Ethan Coen: "You know, it's our Tony Scott, Bourne Identity kind of movie."
Joel Coen: "Yeah, sort of."
Ethan: "Without the explosions."

By this time next year Coen Brothers Ethan and Joel will be celebrating their 25th year as independent filmmakers. They started with a stylish neo-noir epic and quickly moved on to their own brand of muted screwball comedy, often centering on the pea-brained but adorable types once given the derogatory name "hicks." Even as they diversified into gangster parodies and outright screwball fantasies, the Coen boys were tagged with the negative rap that they "don't respect ordinary people" -- that they are smarty-pants hipsters scoring easy points by making…

One of cinema's most intense, compelling examinations of racism that you've never seen has finally come to DVD. Samuel Fuller's great 1982 film White Dog, withheld from release in the U.S. due to ignorant misunderstanding about its subject matter, has gotten the full Criterion Collection treatment,…

There have been some big changes this month over at the home of The Criterion Collection, the prestige DVD company that's been every film buff's best friend since the days of Laserdiscs.

First, there's the new website.…

December can feel overwhelming for movie watchers with all the awards contenders flooding the arthouses -- if you're in New York and Los Angeles -- and multiplexes this holiday season. But it's always true, too, that films from earlier in the year manage to get notice from critics in the…

When asked if I wanted to review the DVD release of Mamma Mia!: The Movie, I wavered. Laremy's review describing it as "clearly a terrible film," and Erin's, in which she professed to "really, truly enjoy (herself) at this movie" left me conflicted. Mamma Mia! What to do? I decided to go for it,…

Before he was Mickey "the idiot" Smith on Doctor Who -- though not long before -- actor Noel Clarke wrote a script for a movie about how urban London teenagers really live. As Clarke explains in the making-of featurette on the DVD of the film (out now from Image Entertainment), Kidulthood was…

It's probably essential to watch Bottle Rocket if you're going to get into serious Wes Anderson study. Of course, if you're that passionate about the man behind The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and Rushmore then you've probably already seen Bottle…

If there's a TV series better suited for DVD than Lost, I'm not sure I know what it is. And I don't just mean on the basis of individual episodes, and all the stuff that sneaks by in the background, things that might be clues as to what the hell the Dharma Initiative was up to, or what's going on…

An interesting little movie came out earlier this year. The Dark Knight. You might have heard of it. Today it's available on DVD and Blu-ray in various editions, including a pricey "Bat Pod Collectible Special Edition" that augments the Blu-ray disc with a hand-painted model of Bruce Wayne's latest…

Hollywood has finally dared to remake what is probably the most revered science-fiction film of the Golden Era. Newly released in beautifully mastered DVD and Blu-ray editions, the original 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still has gripping suspense courtesy of director Robert Wise and a riveting…

I love parrots to the point of distraction, so I'm probably not the most objective person to be saying this, but: If you have never seen The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, you simply must. And now, this acclaimed 2003 film is available in a new DVD set that is the rare "Special Two-Disc…

"The National Science Foundation had invited me to Antarctica -- even though I left no doubt that I would not come up with another film about penguins." -- Werner Herzog

Forget everything you know about cute penguins searching for family values in a white…

My movie tastes are pretty wide-ranging, with a healthy representation of international, "non-mainstream," "anti-Hollywood," and "freakin' out there" in the mix. But no matter how many movies I add to my list of personal all-time favorites, nothing has ever knocked Casablanca from the No. 1 spot.…