Joey Magidson
Welcome back to my Home Movies! Today, the Safdie Brothers‘ instant classic Uncut Gems gets the Criterion Collection treatment. Joining it this week are a few other things, though not much of note outside of the other Criterion releases. Truly, the company is shining with their slate. Read on for more…
Uncut Gems (Criterion)
Adam Sandler has never been better than he was in Uncut Gems. His impeccable turn makes this absolutely nerve-rattling film even better. Sandler mixed with the Safdies was a match made in indie cinema heaven. The Oscar snub (and really, snubs) still sting, but the movie stands tall on its own and is a brilliant addition to the Criterion Collection!
Apache Junction
Little Fish
The Woody Allen Collection
Citizen Kane
From The Criterion Collection: “In the most dazzling debut feature in cinema history, twenty-five-year-old writer-producer-director-star Orson Welles synthesized the possibilities of sound-era filmmaking into what could be called the first truly modern movie. In telling the story of the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of a William Randolph Hearst–like newspaper magnate named Charles Foster Kane, Welles not only created the definitive portrait of American megalomania, he also unleashed a torrent of stylistic innovations—from the jigsaw-puzzle narrative structure to the stunning deep-focus camera work of Gregg Toland—that have ensured that Citizen Kane remains fresh and galvanizing for every new generation of moviegoers to encounter it.”
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Menace II Society
From The Criterion Collection:”Directors Albert and Allen Hughes and screenwriter Tyger Williams were barely into their twenties when they sent shock waves through American cinema and hip-hop culture with this fatalistic, unflinching vision of life and death on the streets of Watts, Los Angeles, in the 1990s. There, in the shadow of the riots of 1965 and 1992, young Caine (Tyrin Turner) is growing up under the influence of his ruthless, drug-dealing father (Samuel L. Jackson, in a chilling cameo) and his loose-cannon best friend, O-Dog (Larenz Tate), leading him into a spiral of violent crime from which he is not sure he wants to escape, despite the best efforts of his grandparents and the steadfast Ronnie (Jada Pinkett). Fusing grim realism with a propulsively stylish aesthetic honed through the Hughes brothers’ work on rap videos, Menace II Society is a searing cautionary tale about the devastating human toll of hopelessness.”
Stay tuned for more next week…
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