This week’s High and Low celebrates the sublime and the obscene. But though the two movies I've spotlighted couldn't be more different, they're both a lot of fun. Perhaps the case could be made that both movies celebrate female artists and their unique voices, but that might be stretching things a tad. Still, you might find yourself surprised by these titles — one’s less stodgy, and the other less stupid, than the casual observer might at first realize. more »
Let’s kick off the new year with lady-killers of two different generations: Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson retains his seductive abilities in a very different kind of role, while Dean Martin gets embroiled in a 1960s sex farce. Both movies are thoroughly entertaining, but they’re also about as polar-opposite as it gets, making them the perfect antipodes for my first column of 2013. more »
Get out your passports, kids, because we’re seeing the world. Director Godfrey Reggio’s epic Qatsi Trilogy, filmed around the world, will kick your home theater to the next level with its stunning visuals and complex soundtracks. Then it’s off to the Caribbean, where Michael Caine embarrassed himself in a Peter Benchley adaptation several years before starring in that really terrible Jaws sequel. Some people never learn. more »
Wherever you stand on the High & Low scale, meticulous attention to craft and detail separates the journeymen from the true artists. This week, we get a tribute to an American auteur that most reflects his exacting eye — which, at one point, drove him into bankruptcy — along with highlights from a comedy series devoted to watching dreadful movies over and over again to find the humor therein. more »
With the post-Thanksgiving and post–Black Friday hangover still lingering, it’s a pretty slow week for new DVD releases. Since we’re entering the Christmas season, however, there’s no better time to find Highs and Lows among holiday films (while also sneakily reminding you of my film guide Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas, which makes a great stocking stuffer). So if you’re feeling worldly, spend Noel with some extremely unhappy French folks. Otherwise, pop some Ro-Tel and Velveeta in the crock pot and enjoy the holiday hi-jinks of America’s favorite rubber-faced redneck. more »
If you thought Japanese animation was all horny teens and laser guns and rocketships, prepare to have your mind blown by a tragic tale of wartime and lost youth (Grave of the Fireflies). And if you thought French star Alain Delon was known only for his work for art-house directors like Luchino Visconti and Jean-Pierre Melville (and for appearing on the cover of The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead album), get ready to watch him buckle his swash (Zorro).
more »
Even Jean-Luc Godard, the bad boy of the French New Wave, loved a good car crash. And Mel Brooks loves sitting down with an erudite interviewer just as much as he loves a good fart joke. Together these auteurs climb the peaks and plumb the depths of this week's High and Low with new DVD releases that belong on the shelf of any film lover who enjoys a good Marxist dialectic leavened with the occasional showtune-singing Nazi. more »
This week’s new DVD releases make it easy to put a little Highbrow dark chocolate in your Lowbrow crunchy peanut butter and enjoy a satisfying double feature . Whether you’re in the mood for serious German cinema (that mixes in some genre tropes) or ass-kicking science fiction (flavored with pungent political satire), there’s plenty for all tastes this week. more »
It’s Hitchcock in the morning, Hitchcock in the evening, Hitchcock at supper time given the upcoming Hitchcock movie, the recently-aired HBO flick The Girl, Blu-Ray releases of Dial “M” for Murder (in 3D!) and Strangers on a Train, and now a sumptuous new collection of the Master of Suspense's work. On the other end of the spectrum is a kids’ holiday movie that never got the acclaim it deserved — but now that director Paul Feig has gone on to make a little film called Bridesmaids, maybe it has a shot at cult status. more »
This week is about threesomes, in two movies that couldn’t be more different. Although both are the products of legendary filmmakers, one’s a restrained British drama while the other is a knockabout farce. (And if these movies put you in the mood for more ménage-a-cinema, check out 3, Cloud Atlas co-director Tom Tykwer's 2011 film, a sexy and intelligent movie that got very little traction in this country.) more »
Onetime collaborators Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach each have a new DVD release this week. The two last worked together on Anderson’s gorgeous and witty Fantastic Mr. Fox, and their idiosyncratic proclivities and points of view are very much on display at both ends of the High/Low spectrum. (As a bonus, both films feature Frances McDormand!) more »
This week gives us a chic, Oscar-nominated animated feature from France and a boisterous musical based on a low-budget cult horror-comedy with a plot point in common: Both films include homages to giant monsters rampaging through urban areas — evidence that there's often a thin line that separates High from Low. more »
This week’s DVD releases include “lesser” but no less entertaining movies by two American mavericks working in their favorite genres: Robert Altman satirizing an American institution with an ensemble cast so large it practically needs the old Cinerama process to get everyone on the screen, and Joe Dante mixing laughs, jolts and teens in peril. more »
