Great Movies
TV/Streaming
Home Entertainment Guide: November 2021
On the latest Blu-ray and streaming releases, including The Protégé, Respect, Candyman, and Jungle Cruise.
On the latest Blu-ray and streaming releases, including The Protégé, Respect, Candyman, and Jungle Cruise.
A new movie called "No Escape" comes out next week, but there's a 20-year-old movie with the same name you may have forgotten.
Marie writes: There's a glorified duck pond at the center of the complex where I live. And since moving in, my apartment has been an object of enduring fascination for Canadian geese - who arrive each Spring like a squadron of jet fighters returning from a mission in France, to run a sweeping aerial recon my little garden aka: playhouse for birds... (click to enlarge)
Marie writes: ever stumble upon a photo taken from a movie you've never seen? Maybe it's an official production still; part of the Studio's publicity for it at the time. Or maybe it's a recent screen capture, one countless fan-made images to be found online. Either way, I collect them like pennies in jar. I've got a folder stuffed with images, all reflecting a deep love of Cinematography and I thought I'd share some - as you never know; sometimes, the road to discovering a cinematic treasure starts with a single intriguing shot....
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Cinematography: Harry Stradling(click images to enlarge)
Marie writes: The local Circle Craft Co-operative features the work of hundreds of craftspeople from across British Columbia and each year, a Christmas Market is held downtown at the Vancouver Convention Centre to help sell and promote the work they produce. My friend and I recently attended the 37th Christmas Market and where I spotted these utterly delightful handmade fabric monsters by Diane Perry of "Monster Lab" - one of the artist studios located on Salt Spring Island near Washington State...it's the eyes... they follow you. :-)
(click to enlarge)
Yes it is, I'm afraid. Or almost. Good grief, I know, it's not even Thanksgiving yet and they've already got the festive "Best Of" decorations up in the stores! And I know lots of critics who've been told by their editors to start working on their big '00s lists -- so, reluctantly, I've begun to ponder mine, as well. I haven't even taken a first stab at it but I can tell you this: It will probably not resemble the Top 100 list published a few days ago in the Times of London. Oh, sure, I can conceive of putting together some kind of list that includes "Crash" (#98), "Bowling for Columbine" (#77), "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (#28), "Slumdog Millionaire" (#6) and the like -- but such a ranking would not be comprised of movies that I hold in high esteem. (Have any of the decades' movies plummeted in reputation more dramatically than "Columbine" and "Crash"?)
If you want to page through the Times' list, you can go ahead and start here. It's not all so bad. Meanwhile, here are the top 20 -- with links to things I've written about some of the titles:
Q. I am a New Yorker who lived in the Caribbean from '75 to '01. I've seen hundreds of martial arts films, a good portion of them projected on bed sheets during those first 10 years (I lived 50 miles outside of Montego Bay). Jamaicans called them "kickers." When I was watching "Kill Bill" in New York I leaned over to my Jamaican-born son and said "this is a kicker on steroids." OK, yes, its a slick homage to the genre, and yes, there is a certain joy or exuberance to it, yes yes yes, but Roger--was it really a religious experience? I thought "Pulp Fiction" was excellent. I don't have anything against the man, but it seems whenever Tarantino the Great makes a movie a lot of people kneel at the altar. I have to wonder what critics and movie fans alike would have said if an unknown director delivered that film. I saw "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" at the behest of that same son of mine, and yes it was predictable and boring--and so what? Was it really worse than the thousands of movies you have seen and given 1/2 star or higher? Why are you so pissed off? My kid said he got a kick out of it. If he did then I suppose he wasn't ripped off. What do you think? (Nick Minotti, Pompano Beach, FL)
