Recent DVDs Columns

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Thursday, June 18 2009

‘Have Gun - Will Travel’: Return to Fort Benjamin

By Kit MacFarlane

With attempted justifications of military torture on our minds, Retro Remote heads back to the '50s TV Western to find a surprisingly tough moral stance on the U.S. military's destruction of human dignity and dehumanisation of 'enemy combatants'.

(more Retro Remote)

Tuesday, May 26 2009

Let the Right One In, But Only the Right One

By Jennifer Makowsky

Lindqvist’s book and Alfredson’s film adaptation both convey a sweet, dark version of puppy love. We don’t need the American remake.

(more The Box Office Belletrist)

Friday, May 8 2009

Gidget’s ‘Dear Diary—et al.’ – and All that May Imply

By Kit MacFarlane

As things start getting a little steamy, Retro Remote 'sinks into nothingness' trying to mix Gidget and some serious film theory.

(more Retro Remote)

Monday, May 4 2009

Fighting the Flu

By Marco Lanzagorta

The mobilization of the military to control the spread of the current outbreak of a rare strain of the swine flu in Mexico City is right out of Stephen King’s The Stand.

(more Dread Reckoning)

Thursday, April 30 2009

Missing the Boat while ‘Fishing with John’ (Lurie)

By Chris Justice

Imagine a 'Seinfeld' episode on a boat with rods in Jerry and Kramer’s hands … you get the picture.

(more The Tackle Box)

Tuesday, April 28 2009

‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’: Check, Please

By Jennifer Makowsky

I hate it when a film takes a brilliant literary work and turns it into what it thinks the literary work should be.

(more The Box Office Belletrist)

Thursday, April 9 2009

Looking Back at ‘Back to the Future’

By Monte Williams

The most irreverent, knowing, daring and hippest time travel story of all time has, inevitably and fittingly, become a time capsule.

(more Lowbrow Literati)

Tuesday, April 7 2009

Waltzing with Wilco

By Ben Rubenstein

As any experienced concert-goer knows, a lively audience can mean the difference between a lackluster event and a memorable night. Sometimes, it’s more important than the band's actual performance.

(more Mixtape Confessions)

Tuesday, March 31 2009

Chok(ing) Onscreen and In Print

By Jennifer Makowsky

Whether served up on the page or on the screen, this is an intimate assessment of a twisted mother/son relationship with plenty of sardonic humor and scathing satire.

(more The Box Office Belletrist)

Friday, March 6 2009

‘The City’: The Most Seen Documentary

By Michael Barrett

Steiner and Van Dyke have an eye for beauty even in misery, and their compositions make this part of the movie a pleasure to visit, even if we wouldn't want to live there.

(more Canon Fodder)

Sunday, March 1 2009

Woolf at the Door

By Jennifer Makowsky

Both Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham's The Hours offer an illuminating look at the choices we make, the roles we play, and the hours that hinge our lives together.

(more The Box Office Belletrist)

Friday, February 6 2009

Conversing with Rudy Wurlitzer: ‘A Beaten-up Old Scribbler’

By Rodger Jacobs

My conversations with Rudy Wurlitzer were not unlike a road journey itself with plenty of unplanned side trips along the way.

(more Deconstruction Zone)

Thursday, January 29 2009

A Perverted Perception of Movies

By Chris Barsanti

The success or failure of The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema hinges greatly on what one thinks of Slavoj Zizek's free-range associations on desire, blood, human waste, castration, and social control in films.

(more The Screener)

Metabots and Deconstructicons: Transformers Goes Postmodern

By Monte Williams

I am happy to report that after 25 years, the 'Transformers' franchise has finally gone postmodern… no thanks to 'Transformers Energon'.

(more Lowbrow Literati)

Thursday, January 22 2009

On the End of Every Fork

By Chris Barsanti

Our Daily Bread is a 21st century naked lunch in the true sense of what Burroughs meant, not a scattershot impressionistic sensory assault, but an eye-opener that can actually change the way one views the world.

(more The Screener)

Ken Russell at the BBC

By Michael Barrett

Everything here is in achingly beautiful and sharply restored black and white, everything is intelligent and witty, everything is deeply felt -- everything is Russell.

(more Canon Fodder)

Thursday, January 15 2009

Convergence Culture: the Many Faces of Hellboy

By Shaun Huston

Different media means different Hellboys. Mike Mignola's versus Guillermo del Toro's.

(more Worlds in Panels)

Thursday, January 8 2009

Bret Hart: A Real Life in a Cartoon World

By Monte Williams

In a surreal world dedicated to a uniquely haphazard and comically inept breed of pretense, Bret Hart’s appeal was simple: he made everything seem 'real'.

(more Lowbrow Literati)

Wednesday, January 7 2009

Twilight Takeover

By Jennifer Makowsky

The film is a successful adaptation of the book not only because Pattinson is so talented and dreamy, but also because Hardwicke knows a thing or two about filming adolescents.

(more The Box Office Belletrist)

Thursday, December 4 2008

Nary a Word: ‘The Last Laugh’ and ‘The General’

By Michael Barrett

The sound era added nothing thematically or tonally that wasn't already perfected in silent films.

(more Canon Fodder)

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