Basking in the Light of Café de Flore

by Tony Dayoub

After opening throughout most of the U.S. at the end of last year, Café de Flore finally arrives in Atlanta today. The dark, romantic fantasy, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, has a distinctly Euro vibe that belies its Québécois origins, a fact which makes the film a more viable American art-house release than the usual Canadian fare. Intercutting between two disparate but eerily parallel storylines, one set in late 60s Paris, the other in contemporary Montreal, Vallée takes his time in revealing what links the plots. And unlike the typical movie of this kind, he manages to keep the viewer in suspense for exactly the amount of time he meant to.

Blu-ray Review: Videodrome (1983)

by Tony Dayoub

What's got two thumbs, hosted the Cronenberg Blogathon, and has never seen the director's most representative film, Videodrome? A week ago, I would have responded, "This guy." But Criterion sent me a review copy of their new Blu-ray of Videodrome last week, and I can now say I've seen all of Cronenberg's feature-length films. And boy, did I wait too long to catch this one! Criterion's wonderfully appointed package is a mixture of featurettes concentrating on the physical effects by the legendary Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London), extended sequences which appear as pirated S&M transmissions in the movie, and a fascinating panel discussion featuring Cronenberg, John Carpenter and John Landis (with then-unknown Mick Garris), all supplementing a high-def transfer supervised by cinematographer Mark Irwin. Part surrealist nightmare, part political satire and more, Videodrome is clearly the key film in the Canadian filmmaker's oeuvre.

Seventies Cinema Revival: The Brood (1979)

by Tony Dayoub



Is there a more terrifying sequence in the last 40 years of cinema than the climax of David Cronenberg's chiller, The Brood? In it, Oliver Reed—that handsome rake who (according to Derek Armstrong) once received 36 stitches in the face after one of his numerous bar fights—walks into a dormitory full of sleeping, monstrous, children to help another traumatized innocent escape her captors. And as the evil little devils begin to wake up, and jump down from their bunk beds to surround Reed (Tommy), it is he who we are afraid for.