (R)
Nobody ever goes to the bathroom in movies. As strange as amateur comedians seem to find this, it’s entirely reasonable from a storytelling perspective. It may not be completely realistic, but good stories seldom are. Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is probably the most famous exception to cinematic convention on toilet usage, with no fewer than […]
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The Big Lebowski (R)
Part One. Glance around academia.edu and you’ll find a few articles on the Coen brothers most popular film with titles like “’This Aggression Will Not Stand’: Myth, War and Ethics in The Big Lebowski,” as well as “The Big Lebowski, ritual and (imposed) narratives of the self.” In the last three years, over a hundred […]
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Network (R)
It has been 38 years since Howard Beale shouted “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” at a television camera. The mood comes and goes, but America is still mad as hell, though it is not quite sure what it is unwilling to take—rising crime, unemployment, government healthcare, government shut […]
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Jaws (PG)
When you think of Steven Spielberg’s greatest disciple, you probably think of Robert Zemeckis. You probably don’t think of David Fincher. However, if you were unlucky enough to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or Se7en, you might find the following Fincher quote rather telling: “I don’t know how much movies should entertain. To […]
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Die Hard (R)
In 1994, Umberto Eco published an essay entitled, “Casablanca, or, The Clichés are Having a Ball.” The novelist expounded on the greatness of this classic film for its incorporation of every possible stock character in Western fiction into a single narrative. Nearly every speaking part taps into some standard, some archetype. Star Wars is perhaps […]
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A River Runs Through It (PG)
Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It is set in the early 1900’s “at the junction of great trout rivers in Missoula, Montana” against the backdrop of the Bitterroot Mountains in the northwest of the state. It would be difficult to imagine a more beautiful setting for such a story, and it is to the […]
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Fight Club (R)
Note To Readers: This review contains a frank investigation of a perverse film, and necessarily must describe some of the perverse ideas of the film. Given the lasting import and influence of the film, the editor commends it to readers who are old enough to have seen the film. Younger readers who have not seen […]
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Marie Antoinette (PG-13)
“Are we there yet?” asks Marie sleepily from the backseat of her carriage. Her royal Austrian entourage has just pulled up on the French border for a customs inspection which makes even today’s customs inspections look conservative. It’s a child’s question, and that’s fine. Marie was only fifteen when she departed the Hofburg Palace for […]
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How to Train Your Dragon (PG)
According to ancient British legends, King Alfred wasn’t a big fan of the Vikings. He spent several years of his reign ousting the Danish warriors, who burned monasteries and killed unarmed monks. Good thing the real Vikings didn’t train dragons. The warriors of How to Train Your Dragon, a 2010 animated hit, bear practically no […]
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Psycho (R)
Only one horror story has ever been written and it is Oedipus the Tyrant by Sophocles. Freud had the story wrong, although he was closer than Rene Girard. Peter Leithart’s account of Oedipus in Heroes of the City of Man is one of the more penetrating I have ever read and the one I prefer […]
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To the Wonder (Not Rated)
It begins at the Wonder, La Merveille, Mont-Saint-Michel in France to be exact, with Neil and Marina at an early edge of love, leap or let go is the question. She cavorts along the coast as the tide swells and he, as implacable as the sea, follows; whether entranced or temporarily entrapped in her orbit […]
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All About Eve (Not Rated)
All About Eve opens with an award – the Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achivement, addressed to Miss Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), placed squarely in the center of the frame. Describing the ceremony, Addison DeWitt (an unforgettably sardonic George Sanders, elsewhere described as a “venomous fishwife”) dryly announces, “Minor awards are for such as the […]
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Short Term 12 (R)
It’s very easy to be dismissive of a movie like Short Term 12. It’s an indie drama that tells a story about troubled teenagers, which is the sort of film that draws adoring critics like ants to a watermelon rind. The fact that Short Term 12 rises above melodrama at all is almost a miracle in itself, but […]
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For All Mankind (Not Rated)
Given the political significance of the American space program, one might be excused for raising a skeptical eye at the notion the Apollo 11 ascended to Luna herself “for all mankind.” However, director Al Reinert seems to have had little interest in politics after reviewing more than six million feet of film shot by astronauts […]
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Dr. Strangelove (Not Rated)
Perhaps we can laugh louder now, knowing that the contingency the movie presents never happened, but responding to Dr. Strangelove correctly means walking away from it with a dose of humility. This is not easy; as the movie suggests, humility is a virtue which people who rise to leadership positions often lack; but look what happens when it is absent.
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Marathon Man (R)
In the acting community, John Schlesinger’s Marathon Man is known as the source of a conversation between Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman that supposedly occurred behind the scenes. Hoffman, the story goes, was explaining how he’d stayed up for three days straight in order to best convey his character’s exhaustion. Olivier then quipped “Why don’t […]
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Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (PG)
In The Odyssey, Homer tells the story of the great Wanderer, Odysseus, crossing the nations and oceans of the Mediterranean to the small island of Ithaca, his own kingdom. Having fought for Helen, Odysseus spends the next decade scattered across the Greek islands. Towards the end of his journey he comes to the island of […]