DVDs, 6/10.

As Lionsgate releases box sets devoted to Sophia Loren and Catherine Deneuve, Dave Kehr remarks in the New York Times that the two actresses "seem to belong to sovereign territories of their own, which barely have diplomatic relations. Lorenland is a proletarian world of workers and peasants, defined by spontaneity and sensuality, a world of broad comedy and even broader melodrama. The petit principality of Deneuve is the Monaco of movies: a primarily urban environment of designer boutiques and chic restaurants, in which emotions are muffled and sex discreet (and frequently unhappy)."

"That [Anthony] Mann is not as esteemed or well known among the public as Ford or Hitchcock is almost criminal, but probably due to the fact that he toiled almost exclusively in the groves of genre has sustained his anonymity," writes DK Holm for the Vancouver Voice. "He's like the perfect filmmaker: a great director of actors, shaper of screenplays, an eye for decor and location, and visually dynamic, especially in collaboration with John Alton." As for The Furies, which Criterion will be releasing next week, "like the other psychological westerns, it is filled with un-self-aware neurotics" and is "richer for being flawed."

"After viewing Carol Reed's atmospheric crime drama Odd Man Out (1947) I'm convinced that the director's first major post-war feature is every bit as visually rich and engrossing as its more famous sibling, The Third Man (1949), if not even more so," writes Thom Ryan.

"John Ford's The Informer might best be thought of as a silent film. Or better yet, as a film that relies on its images and sounds, rather than its dialogue, to provide story elements, atmosphere, or character development." John Adair analyzes the opening sequence.

"In the span of 90 amazing minutes, The Green Pastures performs a feat untold in most religious cinema: it actually explains and illustrates faith," writes Bill Gibron at PopMatters. "It gives it a face and a feeling. It renders it real and imparts amazing emotion and devotion into it. Though the shading used may be scandalous, this is art—cinema as epic exploration of aesthetic goodness."

"Certainly, [Sympathy for the Devil] is a provocation - political, formal, pop cultural - before it's a coherent work of narrative drama; certainly, most of its most memorable moments involve juxtaposition of political critique with infantile sex farce," writes Karina Longworth at the SpoutBlog. "If it comes off as impenetrable, it may just be because no penetration is needed - everything Godard wants to say is laid into the film's surface. If anything, Sympathy for the Devil is a blatant (and, at times, blatantly transparent) cinematic flail from a filmmaker at a crisis point."

"A few fictional tangents aside, [Chris] Marker's mode was always the personal documentary - a non-fictional amble between political fact and subjective, and often poetical, observation, and over the years, practically under the oblivious noses of the filmgoing world, it's become one of the medium's most insightful, humane and profound strategies." For the IFC, Michael Atkinson reviews the slew of new releases from Icarus Films. Also: "The framing material of Boarding Gate may seem thin, but [Asia] Argento, after more than 20 years flitting around the fringes of Euro-pulp and costume epics and the occasional Hollywood action flick, emerges here as a crystallized star."

"[William] Klein's films may attract an audience through their acquired patina of kitsch - [Who Are You, Polly Magoo], with [Dorothy] McGowan's Karina-Cleopatra bangs and its gratingly eccentric Dick Lester 'inventiveness,' is a Mod time capsule - but he's an enervating virtuoso," writes Nick Pinkerton for Stop Smiling. "Scenes are treated as vessels for far-out sets, catchy compositions; once looked at, they've done their job, but they hang around on screen for a remarkably long time - it's material better suited to be silently projected on the wall of a hip bar than really watched."

"Birth (Jonathan Glazer, 2004) is an exceptional film in many ways," writes Richard Armstrong at Flickhead. "It is a Hollywood release with an A list star which moves with all the grace and hauteur of a European art film.... It is customary for a Hollywood film to revolve around romantic love, but rare for one to be so analytical about what love is, or can be, about the relationship between identity and desire."

"A master of deep-focus, of theatrical spaces, of long takes, of drowning scenes and of scenes of drifting at sea, of ellipses, of off-screen space, of shifting subjects (both in plot and image), and of, overall, lyrical-objective camerawork - all talents he shares with Renoir - Mizoguchi is almost certainly the master of victims of circumstance stories." David Phelps reviews the Masters of Cinema edition of Chikamatsu Monogatari (Crucified Lovers) for the Auteurs' Notebook.

Glenn Kenny's "Monday Morning Foreign-Region DVD Report": "Marcel L'Herbier's monumental, legendary 1928 L'Argent."

"Paul Verhoeven's Turkish Delight is, it seems, the notorious Dutch director's idea of a Hollywood-style love story," writes Ed Howard. "Boy meets girl, they fall in love almost immediately, they marry. This is a very basic narrative, except that Verhoeven is determined to undermine, question, and indeed vomit all over the expectations, generic conventions, and emotional limitations inherent in this kind of story." Also, Manhattan Murder Mystery: "It's hard to tell what Woody's enjoying more in this film, finally getting to film what was obviously a pet project for him, or finally getting back his best comedic foil."

"Candyman, the 1992 film adapted by Bernard Rose from Clive Barker's short story, 'The Forbidden,' is perhaps one of the most underrated satirical horror films of the 1990s," argues Ed Champion.

The Playlist hears that Christmas on Mars, the movie the Flaming Lips have been working on for about seven years, will screen at a couple of festivals before appearing on DVD in time for, yes, Christmas.

"Kinky thrills on a budget, that's where my head's been lately." Vince Keenan gives us a rundown.

Adam Ross has a few money saving tips.

Online scrolling tip. Red River at the art of memory.

DVD roundups: Sean Axmaker (MSN), DVD Talk, Logan Hill (New York), Noel Murray (Los Angeles Times) and Slant.

And of course, the Guru.

Posted by dwhudson at June 10, 2008 7:13 AM