This page was last updated on January 26, 2007.
 | DVD Verdict: Reviews for this site (where I serve as both film critic and associate editor) are indexed on my dossier page. DVD Verdict is also the home of my column Deep Focus, a scholarly look at important directors, select subgenres, and crucial film theory issues for a popular audience. |
| Daily Reviews: While this site has closed its doors, I have nearly 200 reviews cataloged in two archives. |
| The Film Journal: Look for my contributions coming soon to this popular site for serious film criticism. |
| Online Film Critics Society: A frequently updated list of film reviews from both DVD Verdict and Daily-Reviews can be found on my Member Profile Page, courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes. |
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Spotlight Special: Top 10 DVDs of 2006 |
| Deep Focus Spotlight of the Month: A History of Hysteria |
| Seven Samurai: Criterion Collection (3 Disc Edition): Sure, you’ve seen it before, but never like this. Kurosawa takes his sweet time building up his army, and this extended, restored release makes every moment compelling. Throw in two commentary tracks, documentaries, interviews – this is a package impossible to resist. Criterion proves once again why they are the team to beat for special editions. |
| Forbidden Planet (Ultimate Collector’s Edition): One of the great science fiction movies, a miniature Robby the Robot, an entire extra feature film (The Invisible Boy), solid documentaries and bonus features, lobby cards . . . wait. A miniature Robby the Robot? You win. I’ll buy it. |
| An Inconvenient Truth: A feature length PowerPoint presentation? Al Gore used to be a joke, but nobody is laughing now. In a decade, this movie may be credited as the key event that turned the debate on global warming around for most Americans. And the packaging is even made from recyclables. Regardless of whom you voted for, this is the one movie from 2006 that you have to see. |
| Walt Disney Legacy Collection: True Life Adventures (Volumes 1-4): They may sometimes be a little patronizing, tend to anthropomorphize animal behavior too much, and tinker with the facts – let’s not even talk about what they did to those poor lemmings – but Disney’s True Life Adventures series revolutionized the nature documentary. Whole basic cable networks are dedicated now to imitating what Walt’s filmmakers did half a century ago. |
| Tie: Mr. Arkadin: Criterion Collection / Playtime: Criterion Collection: Two testaments to monumental hubris. Two films about the collapse of identity. Two failed masterpieces that were ripped away from their mad, brilliant creators and ravaged for years. Two fabulously restored Criterion sets with a wealth of material to cover the troubled history of these movies. Jacques Tati’s Playtime is the more fun, but Mr. Arkadin shows Orson Welles’ bitter need to prove his legacy in every surviving frame. (Read my review of Playtime.) |
| A History of Violence: Both a droll dissection of American male identity and a clear-eyed summary of David Cronenberg’s career (even as it surprisingly veers away from many of his expected tropes), this was the best movie of 2005. So why shouldn’t it be a crucial DVD for 2006? (Read my review of A History of Violence.) |
| The Maltese Falcon (3 Disc Edition): Restored to its place as the big daddy of all film noir, with two previous screen adaptations of the Hammett novel, three radio versions, bonus “night at the movies” treats. It seems so obvious to call it, like every other critic this year, “the stuff dreams are made of.” (Read my review of Humphrey Bogart: The Signature Collection, Volume 2.) |
| My Neighbor Totoro: I feel a little guilty giving this spot to a Miyazaki picture that was already released a few years ago (in a sloppy edition by Fox), when his latest movie (Howl’s Moving Castle) also came out on DVD. But there is a reason my daughter asks for this movie constantly: this is one of the most perfect films about childhood wonder ever made. (Read my review of My Neighbor Totoro.) |
| Good Night, and Good Luck: On the surface, this one looks easy to dismiss as another statement by “the liberal media” bashing the government’s efforts to protect us from evil infiltrators. But George Clooney’s film is more complex that you think: it is a story about the power of television; it is a battle of wills between two men whose identities are built by the media and who only speak to one another (and the world) through cameras; it asks whether journalists should work for objectivity or advocacy – and who chooses which side they should advocate? |
| The Passenger: Like a Michelangelo Antonioni character, The Passenger nearly faded into obscurity. But this year, it finally arrived, complete with an unexpectedly candid commentary track by star Jack Nicholson himself (who will surprise you with his subtle performance). Is it a thriller? Is it a study of disintegrating identity? Do you really expect an answer in an Antonioni film? |