Draw a triangle. Use "The Road," "I Am Legend" and "28 Days Later" as corners. There, in the shadowy center, we find "Stake Land," a low-budget effort that's probably the best horror film of the year. Post-apocalyptic movies overrun by the undead almost always fail to live up to their incredible premise, but "Stake Land" delivers on multiple … [Read more...]
‘Epitafios’ returns with a new face of evil
"The gates of hell are wide open tonight," says the coroner, the busiest man in Buenos Aires. The soaring body count signals the return of "Epitafios," the brilliant and gruesome crime miniseries from HBO Latin America. The pay channel's video unit just released the sequel in the U.S. as a four-DVD set. "Epitafios: The End Now Has Two Faces" … [Read more...]
‘Platoon’ brings the jungle back home
MGM has redeployed Oliver Stone's "Platoon" in a Blu-ray edition that marks the movie's debut in high def and its 25th anniversary. The Vietnam War film -- released at Christmas 1986 -- has been followed by a host of Vietnam War films, but remains in the upper tier because of its strong young cast, terse storytelling and claustrophobic scenes of … [Read more...]
‘Something Wild’ crashes into Blu-ray
Time hasn't tamed "Something Wild." Jonathan Demme's red-hot-mama road movie returns on Blu-ray and DVD, all dolled up by the Criterion Collection. Unlike most hipster movies of the 1980s, "Something Wild" still hits on all of its cylinders: sex, violence and screwball madness. Very little feels dated, really: Credit Demme's … [Read more...]
‘If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise’
Spike Lee began filming his second New Orleans documentary on the day of the 2010 Super Bowl, with cameras rolling in Miami and New Orleans. They were shooting "because we knew the Saints were gonna win," Lee recalls. After capturing the wild celebration following the city's first Super Bowl win, "We thought we had the (documentary's) ending … [Read more...]
