Gloriously composed — visually and aurally — The Young Girls of Rochefort is a lyrically light holiday to this provincial town, with its assortment of pleasant people having their fair share of romantic troubles. Moreover, it’s one of the best musicals the form has ever seen.
Few things are more exciting for hardcore cinephiles than the semi-annual Barnes and Noble Criterion sale. For a few precious weeks a year, super high-quality Blu-Rays of obscure and influential classic films are on the relative cheap. Most noteworthy: they look really, REALLY pretty. Most Criterion-heads are lining up to pick up A Hard Day’s …
The Criterion Collection has a pedigree that few other media distribution outlets can match. Widely respected for bringing consumers the highest possible quality editions of landmark, respected, and exemplary films, their only peer is perhaps the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (an audiophile-focused line of remastered classic albums), and the MFSL doesn’t have nearly the same …
Between the time he directed his last film — Imitation of Life, in 1959 — and his death in 1987, Douglas Sirk managed to see his critical stock rise considerably. His work, specifically his 1950s work for Universal, went from being dismissed as soapy fluff to being reevaluated as sly, barbed condemnations of the social values …
Like many film enthusiasts, I love the Criterion Collection. And while I scoff at some of their selections—I won’t name names—for the most part, I anticipate new releases with excitement and glee (June’s slate is particularly amazing). Of course, due to lack of finances, I can’t buy as many as I would like; though someday, …
Ingrid Bergman’s romance with Italian filmmaker Robert Rossellini was always destined to be a tabloid sensation. Both were international stars in their own way, both were married to other people, and the suddenness of their relationship – on the set of Stromboli, their first film together – coupled with Bergman’s subsequent pregnancy (their son was born before Stromboli even …
City Lights Written by Charles Chaplin Directed by Charles Chaplin USA, 1931 As they have with The Gold Rush, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, and Monsieur Verdoux, The Criterion Collection has released another stunning Blu-ray/DVD transfer of a Charlie Chaplin classic, rife with a surplus of features. City Lights (1931), which Criterion itself calls, “the …