Thursday, October 2, 2014

Shameless self-promotion: more DVD reviews by yrs truly

I try to put up a blog entry each week, but sometimes I miss a week and then inevitably come up with a titanic post for the week after. In the meantime, I continue to do the Funhouse TV show (all details about that can be found at the official show site). I also do DVD reviews for the Disc Dish site.

I haven’t posted any of my reviews on this blog since late last year, so I thought I’d play “catch up” and put all of the 2014 reviews (thus far) into a blog post. [Note: it ordinarily takes about 10-15 seconds to load the DD site, but in the week I'm posting this there are a few server probs that mean it might take a minute or two to load the DD page in question — I'm always good with timing....] Onto the reviews:

David Lynch’s brilliant and disturbing debut feature, Eraserhead (1977)

Oliver Stone’s *insane* debut feature, Seizure (1973), starring Jonathan Frid

John Cassavetes’ last personal film, the exquisite mess Love Streams (1984)

Groucho, Harpo, Chico on the small screen in The Marx Brothers TV Collection

The Essential Jacques Demy featuring a half dozen of the musical visionary’s works

Billy Wilder’s quirky and imaginative The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)

Henry Morgan is a sarcastic hick visiting the big city in Richard Fleischer’s So This Is New York (1948) 

Georges Franju’s melding of “poetry and pulp,” Judex (1963)

Douglas Sirk’s visually sumptuous All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Howard Hawks’ seminal western Red River (1948)

Billy Wilder’s dark critique of the media, Ace in the Hole (1951)

A stunning slice of early Sixties character study, Il Sorpasso (1962), Dino Risi

A tribute to the great essayist by filmmaker Emiko Omori, To Chris Marker, An Unsent Letter (2012)

Douglas Sirk’s noir twist on Gaslight, Sleep, My Love (1948)

Errol Morris tackles Stephen Hawking’s theories in A Brief History of Time (1991)

The passionate and touching arthouse hit Blue is the Warmest Color (2013)

Alain Robbe-Grillet’s cerebral thriller Trans-Europ-Express (1967)

Godard’s controversial Hail Mary (1985)

Kaurismaki’s beautifully small La Vie de Boheme (1992)

The political anthology Far From Vietnam (1967)

Altman’s masterwork, Nashville (1975)

Chris Marker’s cinema verite landmark, Le Joli Mai (1962)

A wonderful, thus far “missing” variety series gets the deluxe treatment: Here's Edie: the Edie Adams Television Collection, '62-'64

The Dean Martin Roasts: Complete Collection: yes, I watched all 54 roasts in this 25-disc set (over several weeks…)

Francois Ozon’s playfully reflexive In the House (2012)

Better than the last 29 years of SNL, it’s the Best of Fridays collection

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