Thompson on Hollywood

Now and Then: In Harmony, 'Life of Pi' and 'Beasts of the Southern Wild' Are the Best Films of the Year

Reviews

One is a grand, sea-borne spectacle, a master's first glorious foray into 3-D. The other, like its breakout star, is a furious miniature whose impact far outweighs its size. But both "Life of Pi" and "Beasts of the Southern Wild" are fervently alive to the world of nature, of spirit — two halves of the same double helix.

By Matt Brennan
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December 4, 2012 4:25 PM
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DVD Review: 'Dark Crimes' from Chandler, Hammett & Woolrich in Tantalizing TCM Noir Box Set

Reviews

On December 3, the TCM Vault Collection released a tantalizing box set of three film noirs, “The Glass Key,” “Phantom Lady” and “The Blue Dahlia,” all previously unavailable on Region 1 DVD. The connecting thread is crime fiction -- the first two films are based on novels by Dashiell Hammett and Cornell Woolrich, respectively, and the third is from an original screenplay by Raymond Chandler.

By Beth Hanna
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December 4, 2012 12:04 PM
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Now and Then: 'Heaven's Gate,' Catastrophe or Classic?

Reviews

Once reviled, Michael Cimino's controversial "Heaven's Gate" (1980) may remain — despite the Criterion Collection's effort to resuscitate it — a cautionary tale of directorial hubris, Hollywood excess, and wayward ambition. The real moral of the film, however, is far simpler: "Heaven's Gate" is an object lesson in the intangibility of greatness.

By Matt Brennan
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November 27, 2012 4:21 PM
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Kubrick's Early Odyssey: 'Fear and Desire' and 'Killer's Kiss'

Features

As the much-anticipated Stanley Kubrick exhibition opened at LACMA on November 1, the museum hosts a parallel film retrospective of the director's 13 feature films, screening in chronological order. This puts Kubrick's two least-seen yet remarkable works, "Fear and Desire" and "Killer's Kiss," as the inaugural double-header for the film series on November 9.

By Beth Hanna
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November 9, 2012 3:13 PM
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Now and Then: 'Your Sister's Sister,' Lost in the Oscar Shuffle

Reviews

As much as I enjoy awards chatter, this time of year can be frustrating. Spring, summer, even early fall releases that merit attention melt away before the campaigns of the heavy hitters. Lynn Shelton's lovely character study "Your Sister's Sister" won't factor in the Oscar race, and maybe it doesn't deserve to. But it surely deserves your eyes.

By Matt Brennan
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November 6, 2012 3:52 PM
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Rating 'Psycho,' Behind-the-Scenes 'Hitchcock' and the Universal Hitchcock Fifteen

Features

I got over the awful HBO "The Girl," starring Toby Jones as Alfred Hitchcock and Sienna Miller as Tippi Hedren, by watching the entire Dick Cavett Hitchcock interview. I had more fun with Thursday night's AFI FEST world premiere of Sacha Gervasi's light-hearted "Hitchcock," starring a superb ensemble led by Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren as the master auteur and his collaborator and wife Alma Reville, who the director thanked when he won his AFI Achievement Award, but I confess that I'd rather stick with the real thing.

By Anne Thompson
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November 2, 2012 2:23 PM
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'Arbitrage' Marks New Trend of Releasing Pay-Per-View Earnings

News

Richard Gere's Bernie Madoff-esque thriller "Arbitrage" reportedly now holds the record for combined sales for a movie released concurrently in theaters and VOD, grossing more than $7.3 million on the big screen and about $11 million on small screens. It also marks a slowly increasing trend of companies (in this case Roadside Attractions and Lions Gate Entertainment) starting to reveal heretofore hidden pay-per-view sales figures, as VOD becomes more relevant to independent film profit and distribution.

By Beth Hanna
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November 2, 2012 12:44 PM
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Now and Then: After the Storm, Portraits of Tenacity in Recovery

Reviews

As a resident of a city whose history of storms — and their concomitant unnatural disasters — is troubled at best, I watched Sandy warily but distantly. Thing always look different outside the "cone of uncertainty." The images coming in from the Northeast this morning put me in a more solemn frame of mind.

By Matt Brennan
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October 30, 2012 12:02 PM
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'Codependent Lesbian Space Alien' and 'Delta Boys' Debut on VOD Through Sundance Artists Services Program

News

Making their digital premieres today, through the Sundance Institute's Artist Services Program, are "Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same" and "Delta Boys."

By Sophia Savage
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October 16, 2012 2:57 PM
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'Magic Mike' and 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' Available on VOD Before DVD

News

The studios are messing around with once-rigid ancillary windows. The trend to push movies to earlier video-on-demand releases is manifested by two dramatically different films this week: Timur Bakmembetov's twisted history action flick, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," and Steven Soderbergh's sexy male-stripper dramedy "Magic Mike," starring Channing Tatum and Mathew McConaughey.