Tag Archives: Drama

The Top Ten Best Moments of “The Walking Dead” Season Seven

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Despite a rocky start, “The Walking Dead” season seven was absolutely stellar, as we finally got to meet the man known as Negan. Since Season one most of the threats from outside haven’t shaken Rick and his group’s confidence. Hell, not even a town filled with cannibals could really shake Rick’s determination. It isn’t until Maggie was near death and the massive numbers of the Savior for Rick to be shaken at the core. Negan is a vicious monster who is just as organized and orderly as Rick and his group are. He commands big numbers, strikes fear in to the hearts of many, and is never afraid to demonstrate his wrath over others. Season seven saw Rick be knocked down, and find the courage to get back up again and fight for Alexandria. It was a compelling season and these are ten of the best moments that shocked, amazed, and gripped me.

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The Wanderers (1979) [Blu-Ray]

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After spending many years in a hard to find DVD version, “The Wanderers” is finally given the proper treatment on blu-ray by Kino Lorber with a beautiful 2K restoration. “The Wanderers” is one of the many films from the nostalgia boom of the late seventies and early eighties, that peeks back in to the sixties, where great change was taking shape, and the world was at war. With films like “American Graffiti” making waves, “The Wanderers” is another of those defining era dramas that is shockingly overlooked and not often appreciated. “The Wanderers” is very much a gangland picture but more so a coming of age drama about a young boy growing up in a world filled with allegiances, dividing loyalties, and uneasy questions about where he stands in a gradually shifting society.

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Black Girl (La Noire de…) (1966): The Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]

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Director Ousmane Sembéne’s drama is less an art house film and more of an observational drama that explores how one woman’s idyllic views of French life traps her in to a life of indentured servitude. Actress M’Bissine Thérese Diop is great as Diouana, a young woman stuck in an African village who finds that her options there are limited. She’s not very capable of doing much but servant work and longs to see the world. When she gets a job with a wealthy couple, she’s taken to the French Riviera for the season and asked to live with them to work as their live in nanny. Diouana comes to France expecting luxury, shopping, amazing adventures, and exploration of the beaches.

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The Ottoman Lieutenant (2016)

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Following a lecture by a handsome missionary doctor, a frustrated young American nurse decides to go to Turkey to deliver much needed supplies and her late brother’s truck.  As war looms and dangers abound, she is assigned an Ottoman Lieutenant to protect her on her journey to the faraway hospital.  During their journey, friendship blooms and once at the hospital, romance is in the air.

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45 Years (2015): The Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]

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It’s stunning how subtle and delicate “45 Years” introduces itself, only to end on such a heavy and gut wrenching final scene that leaves you with the weight of questions and uneasy answers. From beginning to end, director Andrew Haigh confronts many of life’s very difficult problems, including how easy it is for a relationship approaching a century, can be dismantled in only a week. Haigh almost seems to count down to the final day where couple Kate and Geoff celebrates their four and a half decades together as a married couple. Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling are stellar as a seemingly mundane husband and wife whose life is changed one day with a letter that arrives for Geoff.

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Kairo/Pulse (2001)

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Kyoshi Kurosawa’s “Kairo” is a film dripping in terror that deliberately paces itself as a slow burning end of the world tale. Rather than an all out orgy of gore and carnage, “Pulse” eventually explodes in to something of a last gasp of humanity, and a civilization that ends in a whisper and somber whimper. “Kairo” is written as something of a two act structure where Kurosawa opts for a film that’s episode in the vein of “Pulp Fiction,” and then smashes together in the stunning climax. Much of what we see seems and feels random in many places, and events collide allowing for a cogent unfolding of events that doesn’t just make sense but feels so meticulously planned from square one. What makes “Kairo” so haunting even when the credits have drawn to a close is the way the director opts less for splatter and gore, and more for a requiem that depicts mankind as a stain and nothing more.

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Beauty And The Beast (2014) [Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital]

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Christophe Gans offers up a richly realized and absolutely beautiful vision of “Beauty and the Beast” that embraces the dark side and fantasy of the original story. While yes, Belle begins to fall In love with the Beast, and is even enticed by him, it’s also thanks his aggression and insistence on influencing her Stockholm syndrome. Belle does eventually find the beauty of living with the beast, in that she’s able to roam his massive castle and is capable of finding secrets and fun corners within it. She even plays hide and seek with dog like creatures that find a fascination with Belle. Gans’ direction is superb and absolutely mesmerizing, I can not stress that enough. Many of his wide shots, and pans are magnificent and he knows how to make the beast both enigmatic and terrifying. There’s even a marvelous moment where the Beast is looking out on to an invading army from his perch, resembling Lon Chaney from “Phantom of the Opera.”

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