Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from 

Dogfight (1991) 

Eddie: Why do we bullshit each other like this? 

Berzin: Let me tell you something about bullshit. It's everywhere. You hit me with a little, I buy it. I hit you with a little, you buy it. It doesn't make us idiots. That's what makes us buddies. We buy what the corps hand out, and that's what makes us marines. And the corps buy all the bullshit from President Kennedy, and President Kennedy is buying all the bullshit from everybody in the US of the fucking A, and that's what makes us Americans.

Criterion has done the world a favor this day and given Nancy Savoca's 1991 masterpiece Dogfight a proper blu-ray release -- click here to buy a copy. Set in the early 1960s Dogfight is about a bunch of soldiers about to head to Vietnam who throw the titular party, where whoever brings the ugliest girl to their party wins -- River Phoenix is one of the soldiers and Lily Taylor is a folk-singing waitress he decides should be his date only to regret it once he actually starts liking her. The movie is about as lovely and intimate as they come; I hadn't seen it in years but re-watching Criterion's edition I remembered immediately why I'd always thought well of it. 

Phoenix and Taylor are absolutely perfect and the movie never sugarcoats a single moment or overly villainizes its characters -- they all feel deeply human. And it's also surpisingly funny, given the dark subject matter. One of the great films of the 1990s and we're absolutely blessed to have this fresh release so people can rediscover it. Oh and the blu-ray has a killer special feature -- a great chat between Savoca, Taylor, and director Mary Harron! Pick this one up stat, you will not be disappointed.