Blue Valentine (Blu-ray)
Blue Valentine could have been called “Scenes from a Marriage”, if Ingmar Bergman hadn’t already taken the title. But Bergman is an apt reference. Derek Cianfrance’s film is as American as they come, but it shares the Swedish master’s emotional rawness, his bleak...
I was holding off purchasing the Alliance versions of most Miramax films, hoping to see better American versions, but now I'm looking to pick up a copy of anything in which I'm seriously interested, unless it's been announced by Lionsgate.
The Yards (Blu-ray) This is warning, not a review. The Yards is a standard-issue tale of crime and corruption in Brooklyn that’s elevated by a first-rate cast including James Caan, Ellen Burstyn, Charlize Theron, Joaquin Phoenix, Faye Dunaway and Mark Wahlberg. Released in 1999, the film...
Just going off my review list: Memento (it really is all dialogue) Jack Goes Boating (based on a play) Winter's Bone Hard Candy Solitary Man The Ghost Writer A Single Man Is Anybody There?
Robert Harris' review of NxNW on Blu is probably best remembered for its parody of restoration write-ups, but he did address the "softness" issue -- and there are few people around who know Hitchcock's films better than RAH:
Have we disagreed previously? I certainly haven't attacked you here, merely disagreed -- and that's going to happen when one posts in a discussion forum. As for not reading HTF reviews, that's your choice, but if you're going to comment on my setup or standards, at least take the trouble to...
I don't share that philosophy, which, to me, is no different from the "eye candy" school of judging Blu-rays. I judge films by their narrative and emotional impact, not by whether the pictures are "pretty". Did you look at my equipment list? I'll bet not. When you switched over to comparing...
All Good Things (Blu-ray)
All Good Things is based on the life of real estate heir Robert Durst, but most of the names have been changed, because the film sticks closely to known facts and draws the same conclusion that anyone who followed the story reached long ago: that Durst – excuse...
Now I'm saying "wow" again, but with a different meaning -- as in, "wow! this is someone whose idea of a good-looking Blu-ray so radically differs from mine that we'll probably never agree on much".