In This Issue:

August 2009

What's New on DVD

Frost/Nixon (2008)

Drama. Brainy/Fast-paced.
Color. 122 mins. Rated R. Directed By Ron Howard. Starring Michael Sheen and Frank Langella.
Based on Peter Morgan's stage play, Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon" is an intelligent, impressive big-screen realization of a dialogue-heavy script that nevertheless packs in plenty of dramatic suspense, ... Read More >
 

Just Another Love Story (2008)

Foreign/Mystery/Suspense/Romance. Brainy/Intense/Spine-tingling.
Color. 108 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Ole Bornedal. Starring Anders W. Berthelsen and Rebecka Hemse.
Ole Bornedal's Hitchcockian "Love Story" is a stylish thriller about lies, marital infidelity, and the noirish places a disillusioned family man, played with a slouchy, hangdog touch by Berthelsen, ... Read More >
 

Le Doulos (1963)

Foreign/Mystery/Suspense. Intense/Spine-tingling.
Black & White. 109 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Jean-Pierre Melville. Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Serge Reggiani.
Melville's existential gangster thriller examines betrayal, friendship, and the code of honor among thieves in his exquisite noir "Le Doulos," starring the uber-cool Belmondo, fresh off his star turn ... Read More >
 

Science is Fiction: 23 Films by Jean Painleve (1996)

Documentary/Foreign/Longer Films/Film Series/Collections/Silents. Brainy/Offbeat/Scenic.
Black & White. 313 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Jean Painleve.
Restored and digitized in pristine detail by Criterion, the films collected here reveal the technical genius and vibrant creative energies of Painleve, a polymath with a special interest in zoology ... Read More >
 

The Last Metro (1980)

Drama/Foreign/Romance. Brainy/Moving/Scenic.
Color. 131 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Francois Truffaut. Starring Gerard Depardieu, Heinz Bennent and Catherine Deneuve.
Deneuve and Depardieu, both giants of French cinema, have a heady match-up in "Metro", Francois Truffaut's slow, smoldering melodrama. Instead of delving into Nazi horrors, the director plays up the ... Read More >
 

The Reader (2008)

Drama. Brainy/Intense/Moving.
Color. 123 mins. Rated R. Directed By Stephan Daldry. Starring David Kross, Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet.
Based on Bernhard Schlink's widely admired novel and penned by screenwriter David Hare, Daldry's "Reader" deals with a young man's coming of age in the arms of a former concentration-camp guard. ... Read More >
 

Time Limit (1957)

Drama/War/Westerns. Brainy/Intense.
Black & White. 96 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Karl Malden. Starring Richard Widmark and Richard Basehart.
The late actor Karl Malden, best known for his long-running stint on "Streets of San Francisco," came from the Elia Kazan school of theatrical realism, and in his one outing as director, creates a ... Read More >
 

Under the Bombs (2007)

Drama/Foreign/War/Westerns. Intense/Moving.
Color. 98 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Philippe Aractinghi. Starring Georges Khabbaz and Nada Abou Farhat.
Filmed in devastated parts of Lebanon immediately after the 2006 summer war between Hezbollah and Israel, this of-the-moment docu-fiction road movie stirs high drama from real-life tragedy. Working ... Read More >
 

Wise Blood (1979)

Drama. Brainy/Intense/Offbeat.
Color. 109 mins. Rated R. Directed By John Huston. Starring Brad Dourif and Harry Dean Stanton.
Dourif is brilliant in Huston's "Wise Blood," based on the novel by Flannery O'Connor, playing a man at war with faith, and ultimately with his own ingrained sense of religion and morality. He is ... Read More >
 

Theme of the Month: 10 Great Road Trip Movies You've Never Heard Of

August is vacation month and for many of us, a time to get in the car and go somewhere. So if you're in the car for an extended period (with someone else driving) or you're enjoying a stay-vacation this year, put on your seat belt for some top-notch entertainment. Write and tell us your favorites! john@bestmoviesbyfarr.com

