‘Diamonds’ Are Forever

DREAMSVILLE’S WEEK IN DVD Nikkatsu, the oldest film studio in Japan, inaugurated a star system in the late 1950s, finding talent and contracting to their Diamond Line for a series of wild genre pictures. “Nikkatsu Diamond Guys – Vol 1” (1958/59) celebrates these “Diamond Guys” with three classic films from directors Seijun Suzuki (“Branded to […]

‘Llewyn Davis,’ ’60s Folkies Play for Criterion

DREAMSVILLE’S WEEK IN DVD The Coen brothers’ 2013 hit “Inside Llewyn Davis” gets The Criterion Collection treatment this week and what a splendid release it is. Their film — about a singer barely eking out a living on the peripheries of the flourishing Greenwich Village folk scene of the early sixties — captured the angst […]

‘American Friend’ Gets Criterion Treatment Jan. 12

DREAMSVILLE’S WEEK IN DVD There’s two knock-out releases from The Criterion Collection, headed up by one of the greatest films of the modern cinema: “The American Friend” (1977). Wim Wenders pays loving homage to rough-and-tumble Hollywood film noir with “The American Friend,” a loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel “Ripley’s Game.” Dennis Hopper oozes quirky […]