The Top 10 Tony Scott Films

[This is an entry in my Favorite Directors Blogathon .] It can sometimes be difficult to separate out Tony Scott's gifts as a populist f...

The Hole (Joe Dante, 2009/2012)

At last getting any form of non-festival domestic distribution, Joe Dante's family-oriented (family- friendly  may be a stretch) horror ...

Don't Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)

[This is my (very belated) August entry in Blind Spots.] Don't Look Now  begins with a fade out from rain cascading upon a puddle to shu...

If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise (Spike Lee, 2010)

Spike's follow-up to his landmark When the Levees Broke  begins as an incisive continuation of his best documentary, but the sheer range...

The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)

Joaquin Phoenix's Freddie Quell is a man so wracked by his carnal urges that he walks in convulsive, post-coital spasms and pants in rag...

Dredd (Pete Travis, 2012)

Of the many pleasures to be found in Dredd , Pete Travis' lean, nasty bottle episode of a film, perhaps the greatest is the lack of cumb...

Samsara (Ron Fricke, 2012)

Ron Fricke's latest tone poem, Samsara , takes its name from a concept shared among Indian religions pertaining to life, death and rebir...

Capsule Reviews: Wavelength, Begone Dull Care, Bezhin Meadow

Wavelength (Michael Snow, 1967) Michael Snow' legendary 45-minute structuralist work feels about three times its length, a slow zoom acr...

Ornette: Made in America (Shirley Clarke, 1985)

Restored and reissued by Milestone Film, Ornette: Made in America  offers a fascinating visualization of some of the most exciting music of ...

Resident Evil: Retribution (Paul W.S. Anderson, 2012)

The Resident Evil  movies have elevated the "It was all a dream" conceit into the longest-running  Simpsons  rake gag in cinema. I...

Robot & Frank (Jake Schreier, 2012)

Befitting a movie about a man losing his memory, Frank Langella's character in Robot & Frank  is also named Frank to keep things sim...

Beauty Is Embarrassing (Neil Berkeley, 2012)

Wayne White is too fascinating a character for the staid documentary techniques of Beauty Is Embarrassing . In fact, I found myself wishing ...

Planet of the Apes (1968) vs. Planet of the Apes (2001)

For Spectrum Culture's Re-Make/Re-Model series, I have tried to discuss remakes with artistic credibility in their own right, to show th...

Prince: Prince (1979)

So much of Prince's eponymous sophomore effort can be summarized by its hysterical cover. Where For You  functioned as primarily a disco...

Dragon Eyes (John Hyams, 2012)

If there is any justice in this world, John Hyams will not have to suffer in his direct-to-DVD or VOD-first-release purgatory for much longe...

Universal Soldier: Regeneration (John Hyams, 2010)

John Hyams' Universal Soldier: Regeneration , the third official installment of the Universal Soldier  series and fifth overall, was rel...

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Spike Lee, 2006)

I have not seen Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke  in five years, and in that time I had not only forgotten what a superb documentary it...

Premium Rush (David Koepp, 2012)

David Koepp's Premium Rush  feels like the first posthumous tribute to the work of the late Tony Scott. Unintentional, of course, but be...