Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.
In all honesty, the films of 2023 should take a backseat to the images we are seeing every day in Gaza, where journalists and average citizens have been recording and documenting a daily assault on their homes and livelihoods by the Idf. Whatever fakery we watched and enjoyed in the cinema this year should always be kept in perspective in importance with images that are real and actually happening right now. The Palestinians who have documented these important images have been targeted and killed with intent and purpose to silence what their photos and videos are showing and saying.
List of journalists who have been killed.
The below is of lesser note:
Best First Watches:
Angel’s Egg La belle noiseuse Centipede Horror Charley Varrick Coffy Crimson Gold...
In all honesty, the films of 2023 should take a backseat to the images we are seeing every day in Gaza, where journalists and average citizens have been recording and documenting a daily assault on their homes and livelihoods by the Idf. Whatever fakery we watched and enjoyed in the cinema this year should always be kept in perspective in importance with images that are real and actually happening right now. The Palestinians who have documented these important images have been targeted and killed with intent and purpose to silence what their photos and videos are showing and saying.
List of journalists who have been killed.
The below is of lesser note:
Best First Watches:
Angel’s Egg La belle noiseuse Centipede Horror Charley Varrick Coffy Crimson Gold...
- 1/3/2024
- by Soham Gadre
- The Film Stage
David’s Quick Take for the Tl;Dr Media Consumer:
Genocide is the fourth and final title included in Eclipse Series 37: When Horror Came to Shochiku, a box set containing the sum total of a short lived experiment that the fabled Japanese studio conducted in the late 1960s. For a movie that doesn’t feature any giant monsters stomping on buildings or blasting victims with exploding laser beams, it otherwise manages to tick off just about every other item associated with Japanese post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror disaster cliches of its era:
a solemn moralistic condemnation of militarized atomic weaponry that both opens and closes the film in a book-ending framework the valiant effort of a few ordinary heroes who bravely put their lives at risk in order to save humanity from its self-inflicted demise involvement of hostile aliens who determine that humans are unworthy to survive after squandering the opportunity...
Genocide is the fourth and final title included in Eclipse Series 37: When Horror Came to Shochiku, a box set containing the sum total of a short lived experiment that the fabled Japanese studio conducted in the late 1960s. For a movie that doesn’t feature any giant monsters stomping on buildings or blasting victims with exploding laser beams, it otherwise manages to tick off just about every other item associated with Japanese post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror disaster cliches of its era:
a solemn moralistic condemnation of militarized atomic weaponry that both opens and closes the film in a book-ending framework the valiant effort of a few ordinary heroes who bravely put their lives at risk in order to save humanity from its self-inflicted demise involvement of hostile aliens who determine that humans are unworthy to survive after squandering the opportunity...
- 11/28/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:
This subdued hour long late-career enigma from Orson Welles initially feels a bit sad and anti-climactic when it’s presented as his “final completed fictional feature” (as stated on the back of the new Criterion Collection release.) A quiet, languidly paced adaptation of an Isak Dinesen short story, there’s very little action to stimulate the senses much of the time, with most lines delivered by actors sitting down, standing still and speaking rather quietly. When the tension ramps up a bit toward the end, the self-conscious art house touches run a great risk of falling flat and coming across as unintentionally comical. But the excellent 4K restoration, a well-curated selection of supplemental features, and above all else, the compelling presentation of a great man and cultural innovator entering his artistic decline makes the new Blu-ray package of The Immortal Story...
This subdued hour long late-career enigma from Orson Welles initially feels a bit sad and anti-climactic when it’s presented as his “final completed fictional feature” (as stated on the back of the new Criterion Collection release.) A quiet, languidly paced adaptation of an Isak Dinesen short story, there’s very little action to stimulate the senses much of the time, with most lines delivered by actors sitting down, standing still and speaking rather quietly. When the tension ramps up a bit toward the end, the self-conscious art house touches run a great risk of falling flat and coming across as unintentionally comical. But the excellent 4K restoration, a well-curated selection of supplemental features, and above all else, the compelling presentation of a great man and cultural innovator entering his artistic decline makes the new Blu-ray package of The Immortal Story...
