Homepage Archive: March-April 2007

by Brian Eggert

April 15th, 2007: July Criterion Collection Titles Announced

Acclaimed for its adept restoration and assemblage of film materials, The Criterion Collection remains the premier company for cinephiles to get their monthly quota of “important classic and contemporary films" on DVD. Thus far, Criterion's 2007 release year has included immaculate discs into their catalog, including The 49th Parallel, Bicycle Theives, Brute Force, The Naked City, Army of Shadows, as well as special editions of Akira Kurosawa’s masterpieces Yojimbo and Sanjuro and Carol Reed's The Third Man.
Criterion announced their releases for July yesterday and with that one can see 2007 is panning out to be a great (and expensive) year for fans of the company.

As July’s most important release, Billy Wilder’s cynical critique of guerilla media tactics Ace in the Hole (1951) finally arrives on DVD. Starring Kirk Douglas in a performance as scathing as his work in Paths of Glory or Detective Story, the film centers on a down-on-his-luck reporter that creates a media circus to further his own career. This socially relevant appraisal has remained conspicuously absent from home video and television (apart from the recent appearances on TCM), but come July, it will get some much-deserved attention from Criterion. SRP: $39.95.

In a boxed set featuring three of Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara’s most celebrated films, Criterion adds another important body of work to their already substantial selection of Japanese film. With Face of Another (1966), Woman in the Dunes (1964), and Pitfall (1962), Teshigahara’s career as an avant-garde artist is exemplified by way of these atmospheric and wonderfully esoteric pictures. A must-have release for any fan of Japanese or experimental cinema. SRP: $79.95.

The first film by Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, Ivan’s Childhood (1962) was originally ill-received by the Russian government as it depicted a youth fighting on WWII battlefronts. It has since been hailed as one of the best pictures ever made. Director of the sci-fi classic Solarisand biopic Andrei Rublev (both available from Criterion), Tarkovsky directs this poetic film as a memorable contrast between war violence and the calm of pre-war harmony. SRP: $29.95

Normally associated with crime pictures such as Le samouraï, Le cercle rouge, and Bob le flambeur (all three are Criterion releases), Jean-Pierre Melville has gained a burgeoning respect since The Criterion Collection has made his films available here in the states. The 1969 French resistance film Army of Shadows proved to audiences last year in its limited theatrical re-release that Melville was capable of much more than ultra-cool noirish stories. Criterion’s July release Les Enfants Terribles (1950) will assist in reinforcing Melville’s prestigious reputation as much more than a crime film director. Written by legendary French writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, Melville’s dramatically vivid picture shows a teenage brother and sister’s damaged and complicated rel-ationship. SRP: $39.95.

For more information about these DVDs and their special features, visit The Criterion Collection homepage HERE.

 

April 1st, 2007: Brute Force now available on DVD!

Available on DVD starting April 17th from The Criterion Collection, Jules Dassin’s iconic 1947 prison film noir Brute Force finally receives its deserved place among the other Criterion greats. Akin to the four other Dassin releases distributed by Criterion, this single disc edition may not be packed like the two-to-five disc special editions the company is best known for, but contains enough material in the disc’s features and booklet that it's definitely up to par.

In honor of the film’s re-release onto DVD, check out the new entry on Brute Force into The Definitives HERE.

If you’re unfamiliar with the work of director Jules Dassin or the film, let me say this isn’t intellectual nonsense that most crowds would wave off. Accessible for any adult viewer, the film uses prison movie formulas, defined most recently in The Shawshank Redemption and the HBO series "OZ," and turns them on their head. Told with stark social commentary, dramatic narrative, and a bloodily violent climax, Brute Force serves first and foremost as great entertainment, a crowd-pleaser, and second as a reflective lesson on societal positioning (which is discussed in the article).

Pick up Brute Force on DVD starting April 17th, and if you can’t wait that long, Dassin’s Rififi, Night and the City, Thieves’ Highway, and The Naked City are all available from Criterion as well.
Read The Definitives: Brute Force

 

March 15th , 2007: An overture to Deep Focus Review

Welcome readers, cinephiles, and casual moviegoers to Deep Focus Review! This site serves as a database for reviews of movies new and old, a guide to upcoming theatrical and DVD releases, and even a source for the occasional piece of movie news. Currently, there is a database of around forty reviews on this site (which are accessible by exploring the "Reviews A-Z" pages); more reviews will be posted every week.

I hate to do anything as drastic as explain the metaphor, but for those of you not savvy on movie lingo, here goes… A “deep focus” in filmic terms involves bringing the back, middle, and foreground into focus, allowing for clarification to a larger depth of field. As this is a movie review site, the intention for each review is to illuminate the back, middle, and foreground of the reviewed film. On each review, I endeavor to pore over the source material, talent involved, plot, filmic conception, and subtext of a film. I will explain the story of a film; however, I attempt to do this without too many spoilers—meaning I try not to divulge plot points the filmmakers intended to keep secret.

My reviews will hopefully be simple to read but pregnant with content, helping you to choose what to see in the theater and what to rent on DVD—all the while assisting you with constructing an alternative outlook to film analysis.

It is my firm belief that a film is an aesthetic experience: that story is supplementary. If I know the entire plot of Casablanca, does that mean that on the twentieth viewing it is any less enjoyable? Iconic movies are a combination of superb acting, writing, direction, cinematography, and so on. A great film should achieve greatness without relying on the secrets of its narrative. The same jokes should make you laugh over and over. The same suspense should send shivers up your spine. The best movies are rewatchable; fifty years after being made, a classic will still affect you. Movies often change as the viewer does. Classics, new or old, will grow with the viewer by becoming more complicated or even pleasantly simple but will never lose their ability to captivate audiences.

For an examination of archetypal filmmaking, be sure to look out for The Definitives. Each month I will post one to two essays on classic or important contemporary films. This is not a top ten list. There is no order. I choose, sometimes at random, a film I consider to be cardinal, and then I research it. The point of these essays is to give readers an overview of a film’s interpretations, production, and importance. On average, one Definitive a month will be added. The Definitives are the epitome of Deep Focus Review’s objective: a penetrating look into vital cinema.

Joker Media’s Chris Tardiff, a phenomenal guy I have known all my life, deserves many thanks for building this site and teaching me the technical know-how to maintain it. Without him, Deep Focus Review would have been a lot less classy and a lot less organized. If you are thinking about building a site of your own, you should talk to the people at Joker Media. Check their website out HERE.

Updates will be frequent on this site. I hope for an average of a review or an article per day. Though the bulk of Deep Focus Review's content will be written by me, additional material in the form of film-related essays will occasionally be posted by guest writers.

There will always be something new, so check back often, send feedback if you like, and most importantly keep attending the cinema.

Brian Eggert – Owner, Operator, and Critic for Deep Focus Review