Le Samourai: Criterion Collection
March 6, 2018
Le Samourai (1967) begins with no dialogue for several minutes as director Jean-Pierre Melville expertly conveys everything we need to know visually. He shows professional hitman Jef Costello (Delon) getting ready for a job. It is the kind of introduction...
The Asphalt Jungle: Criterion Collection
February 16, 2017
As a connoisseur of heist films it just doesn’t get any better than The Asphalt Jungle (1950), which also happens to be one of my all-time favorite film noirs. Directed with stylish economy by John Huston, it features atmospheric black and white cinematography...
Blood Simple: Criterion Collection
November 30, 2016
After the disastrous experience of making Crimewave (1986) with their friend and fellow filmmaker Sam Raimi, the Coen brothers – Joel and Ethan – parted company with him and decided to make a film on their own. They returned to their hometown and...
Psycho Beach Party: Blu-Ray
August 20, 2015
Surf’s up all you hep cats and hep kitties! Psycho Beach Party (2001) is a crazy movie that parodies and celebrates those kitschy beach party movies of the 1960s and sci-fi films of the 1950s. The prelude sets the tone of the movie perfectly. Chicklet...
The Friends of Eddie Coyle: Criterion Collection
April 27, 2015
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) is one of those forgotten films from the 1970s. It’s a melancholic story of small-time criminals working on the fringes of Boston’s underworld. It’s not exactly the kind of feel-good story that lights up the box...
Insomnia: Criterion Collection
August 12, 2014
In retrospect, films like Smilla’s Sense of Snow (1997) and Insomnia (1997) anticipated the recent fascination with Scandinavian thrillers. While the former dealt with a protagonist uncovering the nefarious machinations of a powerful corporation under...
Pickpocket: Criterion Collection
August 11, 2014
Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959) is about Michel (LaSalle), a man compelled to steal from others. He works the streets, subways and train stations of Paris taking money from unsuspecting victims with his nimble fingers. He wears a plain, non-descript...
Rififi: Criterion Collection
February 4, 2014
Blacklisted by Hollywood during the 1950s, American director Jules Dassin went to France and made Rififi (1955), considered by critics to be one of the greatest heist films ever made. It also became part of a thriving French film noir movement that included...
Thief: Criterion Collection
January 30, 2014
The best thieves in the United States operated independent crews working high-line jobs from the 1940s to the 1970s. Most of them came out of Chicago, in particular, a neighborhood known as the Patch. Meeting these people would prove vital to the creation...
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion: Criterion Collection
January 23, 2014
Filmmaker Elio Petri cut his teeth on Italian arthouse cinema, but with Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) he did the unthinkable by making a radical political film within the mainstream Italian film industry. It was an audacious move that...