- 9/3/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
With August almost over and September around the corner, we’re only a few weeks away from the start of Fantastic Fest, taking place September 22nd–29th in Austin, Texas. Following the announcement of the first wave of programming earlier this month, the second wave of films have now been revealed, including even more titles for horror, sci-fi, and suspense fans to look forward to seeing:
Press Release: Austin, TX – Thursday, August 25, 2016 – Alamo Drafthouse’s Fantastic Fest delivers another dose of cinematic decadence with its second wave of programming. Procured once again from the most curious corners of the genre universe, Fantastic Fest is proud to announce its opening film, Denis Villeneuve’s stunning Arrival. Arrival marks Villeneuve’s Fantastic Fest debut, which has proven to be worth the wait as his spectacular science fiction feature promises to kick off proceedings in explosive fashion.
It wouldn’t be Fantastic Fest...
Press Release: Austin, TX – Thursday, August 25, 2016 – Alamo Drafthouse’s Fantastic Fest delivers another dose of cinematic decadence with its second wave of programming. Procured once again from the most curious corners of the genre universe, Fantastic Fest is proud to announce its opening film, Denis Villeneuve’s stunning Arrival. Arrival marks Villeneuve’s Fantastic Fest debut, which has proven to be worth the wait as his spectacular science fiction feature promises to kick off proceedings in explosive fashion.
It wouldn’t be Fantastic Fest...
- 8/25/2016
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Fantastic Fest has announced the second wave of programming for this year’s edition of the Austin-based fête, which runs from September 22 — 29. “The Bad Batch,” a new restoration of 1971’s “The Zodiac Killer,” “Toni Erdmann,” “The Handmaiden” and opening-night selection “Arrival” are among the most prominent selections, with a number of appropriately oddball offerings thrown in as well. Full list below.
“Aalavandhalan” (Suresh Krissna)
Kamal Hassan stars in this ridiculously entertaining tale of an Indian commando pitted against his own serial killer twin brother in a deadly race to save the beautiful Tejaswini from certain death.
“Arrival” (Denis Villeneuve)
When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team — led by expert linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) — are brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers — and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life,...
“Aalavandhalan” (Suresh Krissna)
Kamal Hassan stars in this ridiculously entertaining tale of an Indian commando pitted against his own serial killer twin brother in a deadly race to save the beautiful Tejaswini from certain death.
“Arrival” (Denis Villeneuve)
When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team — led by expert linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) — are brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers — and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life,...
- 8/25/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
In my most recent post to this column (of Francois Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses), I mentioned that I would skip the next film on my chronological list, Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell, because I had already podcasted about it not that long ago. But I changed my mind. That decision was partially driven by a mistaken assumption on my part that the next title on my list, namely Orson Welles’ The Immortal Story, was about to get a new release from Criterion the following Tuesday. Actually, that disc won’t hit the market for another couple of weeks, not until August 30, which is too long for me to just let this column sit idle. The reason that I thought that The Immortal Story‘s Blu-ray debut was imminent was because I’ve seen pictures of review copies in circulation and Criterion started yapping about Orson Welles in The Current earlier this month,...
- 8/15/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:
Stolen Kisses was Francois Truffaut’s third exploration of the character Antoine Doinel, to whom we were introduced when he was a child in The 400 Blows and was glimpsed a few years later in a short segment Antoine and Colette that was part of an omnibus film titled Love at 20. Here we see Antoine as a young man, as he stumbles into adulthood working a variety of unskilled entry-level jobs, impulsively falling in love and gliding from one scrape with authority into another as he seeks to find his way through the world. The tone of this film is lighter, more overtly a romantic comedy, and seemingly inconsequential in terms of enduring substance and social commentary when compared to The 400 Blows. It could have been easily plausible to make this same movie with a lead character of a different name,...
Stolen Kisses was Francois Truffaut’s third exploration of the character Antoine Doinel, to whom we were introduced when he was a child in The 400 Blows and was glimpsed a few years later in a short segment Antoine and Colette that was part of an omnibus film titled Love at 20. Here we see Antoine as a young man, as he stumbles into adulthood working a variety of unskilled entry-level jobs, impulsively falling in love and gliding from one scrape with authority into another as he seeks to find his way through the world. The tone of this film is lighter, more overtly a romantic comedy, and seemingly inconsequential in terms of enduring substance and social commentary when compared to The 400 Blows. It could have been easily plausible to make this same movie with a lead character of a different name,...
