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IN A LONELY PLACE Criterion Blu-ray Review

1950’s In a Lonely Place marks the second film from Nicholas Ray’s oeuvre to garner the Criterion treatment (Bigger Than Life from 1956 being the other) and one can only hope that the Criterion Collection are working their way towards acquiring more of Ray’s work.

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UNSUNG INDIES: Theodore Collatos’s DIPSO

Collatos presents a man in the throes of recovery, pinned in between a collection of loved ones concurrently assisting and compounding the difficulty inherent within because of their mutual affections of shared coping mechanisms, within a healthy dose of naturalism; scripted scenes are almost indistinguishable from the rawness of the realism-infused ones with drunken antics and familial dialogues accompanied with the debris of reality playing out in faithfulness rendering identification of the borderlines a murky endeavor.

Doron Max Hagay’s MONICA – CHAPTER 2 is now available

Doron Max Hagay’s MONICA – CHAPTER 2 is now available

Last year, writer/director Doron Max Hagay dramatized the details of Monica Lewinsky’s life as seen in a New York Magazine article. And, back in March, he then condensed that six-episode miniseries into a film, titled Monica - Chapter One. And now, he’s back with the first 3 episodes of Chapter Two

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BARCELONA Blu-ray Review

The opening three films of Whit Stillman’s directorial career are now all available on The Criterion Collection as a Bluray box set which includes Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998); although, for whatever reason, I’m only covering the release of his sophomore effort - Barcelona - the follow-up to his critically-revered debut Metropolitan which garnered him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

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10 OUT OF 10: THE PARK

A sequence of tableau vivants plotted out along the route of the camera, but unlike traditional tableau vivants Maroufi does not simply present these configurations from a distance to be admired for the picturesque qualities of their imitations;

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PSYCHOPOMP Review

There is an undeniable absurdity to professional pursuits of Allie and Ino, the central duo of Psychopomp, but the absurdity of this short is compounded by the level of seriousness that is concentrated into their endeavors.

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THE TOURIST Review

The visual style of The Tourist is a shuffled deck of tandem suits - realism through hidden-camera-uncomfortable and soft-focus travelogue/introspection - in a back and forth succession as Sonnenblick’s inner monologue pulsates with a seething resentment and anger that, at first, appears surface level given his current situation before gradually revealing itself to be a much more deep-seeded operating mode. Though, Sonnenblick is able to periodically meld that resentment and anger into some genuine comedic expressions during his rambles.

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10 out of 10: NEWS FROM HOME

The purview of the visuals consists of Akerman’s new residency, New York City; but, unlike city symphony films of the past wherein the experimental, poetic structure of the images are meant (in most instances) to enlighten the viewer as to the spirit and overall culture of the city itself and its citizens (which is still incidentally captured), Akerman inverts the intentions of these images by employing them as a signifier of her circumstances, the emotional landscape she finds herself in while attempting to carve out a path for herself in a foreign country, away from those she loves.

Monica Chapter One

Doron Max Hagay’s MONICA – Chapter One

Doron Max Hagay is back with Chapter Two of his Monica the miniseries, picking up where Chapter One left off after the fruition of her HBO Documentary; new episodes are in post-production with streaming availability set for this spring. In the time being, Hagay has condensed the first six episodes of the miniseries into a 35-minute film.

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PARIS BELONGS TO US Blu-ray Review

The films of Jacques Rivette have long been a proverbial white whale for many a cinephile, that is up until recently when the majority of his oeuvre finally made their way to physical media formats with Out 1 recently released as a box set through Kino Lorber as well as a collection of his work presented in an 8 disc set by Arrow Films. Now, the starting point of his career, his debut Paris Belongs To Us, has found a home on the shelf of the Criterion Collection.

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UNSUNG INDIES: Vanessa McDonnell’s JOHN’S OF 12TH STREET

McDonnell fully immerses the viewer in the world of John’s of 12th Street, guiding the audience through the in-the-kitchen execution of the menu to the restaurant-managing of stock deliveries and discrepancies to the actual patrons themselves (the film even follows along on take-out deliveries). She keeps it simple (or at least gives the appearance of simplicity) letting the ambiance speak for itself while the community inside do much of the heavy lifting, most everyone has a story to tell (or an anecdote or philosophy to share) and McDonnell kindly provides the allure of an audience.

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I KNEW HER WELL Blu-ray Review

Angelo Pietrangeli’s name is not one that comes up all too often in discussions pertaining to important filmmakers throughout history to cinema; it’s barely one that barely even surfaces when those discussions limit themselves to Italian filmmakers, a name apparently lost through the decades buried underneath the constant praise of the works of Antonioni, Rossellini, Fellini, Pasolini and more.

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JONNY COME LATELY Review

The undercurrent of that romantic relationship percolates throughout the grainy 16mm frames, absence or reluctance of dialogue suggest a force of repression present, lighting and music also hinting towards untold emotional malaise. Deragh Campbell’s posture and movements speak a mixed language of downtrodden and longing, seemingly on the cusp of a timid revival with her significant other, Sam (Kentucker Audley), and on the verge of total collapse at the same time.

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NEW COPS Review

In what Morton himself describes as a “labor of laziness”, New Cops definitely has the look and feel of a half-hearted project come to that’ll-do fruition. However, the film does retain a certain amount of charm given the production model, a series of tangent strains weaved together haphazardly soaking in low-key humor. Never taking itself seriously, Morton’s film also benefits from a short run-time (clocking in at 52 minutes), staying ahead of the curve and exiting before the routine grows tiresome.

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DEATH BY HANGING Blu-ray Review

The release of Oshima’s Death by Hanging (1968) - on Blu-ray/DVD and Hulu Plus - marks the fourth installment of Oshima’s oeuvre to the Criterion Collection, the first of his work from the sixties (excluding the Eclipse Series 21: Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties box-set, which includes five films from that time period). In the chronology of his filmography Death by Hanging slots in between Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (1967) and Three Resurrected Drunkards (1968), while also being his second feature-length to focus and explore the tenuous relations between the Japanese and the Koreans. That’s a total of 9 feature films that have been released under the Criterion umbrella, not to mention the seven other films available by Criterion on Hulu Plus.