Pierre and Jean are two pilgrims who journey from Paris to Santiago de Campostella in Spain to visit the religious shrine of Saint James. What ostensibly begins as a religious road trip becomes a scathing critique of Catholicism as told through the surreal eyes of Luis Buñuel. The Milky Way is as strong today as it was when first released in 1969 and the newly released Criterion Collection DVD will divide film viewers into two camps: those who see it as hysterical satire or those who will view it as hateful anti-clericalism and indeed, the film is filled with images […]
by Rupert Chiarella on Aug 8, 2007Watching Billy Wilder’s Ace In The Hole, which has been beautifully re-mastered by Criterion in a 2-disc package ($39.95) available this week, two things come to mind: 1) How forward thinking Wilder was and 2) how the movie ever got released. Kirk Douglas plays Chuck Tatum, a despicable newspaper reporter who stumbles upon a man trapped inside an old Indian burial cavern in Albuquerque, N.M. and creates a sideshow out of it. Though Tatum has a nose for scoops, his ego and determination to escape the desert and get back to the big city causes him to destroy everything in […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jul 15, 2007