From the Film Vault
Program Notes: Titanic (1953)
It took Hollywood 40 years to get around to making a movie about the Titanic ... and even then it was less interested in the disaster per se than in using it as a dramatic backdrop for a typical piece of Tinsel Town melodrama.
New on DVD: Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
In Martha Marcy May Marlene writer/director Sean Durkin delivers a moody, almost unbearably creepy look at a survivor of a Manson-type cult. And along the way he gives us a new star: Elizabeth Olsen, younger sister of the Olsen Twins.
Program Notes: Mister Roberts (1955)
Mister Roberts is only half a John Ford movie. Precisely which half has been debated ever since this naval comedy/drama was released in 1955. Ford, the grand old man of movies, was fired from the project halfway through filming.
New on DVD: The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)
A confession: Matthew McConaughey irritates me in most of his romantic comedy roles. But in The Lincoln Lawyer we get the McConaughey I love. Here he plays Mick Haller, a fatally flawed character who oozes amoral charismatic and oily self-confidence.
Program Notes: Donovan's Reef (1963)
Donovan’s Reef (1963) is a film of John Ford’s old age. Depending on how you look at it, it's either a gentle reverie or an escape from all the things in real life which were making Ford a cranky old man.