A Taste of Cherry (1998)

Foreign Language/Drama. Brainy.
Color. 95 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Abbas Kiarostami. Starring Abdolrahman Bagheri and Homayoun Ershadi.
Kiarostami's obliquely moral tale concerns a seemingly average man who, for some unknown reason, wishes to end his life - a huge taboo in Muslim society. Using a unique mix of long exterior shots ... Read More >
 

Detour (1945)

Mystery/Suspense. Spine-tingling.
Black & White. 68 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Edgar G. Ulmer. Starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage.
Made by a Poverty Row studio in just six days, this cynical, acid-tongued noir exemplified what a skilled director like Ulmer could do on a shoestring budget. Narrated by Neal, whose weary voice is ... Read More >
 

Duel (1971)

Action/Adventure. Intense/Spine-tingling.
Color. 91 mins. Rated PG. Directed By Steven Spielberg. Starring Dennis Weaver and Jacqueline Scott.
Spielberg's first full length film was for television, but never mind - it's still a grabber. Absent of his later big Hollywood budgets, the director's special knack for building tension is still ... Read More >
 

Red Lights (2004)

Mystery/Suspense/Foreign Language. Spine-tingling.
Color. 105 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Cedric Kahn. Starring Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Carole Bouquet.
Cracker-jack, white knuckle suspense from director Kahn works as both human drama and crime tale. Just when deep-seated problems force a marriage off the road, a random, external force intrudes, ... Read More >
 

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

Comedy. Farr-cical/Offbeat.
Color. 104 mins. Rated R. Directed By Stephan Elliott. Starring Guy Pearce, Terence Stamp and Hugo Weaving.
This campy, madcap road trip through the Aussie frontier was a huge hit in the U.S., loved for its cheeky humor and hilariously absurd scenarios-most involving awestruck locals encountering the ... Read More >
 

The Last Detail (1973)

Drama. Moving/Intense.
Color. 103 mins. Rated R. Directed By Hal Ashby. Starring Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid.
Gritty, wildly profane movie is equal parts funny and tragic, a tricky balance director Ashby sustains throughout. Quaid is wonderfully dim and pathetic as perennial loser Meadows, but Nicholson's ... Read More >
 

The World's Fastest Indian (2005)

Action/Adventure/Drama. Fast-paced/Scenic.
Color. 127 mins. Rated PG-13. Directed By Roger Donaldson. Starring Anthony Hopkins and Diane Ladd.
Chewing his role with obvious delight, Hopkins is terrific in Donaldson's rousing, against-the-odds road movie, which chronicles the real-life exploits of quixotic Kiwi roadster Munro in the '60s. ... Read More >
 

Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)

Drama. Offbeat/Scenic.
Color. 103 mins. Rated R. Directed By Monte Hellman. Starring Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates and James Taylor.
Monte Hellman may have been hired to direct a hot-dogging road picture that would appeal to car lovers and soda-slurping teens, but instead he made this low-gear cult film starring two of 1971's ... Read More >
 

Under the Bombs (2007)

Drama/Foreign/War/Westerns. Intense/Moving.
Color. 98 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Philippe Aractinghi. Starring Georges Khabbaz and Nada Abou Farhat.
Filmed in devastated parts of Lebanon immediately after the 2006 summer war between Hezbollah and Israel, this of-the-moment docu-fiction road movie stirs high drama from real-life tragedy. Working ... Read More >
 

Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)

Drama/Romance. Moving/Offbeat/Scenic.
Color. 105 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Alfonso Cuaron. Starring Diego Luna, Gabriel Garcia Bernal and Maribel Verdu.
Cuaron's exhilarating story of a Mexican menage a trois is steamy and titillating, surely one reason the film performed so well in American theaters. But it also engages closely and intelligently ... Read More >
 

Spotlight

• John is on vacation in Maine and finishing "The 100 Best Train Movies by Farr," a special interest publication coming out this fall.