Blogcritics Category: Video: Historical

DVD Review: A Technicolor Dream (Featuring Performances By Syd Barrett And Pink Floyd)

Glen Boyd — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 04:38:14 EDT

It was only natural that the media voice of London's sixties underground would team up with the band providing its soundtrack -- Pink Floyd.
A Technicolor Dream is a documentary film chronicling the development of London, England's counter-culture underground of the 1960s, and the events which led up to the 14-hour "Technicolor Dream," a benefit concert for what was at the time England's largest underground newspaper -- the International Times (or I.T.). The concert...

DVD Review: The Rebel

Jen Johans — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:04:24 EDT

Vietnam's highest grossing film kicks its way onto DVD.
One of the things that I love about martial arts movies and especially the ones released by the wonderful company Dragon Dynasty is that it’s basically the only genre that makes its violence a selling point. Yet, it doesn’t glorify violence for the sake of violence as anyone can grab a gun and shoot their way out of a situation in some...

DVD Review: Missing

Dan Schneider — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:51:21 EDT

Solid thriller that had potential to be great.
The 1982 political film, Missing, by Costa-Gavras (his first American production), is soon to be released on DVD by The Criterion Collection. It’s a good film, but not a great one. This is mostly because it lacks any real poetry, the way Ingmar Bergman’s anti-war film, Shame, has. Yes, it’s well plotted, well acted, well directed,...

Movie Review: The Duchess

Chris Beaumont — Sun, 5 Oct 2008 21:53:54 EDT

Nicely produced tale of sexual politics in a bygone era.
I was a latecomer getting into movies. Yes, I enjoyed film before my addiction really kicked in. During those formative years there were types of movies that I did not really care for, mostly for superficial reasons. One of those types of movies was the costume drama. You know the type, they tend to be set in Europe, mostly England, and involve...

DVD Review: Edward The King

Richard Marcus — Sun, 5 Oct 2008 21:13:13 EDT

An exhaustive history and an intimate portrayal of the lives of an era's pre-eminent people.
While the twentieth century might have been the era which saw technological advances that continue to shape our lives, the nineteenth century was when the socio-political events occurred that made those advances possible. For it was during this era that many of the old ruling families of Europe found their power pulled out from under them, and the...

Movie Review: Control

Alyse Wax — Sun, 5 Oct 2008 17:26:06 EDT

Beautifully filmed, well acted, but weak on story.
Control is the stark, solemn biopic about Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. While Curtis’s lyrics were haunting and his suicide at age 23 tragic, his life does not really lend itself to an entire film.Control starts, briefly, in high school, where Curtis meets his soon-to-be bride Debbie. The two are married while still in their teens, just...

Movie Review: Trouble the Water

James McCaskill — Sat, 4 Oct 2008 11:15:15 EDT

First-hand documentary of Hurricane Katrina's devastation and two peoples' determination to survive.
Trouble the Water (Tia Lessin, Carl Deal, Kimberly Rivers & Scott Rivers/USA/2008) is a film about abandonment. The abandonment of poor people of the 9th Ward by all levels of government, old and sick people abandoned to die in hospitals as the hospital staff fled the rising waters, people in jail abandoned as the guards fled the flood, the...

DVD Review: Chicago 10 - Speak Your Peace

T. Michael Testi — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:01:17 EDT

Chicago 10 is very well done and whether you are Democrat or Republican this film is well worth viewing.
I have always been fascinated with history and why things came about the way that they did, especially those things that I have heard about from secondary sources, where there's often some bias involved. This year being not only an election year, but the fortieth anniversary of the Chicago Democratic convention, made me wonder just a bit about...

DVD Review: An Autumn Afternoon

Dan Schneider — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:21:16 EDT

Another classic from Japanese film master, Yasujiro Ozu.
Goddamn, Yasuhjiro Ozu’s great. Thus my first thought whilst taking in the last few moments of the Japanese film master’s last completed film, 1962’s An Autumn Afternoon (Sanma No Aj -- which, according to online sources, translates as The Taste Of Mackerel -- a feeling Ozu reputedly wanted to evoke with this film). Yes, many...

DVD Review: The Presidents Collection

Matt Springer — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:35:31 EDT

A massive, daunting, essential collection of documentaries covering the American presidency and the men who have occupied it.
35 hours.That's right--35 hours. Should you purchase The Presidents Collection from PBS Home Video, a 15-DVD set packed full of presidential documentaries from the PBS series American Experience, you will be in for 35 hours of viewing. That's a lotta docs. They're really great docs--if you love good television, then you've probably...