When MGM was almost a ghost town, the Arthur Freed unit hit one last ‘special’ factory musical out of the park with this strangely melancholy ode to faded ambitions. Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd put in great, memorable work, while the glorious Dolores Gray is practically a living Tex Avery cartoon….

You’ll always be careful with knives after seeing the outrageous, impossibly gory violence of this brain-warping samurai series from the early 1970s. Tomisaburo Wakabayashi rolls his tiny tot Daigoro through feudal Japan, looking for trouble. There’s simply been nothing like it: breathtakingly beautiful images aestheticize bloodletting as never before or since. Lone Wolf and Cub…

What? A movie where adults behave like adults? Otto Preminger showcases a quiet maturity in this story of an independent woman caught between two men, adulterous lover Dana Andrews and conflicted suitor Henry Fonda. The script is witty and the people believable — this is one of Joan Crawford’s best performances. Daisy Kenyon Blu-ray KL…

From the first time I saw it until this moment, two days before what might just be the most important, potentially resonant (for good and ill) American presidential election since the days of the Civil War, no other movie has expanded in my view more meaningfully, more ambiguously, with more fascination than has Robert Altman’s…

Is this once-lost film the apex of obscure independent Hollywood filmmaking?  Made way outside the limits of the Production Code, it’s even better than I hoped it would be. Leslie Stevens’ ‘backyard movie’ is the work of a directorial wunderkind with an inspired crew. Totally original, with three unforgettable performances. Private Property Blu-ray + DVD…

For nostalgic excitement there’s no better ’60s pop compendium than this! An impossibly eclectic mix of talent at the Santa Monica Civic, in a brilliantly produced live show recorded in the wonder of Electronovision! The lineup is incredible: The Rolling Stones, James Brown and Lesley Gore on the same stage? The T.A.M.I. Show; The Big…

Neurotic coward Eddie Cantor decides to defend an amusement park against gangsters, and nothing but fun ensues! Ethel Merman has a small role here, but we’re more than entertained by Parkyakarkus, Brian Donlevy, William Frawley, Jack LaRue. Plus Sally Eilers, the Goldwyn Girls and a terrific forgotten talent, billed in this movie as Rita Rio….

Where’s M. Night Shyamalan when we need him? Gus Van Sant’s spiritual journey through a death forest is pretty to look at, nicely acted… and Trite with a capital T. Matthew McConaughey and Naomi Watts are prominent on the marquee, but co-star Ken Watanabe gets shunted aside. The Sea of Trees Blu-ray Lionsgate 2015 /…

Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland and Agnes Moorehead play it nasty, chop-chopping their way through a Grand Dame Guignol epic of ‘sixties Hag Horror. Ace director Robert Aldrich’s big success handed the deserving Davis a big role, and it looks better than ever on this razor-sharp remastered edition. With good original film promos as well…

Wow! Fritz Lang’s second western is a marvel — a combo of matinee innocence and that old Germanic edict that character equals fate. It has a master’s sense of color and design. Robert Young is an odd fit but Randolph Scott is nothing less than terrific. You’d think Lang was born on the Pecos. Western…

Look out: John Carpenter’s chilly tale of shape-shifting chaos at the South Pole creeps back with a new transfer and two fully stocked discs of extras old and new, including the bowdlerized Network cut, just for laughs. The picture still works like gangbusters — the best monsters are still the gooey, rubbery pre-CGI kind. John…

Yesterday, amid a crush of sweaty people desperate for last-minute props, I visited a local Halloween superstore with my daughter, looking for a Pikachu mask. Well, there wasn’t much to choose from in the Cute Kid Division. But this particular hall of Halloween hell definitely had the adult sensibility covered. Of course there were the…

Horton Foote, Lillian Hellman and Arthur Penn’s All-Star vision of an Ugly America found few friends in 1965; now its overstated scenes of social injustice and violence are daily events. Marlon Brando leads a terrific cast — Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Angie Dickinson, Robert Duvall! — to endure the worst Saturday ever to hit one…

