“The Room” has been celebrated a hundred times over, ad nauseaum, since it became a small midnight movie hit years after its initial release. Since then every critic and columnist far and wide has had their chance with it, and every respective movie buff has seen it, combed over it, and even read the book “The Disaster Artist.” Based on the film’s co-star Greg Sestero’s experiences with its eccentric director and working on the inexplicably demanding film, “The Disaster Artist” by director James Franco and writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Webe, is a love letter to Wiseau’s ambition that asks why.
Christmas Dreams (2017)
Andrew Repasky McElhinney, the critically acclaimed underground filmmaker responsible for such offbeat gems as “A Chronicle of Corpses” (2001) and “Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye” (2003), has created a whimsical holiday season feature.
Told without any dialogue, this feature presents a series of inventive dance sequences linked to the simple tale of a contemporary Little Drummer Boy (Conrad Sager) trying to win the heart of a pretty girl (Francesca Flamminio). A magical toymaker keeps an eye on this youthful pair as their dreams spin into vibrant fantasty detours before settling in a delightful reality.
The Breakfast Club (1985) [Criterion Collection] [Blu-Ray]
It’s apt that John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club” would be granted a Criterion release, as it’s still one of the most riveting character studies ever released. While it’s often imitated, Hughes’ 1985 drama stands alone as a hallmark of simplicity, grabbing a cast at the top of their game in a decade, offering up truly remarkable performances in already seasoned careers. “The Breakfast Club” was basically “The Big Chill.” Except for a drama being about people in the middle of their lives, we’re able to sit down for ninety minutes with five young people at the beginning of their lives pondering on what they could become as adults, what they don’t want to become as adults, and what they fear they will become as adults.
Bright (2017)
It’s David Ayer with another cop drama except rather than a socially relevant tale about mismatched officers of a different race or gender or religion—it’s got Orcs! “Bright” is by no means as clever as it thinks it is, as it uses fantasy tropes not to move the story forward or to lend a new twist to the cop drama, but to hammer us over the head with clumsy allegories and symbolism. Max Landis’ script is painfully stale and lacks any kind of idea as to what it’s trying to get across. It’s much too serious to take as a fantasy film, and not silly enough to take it as a meta-cop movie. Even the opening scene of Will Smith’s character beating a fairy to death on his front lawn with a broom is flat and never quite played up as a meta joke, so much as a poorly delivered device to alert us that we’re watching a “different” kind of cop movie.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Rian Johnson has created what is easily one of the most complete and well developed “Star Wars” cinematic installments since “Empire.” While it does have the occasional pitfall (Porgs), “The Last Jedi” is a masterstroke for the series so far. Johnson manages to skillfully build on this new universe while also answering a lot of the pressing questions that the fans had for “The Force Awakens.” This is the second film to usher in the new generation and ease out the originals, turning this in to a war where the underdogs are still the rebels and they’re filled with reverence for folks like Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa. Johnson focuses primarily on the “How,” and “Why” questions from “The Force Awakens,” allowing fans closure on a lot of the nagging questions that left them excited and or baffled.
The Bootleg Files: Christmas Holiday
BOOTLEG FILES 618: “Christmas Holiday” (1944 noir drama starring Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly).
LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It is unclear what happened.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It’s possible.
During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Deanna Durbin was the reigning teen queen of Universal Pictures’ musicals – which made her something of a big fish in a small pond, considering musicals were not really that studio’s forte. Nonetheless, audiences loved the pretty Canadian-born star with the peerless soprano singing voice, and Universal loved that audiences loved her. But the love did not extend to Durbin herself, who bristled at the saccharine persona created by her employers. She derided her screen image as “Little Miss Fixit who bursts into song,” claiming that films like “One Hundred Men and Girl” and “Mad About Music” created a corny image that “represented the ideal daughter that millions of fathers and daughters wished they had.”
Cracking Cancer (2017)
Judith Pyke’s documentary, which was originally presented as an episode on the long-running CBC Television series The Nature of Things, highlights the groundbreaking research conducted by the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver on Personalized OncoGenomics (POG), an experimental treatment for individuals with incurable cancer.