DVDs, 8/2.

Jürgen Fauth: "Because of the constant references to film as a medium, I was worried that seeing the film on DVD (available on August 14) would diminish the experience more than it usually does. But like the river you famously can't step into twice, Inland Empire is a shape-shifter of a movie that reconstitutes itself differently every time, and my own TV screen turned out to be a fascinating place to see it." But wait, that's not all: "[L]et me draw your attention to a connection that took me by complete surprise last night (yes, I screamed.)"

The Creative Review admires Airside's packaging for the UK release of Glastonbury: The Movie.

"Critically, Rio Bravo was received as a likable new John Wayne western, nothing much else," recalls Peter Bogdanovich in the New York Observer. "That Rio Bravo was actually the brilliant culmination of a 40-year career by one of America's finest film artists was something only the French New Wave and a couple of similarly minded Englishmen and Americans (like Andrew Sarris) pointed out." Via Movie City News. Related: Another fine piece from John McElwee at Greenbriar Picture Shows: "Hawks is funny and modern and unflappably cool. Young directors today who know their business (can't be many) undoubtedly wish they could be Howard Hawks."

Dave Kehr's July DVD roundup ranged wider than most; and this week: "By rights Warner Home Video's Film Noir Classic Collection ought to be running out of steam by now, just as similar series seem to have floundered at Universal and Fox. Instead it grows more impressive with each new release." More from Susan King in the Los Angeles Times and Nicolas Rapold in the L Magazine, who's prompted to revisit David Cronenberg's A History of Violence.

"Ozu's respect for women marks Equinox Flower as the creation of a sympathetic mind," writes MS Smith.

Michael Atkinson's seen Factory Girl and, at IFC News, proclaims Guy Pearce's performance as "the most interesting on-screen Andy Warhol yet.... He's not just a wig-&-whimper joke here; we get a vivid sense of how his Factory worked, how he retained power over it, how he used people like Edie by simply, martial artist-like, bending with the breeze and letting things spiral out of control away from him."

And in the Stranger, Atkinson reviews The Host and Swordsman II, "which despite its generic sequel title is close to a paradigm of Tsui [Hark]'s late-century attention-deficit wuxia pian style, comprising chintzy spectacle, shameless visual shortcuts, gasping editing vaults, faster-than-a-heartbeat flying action, and pure narrative bushwah." Related: "The Host is a movie chiefly concerned with food: who-how-where we get it from, what it is we choose to eat, and why we eat it at all." Ryland Walker Knight explains at the House Next Door.

Stephen Bissette isn't much of a Woody Woodpecker fan, but Universal's release of The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection is worth a look, he argues, for the work it includes by Tex Avery.

More roundups: Peter Sobczynski at Hollywood Bitchslap, Susan King again, DVD Talk and Movie City News.

Posted by dwhudson at August 2, 2007 12:56 PM