- 8/7/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
This is definitely the time of year when film critic types (I’m sure you know who I mean) spend an inordinate amount of time leading up to awards season—and it all leads up to awards season, don’t it?—compiling lists and trying to convince anyone who will listen that it was a shitty year at the movies for anyone who liked something other than what they saw and liked. And ‘tis the season, or at least ‘thas (?) been in the recent past, for that most beloved of academic parlor games, bemoaning the death of cinema, which, if the sackcloth-and-ashes-clad among us are to be believed, is an increasingly detached and irrelevant art form in the process of being smothered under the wet, steaming blanket of American blockbuster-it is. And it’s going all malnourished from the siphoning off of all the talent back to TV, which, as everyone knows,...
- 1/9/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
All this week Amazon has a sale on several of the Criterion Collection horror titles including David Cronenberg's Scanners and Videodrome, Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone and Cronos, Roman Polanski's Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, Lars von Trier's Antichrist and Godzilla. I have included direct links to each sale title below as well as to my reviews where applicable. If I could make some recommendations, I would perhaps begin with Godzilla and Repulsion if you don't own either of those titles, Cronenberg fans really ought to own both Scanners and Videodrome and the DVD edition of Carl Th. Dreyer's Vampyr is rather kick ass. Give 'em all a look below and see what suits your tastes. Scanners Blu-ray - my review Scanners DVD The Devil's Backbone Blu-ray The Devil's Backbone DVD The Uninvited Blu-ray - my review Videodrome Blu-ray - my review Eyes Without a Face...
- 10/27/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Amazon is running a deal this week on select DVD and Blu-rays from the Criterion Collection including a pair of Terrence Malick films in The Thin Red Line and Badlands. You can also pick up Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game and Elia Kazan's classic On the Waterfront starring Marlon Brando. I have separated out the selections based on DVD and Blu-ray below and, unfortunately, only the DVD edition of the Three Colors Trilogy is on sale, but if you're looking for a way to ease into the classic it might be worth it. If I were to make a recommendation on these select items I'd suggest considering The Thin Red Line, The Blob, The Rules of the Game and On the Waterfront. Hope that helps! Blu-ray The Thin Red Line - $17.49 Badlands - $18.99 The Darjeeling Limited - $17.49 The Blob -...
- 9/4/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Hopefully you've been keeping track of the daily Black Friday Deals Week posts I've been featuring each morning, if not here is today's, but of course there are also new releases to consider and today we have a few that may be of interest. Tarantino Xx: 8-Film Collection This eight-film Quentin Tarantino collection includes True Romance (which Tarantino wrote and Tony Scott directed), Kill Bill: Volume One, Kill Bill: Volume Two, Inglourious Basterds, Jackie Brown, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Tarantino's Death Proof from the Grindhouse double feature. All of these were previously available on Blu-ray before this collection was put together, but it does include a couple of newly produced special features of its own which include: Critics Corner: The Films of Quentin Tarantino - In-depth critics' discussion piece exploring Tarantino's films that redefined cinema and the impact of one of the most influential writers/directors of our time.
- 11/20/2012
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
DVD Release Date: Nov. 20 , 2012
Price: DVD $59.95
Studio: Criterion
It's the end of the world as we know it in 1968's Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell.
Eclipse Series 37: When Horror Came to Shochiku from Criterion contains a quartet of colorful horror and monster movies from the late 1960s produced by Japan’s Shochiku Studios.
Following years of Godzilla’s domination of the box office, many Japanese studios tried to replicate the formula with their own brands of monster movies. One of the most fascinating attempts was the short-lived one from Shochiku, a studio better known for its elegant dramas by the likes of Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu. In 1967 and 1968, the company created four certifiably batty, low-budget fantasies, tales haunted by watery ghosts, plagued by angry insects, and stalked by aliens—including one in the form of a giant chicken-lizard. It’s all outrageous, oozy and wacky stuff!
All the...
Price: DVD $59.95
Studio: Criterion
It's the end of the world as we know it in 1968's Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell.
Eclipse Series 37: When Horror Came to Shochiku from Criterion contains a quartet of colorful horror and monster movies from the late 1960s produced by Japan’s Shochiku Studios.
