DVDs, 9/25.

For the New York Times' Dave Kehr, Criterion's release of the relatively recently restored 3 Penny Opera, directed by GW Pabst in 1931, is "a revelation."

Steven Shaviro describes the ways "Zodiac creates a overwhelming, but distanced, sense of flatness, mobility, and creepiness: a kind of low-key affectivity that is as much an expression of our general mediascape as it is of the mind of a serial killer."

A terrific annotated list from Kristin Thompson: "DVD supplements that really tell you something."

For The Boss of It All, Lars von Trier "decided to semi-automate the creative procedure, and leave the camera angles and placement up to a computer program, nicknamed Automavision," Michael Atkinson reminds us at IFC News. "[T]he affect works wonders: however 'unmotivated,' the movie's disruptive, off-kilter syntax fits the story like a rubber glove.... and suggests yet again that von Trier's yen for experimental penitence may be merely the smoke of his sideshow, obscuring his real achievements in storytelling and directing actors (there hasn't been a misjudged performance in a von Trier film in the two decades since Medea, and there's been a wealth of world-beaters)." Also recommended is Red Road.

"I have a confession to make," offers Kimberly Linbergs. "I love British historical dramas." Yes, me, too. And she writes up two I remember fondly (though it's been years and years): Anne of the Thousand Days and Mary Queen of Scots.

"Kino's first Avant-Garde set was an essential release that concentrated on silent cinema," writes Michael Barrett at PopMatters. The "follow-up crosses into the sound era with a few major pieces and some tantalizing minor works from major names."

"[T]he only other 'problem film' that is as interesting as The Intruder is Luis Buñuel's The Young One," writes Charles Mudede in the Stranger. "Deeper consideration will surely show this to be the reason why both are fascinating treatments of American racism: They are not products of the Hollywood system." More from Dave Kehr in the NYT and Susan King looks back on early Roger Corman in the Los Angeles Times.

Jim Emerson on Zoo: "It's not that director Robinson Devor and his co-writer/-researcher Charles Mudede didn't necessarily get what they needed to make a movie. It's that they only used whatever they got to make this movie, and that didn't feel like enough to me."

"The great DVD edition of The Princess Bride contains not one but two worthwhile commentary tracks, one by director Rob Reiner and another by screenwriter William Goldman, who wrote the book upon which the film was based," writes Edward Copeland. "If it weren't already obvious, Goldman spells out clearly his intention with both the book and the movie: He wanted to celebrate good old-fashioned storytelling and it's a joyous tale to be told."

"To enjoy Red Dawn from scratch in 2007, think of the film as a Reagan-era mirror of hyperbole, reflecting straight back at us the current Bush Administration's agenda of instilling paranoia and fear in its people," suggests Jason Woloski at Not Coming to a Theater Near You. "If Red Dawn was remade today, writer-director John Milius's imagination for Right Wing derangement would juggle the current war on terror by making viewers believe in the possibility of Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan teaming up and sneak attacking the US on a mass scale."

"Released in 1979, Alien is very much a film of its decade - cynical towards corporate thinking, distrustful of authority, very much in favor of sex, drugs and rock and roll," writes Andrew Bemis. "And while I love its sequels to varying degrees..., it's the original that retains an iconic perfection."

DVD roundups: Cinema Strikes Back, DVD Talk, Facets Features and Kamera.

Posted by dwhudson at September 25, 2007 6:53 AM