High Rise (2015) Dr. Robert Laing, the newest resident of a luxurious apartment in a high-tech concrete skyscraper whose lofty location places him amongst the upper class. Life seems like paradise to the solitude-seeking Laing. But as power outages become more frequent and building flaws emerge, particularly on the lower floors, the regimented social strata begins to crumble and the building becomes a battlefield in a literal class war. Based on the novel by J.G. Ballard. Stars Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, Jeremy Irons.
Labyrinth of Lies (2014 — Germany) Alexander Fehling. Drama exposes the post-war conspiracy of prominent German institutions and government branches to cover up the crimes of Nazis during World War II. Germany 1958. In those years, “Auschwitz” was a word that some people had never heard of, and others wanted to forget as quickly as possible. Against the will of his immediate superior, young prosecutor Johann Radmann begins to examine the case of a recently identified teacher who was a former Auschwitz guard. Radmann soon lands in a web of repression and denial, but also of idealization. He devotes himself with utmost commitment to his new task and is resolved to find out what really happened. He oversteps boundaries, falls out with friends, colleagues and allies, and is sucked deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of lies and guilt in his search for the truth. But what he ultimately brings to light will change the country forever. Germany’s Academy Award entry for Best Foreign-language Film.
The Lobster (2016) by Yorgos Lanthimos. Stars Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, John C. Reilly, Lea Seydoux, Ben Whishaw. In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in 45 days or are transformed into the animal of their choice and sent off into The Woods. 2015 Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize winner
The Neon Demon (2016) by Nicolas Winding Refn (“Drive”). Stars: Elle Fanning, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee, Bella Heathcote, Desmond Harrington, Jamie Clayton, Alessandro Nivola. Jesse (Fanning) moves to Los Angeles just after her 16th birthday to launch a career as a model. The head of her agency tells the innocent teen that she has the qualities to become a top star, and Jesse soon faces the wrath of ruthless vixens who despise her fresh-faced beauty. On top of that, she must contend with a seedy motel manager and a creepy photographer. As Jesse starts to take the fashion world by storm, her personality changes in ways that could help her against her cutthroat rivals. Gorgeously shot but pretty creepy.
99 Homes (2015) In this timely thriller, single father Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) is evicted from his home and his only chance to win it back is to go to work for Rick Carver (Michael Shannon), the charismatic and ruthless businessman who evicted him in the first place. It’s a deal-with-the-devil that provides security for his family; but as Nash falls deeper into Carver’s web, he finds his situation grows more brutal and dangerous than he ever imagined.
The Revenant (2015) by Alejandro G. Inarritu. Follows the story of legendary explorer Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) on his quest for survival and justice. After his trapping expedition in the Montana and Dakota territories in 1823 is massacred by members of the Arikara tribe, Glass — scouting for the group’s handful of survivors — is attacked by a bear and left for dead by a treacherous member of his hunting team (Tom Hardy). Against extraordinary odds, and enduring unimaginable grief, Glass battles a relentless winter in uncharted terrain. Grueling.
The Tunnel (2016) British crime drama is set against the backdrop of Europe in crisis. When a prominent French politician is found dead in the middle of the Channel Tunnel, straddling the border between the UK and France, detectives Karl Roebuck, played by Stephen Dillane and Elise Wassermann, played by Clémence Poésy, are sent to investigate on behalf of their respective countries. The case takes a surreal turn when a shocking discovery is made at the crime scene, forcing the French and British police into an uneasy partnership. As the serial killer uses ever more elaborate and ingenious methods to highlight the moral bankruptcy of modern society, Karl and Elise are drawn deeper into his increasingly personal agenda. Based on the original hit Swedish series from Filmlance International “The Bridge.”
And don’t forget the following Criterion releases:
The American Friend (1977) Wim Wenders pays loving homage to rough-and-tumble Hollywood film noir with “The American Friend,” a loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel “Ripley’s Game.” Dennis Hopper oozes quirky menace as an amoral American art dealer who entangles a terminally ill German everyman, played by Bruno Ganz, in a seedy criminal underworld as revenge for a personal slight — but when the two become embroiled in an ever-deepening murder plot, they form an unlikely bond. Filmed on location in Hamburg and Paris, with some scenes shot in photo for “The American Friend” grimy, late-seventies New York City, Wenders international breakout is a stripped-down crime story that mixes West German and American film flavors, and it features cameos by filmmakers Jean Eustache, Samuel Fuller and Nicholas Ray.
