Cinema

​Sciamma’s “Girlhood” shines bright like a diamond

June 17th, 2015

"Girlhood,” Céline Sciamma’s third feature and the conclusion of what the filmmaker considers a coming-of-age trilogy, continues her engagement with the bildungsroman. Not as contained as debut “Water Lilies” or as directly preoccupied with gender as “Tomboy,” “Girlhood” follows the trajectory of teenager Marieme (Karidja Touré), a bright young woman whose grades are nevertheless inadequate to secure her a continuing spot in school. The alternative, placement in a…

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​John Wayne fans can add two more on Blu-ray

June 17th, 2015

Two 1973 westerns from late in John Wayne’s career came out on Blu-ray this month from Warner Home Video, “Cahill United States Marshal” and “The Train Robbers.” While neither ranks among the iconic actor’s best work, both are underrated, solid examples of the genre. Just three years before his final film, both show Wayne doing what he’s best-remembered for. Both also stage and frame their action effectively for the wide Panavision screen. But public tastes and western…

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Local Film ‘Aura’ Blurs the Lines Between Good and Evil

June 17th, 2015

Local rapper turned moviemaker Charles Mauk will release his very first feature-length movie, “Aura,” this Saturday, June 27 at The Fargo Theatre.

The locally made low-budget mob movie takes on the unthinkable task of depicting our small and friendly city of Fargo as a metropolitan-sized, crime-ridden city. Remarkably enough, Mauk found a way to pull it off.

Though not surprisingly, given the circumstances, there are some discernible imperfections in the film. Nevertheless, “Aura”…

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The maligned “E.T.” videogame phones home in “Atari: Game Over”

June 10th, 2015

When Microsoft’s subsidiary Xbox Entertainment Studios ceased operations, only one episode of the planned series “Signal to Noise” had been produced.

The first cycle of the show was originally slated to include six documentaries on various aspects of videogame culture and the videogame industry.

Screenwriter and director Zak Penn, known equally for his work on the stories and scripts of popular Marvel comic book adaptations and his 2004 Werner Herzog team-up “Incident at Loch…

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​Beyond formula: three ambitious B-westerns on Blu-ray

June 10th, 2015

Movies that fall into easily categorized genre labels, such as western, horror, science-fiction, war, etc., are often critically dismissed as simple entertainment aimed at specific fan bases rather than as serious filmmaking. Yet a substantial number of “genre” films are, to various degrees, actually thinly-disguised sociopolitical statements, psychological character explorations, and/or philosophical meditations no less powerful than a more critically-esteemed social issue drama or…

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​Death Letter: Jarecki Finds His Perfect “Jinx”

June 3rd, 2015

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (2015)

WARNING: The following review reveals key plot information. Read only if you have seen “The Jinx.”

The bombshell revelation that concludes Andrew Jarecki’s HBO series “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” occurs when the title subject uses the bathroom while wearing a hot mic. Hilariously, weirdly, but somehow not surprisingly, the incident mirrors the gag in “The Naked Gun” when Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin…

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​Impressive Blu-rays of vintage noirs

June 3rd, 2015

More examples of the classic film noir subcategory of crime thrillers have been showing up on impressive-looking Blu-ray releases, including several crossover genre pictures that incorporate various noir themes with a number of variations on the formula.

The solid semi-noir murder-mystery “Cover Up” (1949) came out this past spring from Kino, and the gripping desert-survival drama “Inferno” (1953) became available in a region-free 3D Blu-ray from Scottish distributor Panamint…

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​Gibney looks at Scientology in “Going Clear”

May 27th, 2015

Alex Gibney’s documentary “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” uses author Lawrence Wright’s similarly titled book as the basis for a feature-length examination of the controversial organization known to many as the secretive, confusing and mysterious spiritual home of celebrities like Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Legally recognized as a religion by the IRS in 1993, the Church of Scientology began when prolific science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard morphed his…

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Jack Black and James Marsden star in dark high school reunion comedy

May 23rd, 2015

WARNING: The following review reveals key plot information. Read only if you have seen “The D Train.”

In their feature directing debut, “Yes Man” screenwriters Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel take a stab at blending sitcom-like laughs with social introspection, and the results are as confused as the emotional state of main character Dan Landsman (Jack Black). Landsman, the self-appointed chairperson of his Pittsburgh high school reunion committee, spots old classmate Oliver Lawless…

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​Biblical spectacle shines in new Blu-ray

May 21st, 2015

Released to Blu-ray last March in a limited edition of only 3,000 copies was the classic spectacle “Solomon and Sheba.”

Historical epics, especially biblical epics, sometimes get a bad reputation. Many rely on the spectacle of exotic settings and costumes, a few large-scale action sequences and overblown romantic melodrama with only a faint resemblance to historical facts or biblical accounts. Cecil B. DeMille was the master of the popular epic film, biblical and otherwise, but…

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