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8 articles from 2009
This Week On DVD and Blu-ray: December 8, 2009
8 December 2009 1:20 AM, PST
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Ak 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa (Criterion Collection)
Sure, there are some of 2009's bigger film releases hitting DVD and Blu-ray this week, but this set from Criterion is undoubtedly the release of the week. This set offers 25 of Akira Kurosawa's films, four of which had never been released on DVD, and an illustrated book featuring an introduction and notes on each of the films by Stephen Prince (The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa) and a remembrance by Donald Richie (The Films of Akira Kurosawa).
I was not sent a copy for review, but DVD Beaver has an extensive three page look at the set right here. If you are interested, it is selling for $284.99 at Amazon as of the posting of this round-up. A list of the films included is directly below followed by a
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- Brad Brevet
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Will Departures be this year's sleeper film hit?
30 November 2009 1:31 AM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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A Japanese film about a Buddhist mortician is set to be an unlikely commercial success
There aren't many films about the Japanese art of corpse beautification. Still fewer made by a director who previously specialised in soft-core porn and starring an ex-boy band heart-throb. But Departures (Okuribito), which opens in Britain on Friday, is all these things. It won this year's best foreign language Oscar, beating two critically feted films, Waltz with Bashir and The Class.
But why? The film, after all, is hardly a Saturday night no-brainer. Loosely adapted from Aoki Simmons's autobiography Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician, it's about a redundant cellist who finds meaning in his life when he gets a job ceremonially washing bodies, preparing them for entry into the next life. Even in Japan, where films about death and funerals are not uncommon (see Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Ikiru), the role of the
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- Stuart Jeffries
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Group Fun
20 October 2009 3:50 PM, PDT
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If you've been here for some time you might recall that the Film Experience was once one of the main pushers of the phenom known as the blog-a-thon where multiple sites posted on a specific topic simultaneously. I hosted three of the largest blog-a-thons the web had ever seen at the time (Michelle Pfeiffer 2006, Vampires in Cinema 2006 and Action Heroines 2007) before collapsing from exhaustion / 'thon burnout... that happened pretty much everywhere since the sites that used to keep calendars of such events stopped keeping track, too.
The blog-a-thon has essentially been replaced by the film clubs which come in two forms: one site hosted discussions or formatted like old school 'thons with links to every site discussing the topic. The other 'thon replacement is the monthly event/tradition like, for example, StinkyLulu's awesome Supporting Actress Smackdown series which is about to hit its 34th installment. Wow. That's devotion.
Here are
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- NATHANIEL R
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Daniel Craig Moves Into His Dream House
29 August 2009 1:02 AM, PDT
| FilmShaft.com
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Jim Sheridan used to be a great director. He made My Left Foot in 1989, The Field in 1990, In The Name Of The Father in 1993, The Boxer in 1997 and In America as recently as 2002. Then for some unknown reason he pissed it all away by directing Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ with 50 Cent. What was he thinking?
I hope Daniel Day Lewis deleted him from his friends list on his facebook account after that huge mistake!
A few years on and Sheridan has a film that has generated interest recently not least because James Bond has signed up to be in it. It is called Dream House and Daniel Craig has been in talks to star since June. Craig plays a family man who relocates his brood to a small town in New England.
They move in to their ‘Dream House’ and unfortunately for them it turns out that it was
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- Alex Wagner
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Akira Kurosawa: The Masterworks Blu-ray Disc Collection II
16 August 2009 6:27 AM, PDT
| Affenheimtheater
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The next few month could become pretty expensive for hardcore fans of Akira Kurosawa. After Toho already announced the first Masterworks Blu-ray Disc Collections with seven films from Japans most well known director back in June, the studio will offer seconds in Dezember. Akira Kurosawa: The Masterworks Blu-ray Disc Collection II will be released on December 18th and will include Yojimbo, Ikiru, Stray Dog (Nora inu), I Live in Fear (Ikimono no kiroku), The Hidden Fortress, The Lower Depths (Donzoko) and Most Beautifully (Ichiban utsukushiku). Like with the first collections, the titles will most probably be available outside the box set as well.
Oh, and just in case you are wondering…of course Toho won’t include English subtitles.
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- Ulrik
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Kurosawa's 'Kagemusha' Destined for Criterion Blu-ray
17 May 2009 12:37 PM, PDT
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A scene from Kagemusha
Photo: Criterion Collection
Back at the end of March it was sadly announced Akira Kurosawa's Ran would not be able to be release on Criterion Blu-ray due to some sort of a rights issue. This meant Criterion's only May Blu-ray release would be The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which -- if you read my review -- was fine with me, but I am more interested in old classics rather than the new ones from Criterion and it now appears a Kurosawa gem is taking the place of Ran, with a much better selection if you ask me.
A scene from Kagemusha
Photo: Criterion Collection
While I am sure most people would rather see Yojimbo, Rashomon, Ikiru or Seven Samurai as the first Criterion Blu-ray, the just announced August 18 release of Kagemusha is fine by me.
A scene from Kagemusha
Photo: Criterion Collection
Just look
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- Brad Brevet
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DVD Review: Akira Kurosawa's Dodes'ka-den (Criterion Collection)
17 March 2009 3:23 AM, PDT
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When it comes to Akira Kurosawa I have either seen or own all of his name titles including Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Ikiru, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, Sanjuro and Ran. I have Kagemusha sitting on my coffee table ready to be viewed for the first time and outside of a few noticeable omissions I am finally ready to venture into his lesser known titles and with Criterion's latest release of Dodes'ka-den I can't think of a better place to start. This isn't to say Dodes'ka-den is any kind of masterpiece, because it's not, but the instances surrounding Dodes'ka-den and how it came to be are utterly fascinating and opened up a side of Kurosawa I had never known.
Serving as Kurosawa's first attempt at a color film, Dodes'ka-den also marked his first feature in five years following Red Beard in 1965. In those five years Kurosawa would put in work on
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- Brad Brevet
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Have You Ever Felt Like a Film was Made Specifically For You?
16 March 2009 3:33 AM, PDT
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Philip Seymour Hoffman and Charlie Kaufman on the set of Synecdoche, New York
Photo: Sony Pictures Classics
Over the weekend I received a fantastic email from a RopeofSilicon reader telling me how much they enjoyed Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut Synecdoche, New York. The email was filled with reasons why they found the film so enjoyable, and even though it is a film I did not particularly enjoy it gave me pause. It made me think about the film and even made me consider giving it a second chance. There was one sentence in the email that brought it all home for me and it went like this:
Maybe your life needs to be in chaos, or your worldview uncertain, or be a particular age, but I felt as if Charlie went to all this trouble to create a movie just for me.
I replied to this email saying this
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- Brad Brevet
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