I Knew Her Well (1965) This prismatic portrait of the days and nights of a party girl in the sitxies Rome is a revelation. On the surface, “I Knew Her Well,” directed by Antonio Pietrangeli, plays like an inversion of “La dolce vita” with a woman at its center, following the gorgeous, seemingly liberated Adriana (Stefania Sandrelli) as she dallies with a wide variety of men, attends parties, goes to modeling gigs, and circulates among the rich and famous. Despite its often light tone, though, the film is a stealth portrait of a suffocating culture that regularly dehumanizes people, especially women. A seriocomic character study that never strays from its complicated central figure while keeping us at an emotional remove, “I Knew Her Well” is one of the most overlooked films of the sixties, by turns hilarious, tragic, and altogether jaw-dropping.
In a Lonely Place (1950) When a gifted but washed-up screenwriter with a hair-trigger temper — Humphrey Bogart, in a revelatory, vulnerable performance — becomes the prime suspect in a brutal Tinseltown murder, the only person who can supply an alibi for him is a seductive neighbor (Gloria Grahame) with her own troubled past. The emotionally charged “In a Lonely Place,” freely adapted from a Dorothy B. Hughes thriller, is a brilliant, turbulent mix of suspenseful noir and devastating melodrama, fueled by powerhouse performances. An uncompromising tale of two people desperate to love yet struggling with their demons and each other, this is one of the greatest films of the 1950s, and a benchmark in the career of the classic Hollywood auteur Nicholas Ray.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) The name John Frankenheimer became forever synonymous with heart-in-the-throat filmmaking when this quintessential sixties political thriller was released. Set in the early fifties, this razor-sharp adaptation of the novel by Richard Condon concerns the decorated U.S. Army sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), who as a prisoner during the Korean War is brainwashed into being a sleeper assassin in a Communist conspiracy, and a fellow POW (Frank Sinatra) who slowly uncovers the sinister plot. In an unforgettable, Oscar-nominated performance, Angela Lansbury plays Raymond’s villainous mother, the controlling wife of a witch-hunting anti-Communist senator with his eyes on the White House. The rare film to be suffused with Cold War paranoia while also taking aim at the frenzy of the McCarthy era, “The Manchurian Candidate” remains potent, shocking American moviemaking.
The Player (1992) A Hollywood studio executive with a shaky moral compass (Tim Robbins) finds himself caught up in a criminal situation that would fit right into one of his movie projects, in this biting industry satire from Robert Altman. Mixing elements of film noir with sly insider comedy, “The Player,” based on a novel by Michael Tolkin, functions as both a nifty stylish murder story and a commentary on its own making, and it is stocked with a heroic supporting cast (Peter Gallagher, Whoopi Goldberg, Greta Scacchi, Dean Stockwell, Fred Ward, Lyle Lovett) and a lineup of star cameos that make for an astonishing Hollywood who’s who. This complexly woven grand entertainment (which kicks off with one of American cinema’s most audacious and acclaimed opening shots) was the film that marked Altman’s triumphant commercial comeback in the early 1990s.
Wim Wenders: The Road Trilogy In the 1970s, Wim Wenders was among the first true international breakthrough artists of the revolutionary New German Cinema, a filmmaker whose fascination with the physical landscapes and emotional contours of the open road proved to be universal. In the middle of that decade, Wenders embarked on a three-film journey that took him from the wide roads of Germany to the endless highways of the United States and back again. Starring Rudiger Vogler as the director’s alter ego, “Alice in the Cities,” “Wrong Move” and “Kings of the Road” are dramas of emotional transformation that follow their characters’ searches for themselves, all rendered with uncommon soulfulness and visual poetry.
Woman in the Dunes (1964) One of the 1960s’ great international art-house sensations, “Woman in the Dunes” was for many the grand unveiling of the surreal, idiosyncratic world of Hiroshi Teshigahara (“The Face of Another”). Eiji Okada (“Hiroshima mon amour”) plays an amateur entomologist who has left Tokyo to study an unclassified species of beetle found in a vast desert. When he misses his bus back to civilization, he is persuaded to spend the night with a young widow (Kyoko Kishida) in her hut at the bottom of a sand dune. What results is one of cinema’s most unnerving and palpably erotic battles of the sexes, as well as a nightmarish depiction of the Sisyphean struggle of everyday life — an achievement that garnered Teshigahara an Academy Award nomination for best director.
The Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2011
The Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2012
The Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2013