Following years of Godzilla’s domination of the box office, many Japanese studios tried to replicate the formula with their own brands of monster movies. One of the most fascinating attempts was the short-lived one from Shochiku, a studio better known for its elegant dramas by the likes of Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu. In 1967 and 1968, the company created four certifiably batty, low-budget fantasies, tales haunted by watery ghosts, plagued by angry insects, and stalked by aliens—including one in the form of a giant chicken-lizard. It’s all outrageous, oozy and wacky stuff!
All the...
- 8/29/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
The 11th annual New York Asian Film Festival (June 29 through July 15) has announced its full schedule, which will showcase over 50 feature films and three programs of short films from Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the USA, and Vietnam.
Presented in partnership between Subway Cinema and the Film Society of Lincoln Center with programming support from Japan Society, America’s biggest festival of popular Asian film is opening with Vulgaria: Described as “astonishingly filthy,” “outrageous,” and “displaying a reckless abandon in mentioning genitals” Pang Ho-cheung’s show business satire pushes good taste as far as it can go, and then it keeps on going. What’s most astonishing about this lewd, crude, and hilariously dirty film is that it achieves all its shocking effects with nothing more than dialogue.
In addition, Doomsday Book and Guns And Roses make their North American premieres as the Centerpiece Selections.
Presented in partnership between Subway Cinema and the Film Society of Lincoln Center with programming support from Japan Society, America’s biggest festival of popular Asian film is opening with Vulgaria: Described as “astonishingly filthy,” “outrageous,” and “displaying a reckless abandon in mentioning genitals” Pang Ho-cheung’s show business satire pushes good taste as far as it can go, and then it keeps on going. What’s most astonishing about this lewd, crude, and hilariously dirty film is that it achieves all its shocking effects with nothing more than dialogue.
In addition, Doomsday Book and Guns And Roses make their North American premieres as the Centerpiece Selections.
- 6/2/2012
- by The Woman In Black
- DreadCentral.com
Below you will find a list of movie that Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright has never seen. Not long ago Wright went out and asked his friends and fans to recommend some movies they thought he may have missed over the last thirty years of his life. He got recommendations from Quentin Tarantino, Daniel Waters, Bill Hader, John Landis, Guillermo Del Toro, Joe Dante, Judd Apatow, Joss Whedon, Greg Mottola, Schwartzman, Doug Benson, Rian Johnson, Larry Karaszeski, Josh Olson, Harry Knowles and hundreds of fans on this blog.
From these recommendations, Wright created a master list of recommended films that were frequently mentioned. The director now wants the fans to choose which of the films on the list he should watch on the big screen.
Wright is holding a film event at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles called Films Edgar Has Never Seen.
From these recommendations, Wright created a master list of recommended films that were frequently mentioned. The director now wants the fans to choose which of the films on the list he should watch on the big screen.
Wright is holding a film event at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles called Films Edgar Has Never Seen.
- 10/18/2011
- by Venkman
- GeekTyrant
Edgar Wright's latest epic project [1] has him partnering with Quentin Tarantino, Judd Apatow, Joss Whedon, Bill Hader, Guillermo Del Toro, Joe Dante, Greg Mottola, Harry Knowles, Rian Johnson and, probably, several of you. Like all of us, Wright has a bunch of classic and cult films he's never seen. Unlike all of us, he has the means to see them for the first time on the big screen and will do just that in December [2] at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles during Films Edgar Has Never Seen. The director of Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World asked both his famous friends (some of which are listed above) and fans to send in their personal must see lists and, from those titles, Wright came up with one mega list from which he'll pick a few movies to watch December 9-16. After the jump check...
- 10/18/2011
- by Germain Lussier
- Slash Film
Didn’t I just write one of these a week ago? Of course I did, because this is your destination for the best coverage of all the new titles Criterion puts up on their Hulu Plus page, and this week is no different. There’s fewer films (unless they decide to throw up another 30 when I least expect it) but in this case, less is more. And the lucky number is 13 this time. With worries of what the future for Hulu is, there are supposed talks that Google is definitely interested, which is interesting. Especially with their roll out of Google+ these past few days. If you like what you see, please sign up via this link. It does wonders for this article. But enough about that, you want to know about the movies. So let’s not make the good people wait.
The one that made my head explode was Godzilla,...
The one that made my head explode was Godzilla,...
- 7/4/2011
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
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