Nick The Sting (Blu-ray) by Ian Jane The Movie:Clearly influenced by the success of The Sting, Fernando Di Leo's 1976 film Nick The Sting stars Luc Merenda stars as two-bit con artist named Nick Hezard who lives and operates out of Geneva, Switzerland. The big man in town is a crime boss named Robert Clark (Lee J. Cobb), who sets Nick up to take the fall in an insurance scam he's running.When Nick figures out what's happened and who is responsible for it, he decides to pay Clark back. To do this, he puts together a rag tag group of small time criminal types to setup a fake killing that will, if it all goes right, let them get their hands on Clark's cash and destroy his reputation while they're at it. It is, of course, a very convoluted plan involving fake cops, fake murders and even a fake police station that won't be easy to pull off. And then there's the lovely Anna (Luciana Paluzzi) to cont...Read the entire review »

Frownland (The Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray) by Kurt Dahlke Frownland: After enjoying Ronald Bronstein's powerful performance in Daddy Longlegs I felt almost duty-bound to check out his directorial debut Frownland (2007). While the latter movie shares much in common with the former, Frownland is to be approached with extreme caution. It's a plot-less trip into hellish despair. If that, and an intimate portrait of low-rent New York City, sounds like a great way to spend 106 minutes, then The Criterion Collection has your ticket. Frownland has roots in the indie film-making scene of New York, from the '80s on up. Bronstein crafts a movie that appears so off-the-cuff, one imagines that any old person might just accidentally have made it. We get the chance to peer in on the life (if you can call it that) of Keith, as assayed by Dore Mann. Keith has something like a j...Read the entire review »