"Audiences need to see violence in certain movies," the Italian director Fernando Di Leo said of his work. "It's a way to de-stress." Di Leo should know. As a scriptwriter, he helped bring us the spaghetti western classics "For a Few Dollars" and "For a Few Dollars More," seminal works in the strain of brutal-yet-stylized violence that fills our … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2011
Netflix plays content card
Betting big, Netflix snapped up first-run rights to the series "House of Cards," a cutthroat political satire starring Kevin Spacey. The news both puzzled and pleased industry analysts, some of whom see the mail-rental giant's move into exclusive content the beginning of a new model for online video distribution. Netflix already dominates the … [Read more...]
Scorsese talks old-school filmmaking
Martin Scorsese talks about how movies used to be made. "Raging Bull" is back in the home--video ring, via Blu-ray. … [Read more...]
170 million online viewers
About 170 million people in the U.S. watched online video in February, adding up to 13.6 hours per viewer, comScore reports. As usual, "Google sites" (YouTube) took the top position as measured by unique visitors, wooing 141 million viewers. The YouTube numbers were off across the board vs. last month, comScore reported. Microsoft's sites … [Read more...]
‘Yi Yi’: Play it again, on Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection came to the rescue of "Yi Yi" in 2007, vastly improving on what by all accounts was a botched 2001 release by Fox Lorber video. Now, the cineaste label is back with a Blu-ray version of "Yi Yi," Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang's wonderful movie about childhood and family. The domestic epic is built around three … [Read more...]