Yes, it is a perfect title for a horror picture, but it belongs to an early film noir — or as we discover, a murder thriller that previews the classic ’40s noir visual look. Victor Mature is the man on the spot for a killing, Betty Grable and Carole Landis are a pair of sisters…

Redford’s back and Pollard’s got him! Or is it Lauren Hutton? Sidney J. Furie fully earns his shaky reputation with this motorcycle buddy picture. Most of the energy seems to have gone into the deal, not the movie. Great cinematography, but it’s for fans that want to look at a shirtless Sundance Kid. I know…

Now for something truly remarkable from the neglected Spanish cinema. Luis García Berlanga’s wicked satire is a humanistic black comedy, free of cynicism. The borderline Kafkaesque situation of an everyman forced into a profession that horrifies him is funny and warm hearted – but with a ruthless logic that points to universal issues beyond Franco…

Expatriate Francis Lederer is a cultured menace in UA’s revisit of the Dracula myth, made just before Hammer Films staked its claim on the horror genre. Avid Hitchcock fans may find the storyline very familiar, when European cousin Bellac strikes up a ‘special’ relationship with his American cousin Rachel. The Return of Dracula Blu-ray Olive…

The chase is on: a mix of icy ruthlessness and warm romanticism enliven Ken Follett’s novel of pre-invasion esponage intrigue. Kate Nelligan heats up the screen with Donald Sutherland, the ‘seventies most unlikely sex star. Plus a lush and wondrous music score by Miklos Rozsa. Eye of the Needle Blu-ray Twilight Time 1981 / Color…

Arrow Video digs its sharp talons into Wes Craven’s dirt ‘n’ Bowie Knife slaughter-fest horror picture, yet another strange travel advisory not to go anywhere, ’cause strangers might be cannibals. But hey, the movie works, and like much of Craven’s filmography, it sticks its neck way out into dangerous territory. The Hills Have Eyes Blu-ray…

Ten years ago I attended the Lone Pine Film Festival for the first time. It was the 17th annual celebration in 2006 of a festival dedicated to the heritage of movies (mostly westerns, but plenty of other genres as well) shot in or near the town of Lone Pine, California, located on the outer edges…

Robert Altman, Warren Beatty and Julie Christie join together for one of the great westerns, a poetic account of the founding of a town and the way big business preys on foolish little guys. Raw and cluttered, the show gives the genre a new look, with a dreamy mix of snowflakes, opium and the music…

Killer Greek scenery in CinemaScope graces Jean Negulesco’s relaxed thriller about art theft in the Aegean. But viewers are more likely to remember Sophia Loren’s sexy wet diving costume that insured that her American debut didn’t go unnoticed. Boy on a Dolphin Blu-ray KL Studio Classics 1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 111 min….

The biggest, most lavish hook-up between Hollywood and the Pentagon was this Anthony Mann-James Stewart collaboration, a morale & recruiting cheer for America’s intercontinental bombing air force, the service that kept the peace by holding up our side of the balance of fear. Strategic Air Command Blu-ray Olive Films 1955 / Color / 1:66 widescreen (VistaVision)…

In the early ’70s Walter Matthau excelled in three powerful cops ‘n’ robbers movies; the second sees him as a tough, laconic San Francisco detective charged with an impossible task — running down a machine gun mass murderer, with no clues and no living witnesses. The Laughing Policeman Blu-ray KL Studio Classics 1973 / Color…

The great Fred Zinnemann’s last feature is a very personal story, a fairly uncomplicated drama with a mountain climbing backdrop. Sean Connery plays older than his age as a Scotsman on an Alpine vacation, toying with social disaster. With excellent, non- grandstanding performances from Betsy Brantley and Lambert Wilson. Five Days One Summer DVD-R The…

Krzysztof Kieślowski’s magnum opus for Polish Television is a transcendent ‘cycle’ of moral tales, each based on one of the Ten Commandments. But sometimes it’s difficult to get the connection — these brilliant mini-movies are pretty tricky. Dekalog Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 837 1988 / Color / 1:33 flat full frame; 1:70 widescreen / 583…