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4 items from 2011

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Fanny And Alexander Criterion Blu-ray Review

28 December 2011 6:16 AM, PST | Collider.com | See recent Collider.com news »

Ingmar Bergman is one of the most respected names in cinema, which comes with a price. When in The Seventh Seal he had a knight and the embodiment of death play a chess game, he unfortunately crystallized what Americans feared was the nature of “Foreign Films.” They seemed pretentious and humorless, about suffering and existentialism. So it’s understandable if the body of work is approached with some hesitation. But – though it starts slowly – Fanny and Alexander, his 1982 farewell to directing cinema, begins with a Christmas celebration that features sex and fart jokes. Seriously, jokes plural. Our review of Criterion’s Blu-ray of Fanny and Alexander follows after the jump. Bertil Guve stars as Alexander Ekdahl, His parents act and run the local theater, and as the film begins they are finishing their Christmas show and going to dinner with the matriarch of their family Helena (Gunn Wallgren). There we meet the family. »

- Andre Dellamorte

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Blu-ray Review: Fanny and Alexander (Criterion Collection)

15 November 2011 9:08 AM, PST | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »

When I first heard Criterion would start releasing titles from their Collection onto Blu-ray I thought of several of their highest profile films that I would love to see and own in high definition. Obvious titles such as Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Bergman's Seventh Seal, Godard's Breathless, Fellini's 8 1/2 and several others, most of which (including all four I just mentioned) are already available on Criterion Blu-ray. Now you can add one more that immediately came to mind... Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander, the prolific director's final feature film and one hell of a film at that. If you're a fan of Bergman's work you simply must own this film as it has everything you've ever found intriguing in the director's work all wrapped into one master opus. While the Criterion jacket calls it the director's "warmest" film there is still plenty of darkness to be explored as the story of »

- Brad Brevet

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Blu-ray Review: Ingmar Bergman's 'Smiles of a Summer Night' (Criterion Collection)

8 June 2011 12:44 PM, PDT | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »

I'm a big Ingmar Bergman fan and for that reason alone I enjoyed Smiles of a Summer Night. With some directors you just feel a connection, you get their jokes, you share similar wonders and question the same things. I love his approach to religion and questions of mortality. However, this film doesn't really deal with much of that at all, which is probably the reason I merely liked it and wouldn't necessarily suggest it as a must buy. Though, for Bergman fans, it's certainly one to add to your collection.

While described as "one of cinema's great erotic comedies" by Criterion, that's a bit misleading, especially for today's audiences. Perhaps it would be more properly worded as "quietly" erotic and "subtly" funny. You won't be laughing out loud, at least not very often, and while Harriet Andersson (Through a Glass Darkly), Eva Dahlbeck and even the pregnant (but hiding »

- Brad Brevet

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Smiles Of A Summer Night Criterion Blu-ray Review

10 May 2011 1:12 PM, PDT | Collider.com | See recent Collider.com news »

When looking at the careers of legendary directors, writers and actors in retrospect, it can be interesting to analyze just what path they took before reaching greatness.  Today, Ingmar Bergman is internationally known as one of the great auteurs of all time.  But while he was already an established director for nine years in his native Sweden, it was not until his fifteenth film as director that Bergman achieved international acclaim in 1955.  That film was Smiles of a Summer Night.  Hit the jump for my review. Smiles of a Summer Night introduced viewers to the comic side of Bergman in a tale of four men and four women trying to find their true love in a mix of complex interconnected relationships.  Fredrik Egerman (Gunnar Björnstrand) is an older lawyer married to a teenaged wife, Anne (Ulla Jacobsson) with whom he has never consummated.  In his younger days Fredrik had an »

- Jackson

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4 items from 2011

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