Smart Words About Cinema
There is always such a feeling of inevitability by the time the Oscar nominations roll around. Even moved back to early January, it arrives after weeks of Top Ten lists, an unending array of critics awards, and predictions from every pundit with a blog. At least they beat the Golden Globe Awards this year, but [...]
Images, lines, gestures, moods from the year’s films • Asleep in a balcony seat at the top of some golden-age movie palace, Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) is brought a telephone: The Master (Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lancaster Dodd) is calling from England … • In Lincoln, the magnetic clasp of hands at the moment Stanton (Bruce McGill) [...]
Welcome 2013 with one last look back at the best releases of 2011, as seen by the contributors to Parallax View and a few notable Seattle-based film critics. Sean Axmaker 1. Holy Motors 2. Zero Dark Thirty 3. Moonrise Kingdom 4. Margaret (2011 in NY and LA, didn’t screen elsewhere until 2012) 5. Cosmopolis 6. [...]
The last of the lists, with the best debuts from the manufacture-on-demand mode and a few assorted special prizes for stand-out achievements and dubious honors. Manufacture-on-Demand 1. “Red Dust” (Warner Archive), the 1932 jungle melodrama starring Clark Gable as a rubber plantation foreman in East Asia and Jean Harlow as the street smart showgirl who [...]
Continuing our tribute to the best of 2012, here are my picks for the top TV releases on disc. 1. “Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season” (HBO) – Pay cable is always looking for the next buzz show, a series that gets people talking, watching and subscribing. “Game of Thrones,” the epic fantasy set [...]
While you can find many of the best Blu-ray releases in my countdown of the Top Ten disc releases of 2012, this is a list of the top Blu-ray debuts of films previously available on DVD only, upgraded with new transfers and digital masters. 1. “Lawrence of Arabia: Fiftieth Anniversary” (Sony) presents the long-awaited Blu-ray [...]
For a dying medium, the disc market continues to release a robust slate of superb DVDs and Blu-rays, classic and contemporary both. Here is my annual round-up of the Best of 2012, a small compendium of lists: for disc debuts, Blu-ray releases, TV on disc and manufacture on demand. There is a lot of good [...]