Fear of the Velvet Curtain
WERNER HERZOG: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
Of the Big Three new wavers of German cinema—Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders– who “came of age” as it…
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Barbary Coast
Crime, lust and vigilante lynchings in the wide-open city on the bay, back in the gold rush days. Miriam Hopkins, Edward G.…
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The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues
Minimalist 'Z' monster movies really took off in the 1950s, earning good money on tiny outlays of time, money, and sometimes talent.…
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Thundercrack! – 40th Anniversary
Curt McDowell and George Kuchar's comedy epic of oversexed sensationalists running amuck while trapped in a storm-battered house goes beyond strange. It's…
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DVD Savant 2015 Favored Disc Roundup
or, Savant picks The Most Impressive Discs of 2015 This is the actual view from Savant Central, looking due North. What a…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
HAVE YOURSELF A MOVIE LITTLE CHRISTMAS: KRAMPUS AND MORE!
Despite its rampaging monster approach to the holiday season and the imposing, sort-of terrifying giant horned goat-man who provides its title, Krampus…
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Speedy
Silent comedy rules! Harold Lloyd epitomizes 'twenties optimism while serving up the fun. Even better, he filmed this on the streets of…
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Wake Up and Kill
Gian Maria Volonté has a big part in this prime quality Italo crime thriller blessed with a great score by Ennio Morricone.…
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You Can’t Take It with You
Frank Capra won his third Best Directing Oscar for this Kaufman and Hart adaptation. Star Jean Arthur is radiant, and relative newcomer James…
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Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special
It's back and better than ever -- the makers of Pee-Wee's Playhouse capped their Saturday morning show with a Christmas Special to…
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Downhill Racer
The stylistics of documentary filmmaking helped wipe out the old Hollywood way of doing things, and this sharp look at Olympic skiing…
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Team America: World Police
Trey Parker and Matt Stone's 'outrageous, irreverent' comedy is a gusher of pointless profanity and smut that will cheer the myriad fans…
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Five Came Back
Dalton Trumbo and Nathanael West contributed to the screenplay for John Farrow's suspense adventure about a plane crash in the Amazon jungle…
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Love at Large
Alan Rudolph goes all mushy on us, but in a good way. This loose, somewhat cartoonish comedy pits detectives Tom Berenger and…
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Flying Disc Man from Mars
Make room for Mota, the man from Mars! Mota enlists a scientist and two thugs to lay the groundwork for a full-scale…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
THE MYSTERIOUS CHORDS OF YOUTH
Paolo Sorrentino makes movies the way musicians create music—lingering themes swirl together with short spurts of philosophical flirtation and bawdy jokes, placid…
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Ikiru
Akira Kurosawa goes full tilt humanist with this emotionally wrenching, vastly insightful look at human nature. A faceless bureaucrat, alone and empty,…
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Sense and Sensibility
Emma Thompson both wrote and stars in this latter-day Jane Austen adaptation, blessed with fine locations and costumes, a congenial cast and…
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Ken Burns’ The Civil War
Ken Burns and Co. made a big splash with this historical docu miniseries that in 1990 gripped the imagination of the whole…
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The Brain that Wouldn’t Die
Forget your 'Jan in the Pan' jokes and all those 'thing in the closet' remarks about gay subtext. This loopy, kooky and kinky…
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Queen of Blood
Curtis Harrington took an assignment nobody else would and fashioned a gem of low-budget Sci-Fi. A Russian space epic provides expensive-looking special…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
A Blazing Saddles Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving. The real inauguration of the holiday season in the United States, and in homes, countries, points and vast places all around…
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The Hurricane
John Ford and Samuel Goldwyn's South Seas disaster picture can boast spectacular action and compelling romance. The unjustly imprisoned Jon Hall crosses half…
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Forbidden Hollywood Volume 9
Depraved convicts ! Crazy Manhattan gin parties! Society dames poaching other women's husbands! A flimflam artist scamming the uptown sophisticates! All these…
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Don’t Look Back
D.A. Pennebaker puts cinema verité on the map with his terrific up-close docu portrait of Bob Dylan as he runs from concert…
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Black Widow
Forget film art for a minute. Bob Rafelson and Ronald Bass's smart and sexy murder thriller throws Debra Winger and Theresa Russell…