It’s the WW2 spy thriller that everyone once assumed Orson Welles directed without credit. Director Norman Foster does good things with Eric Ambler’s tale of an American cornered by Nazi killers; Joseph Cotten co-wrote as well as starred and Dolores Del Río and Orson provide fine supporting performances. Welles’ problems at RKO surely contributed to…
How can a silent film seem such a modern conception? Kino reissues the 2014 restoration of Robert Weine’s horror landmark in 4K Ultra HD, with a choice of music soundtracks. The sleepwalking Cesare’s hypnotic abduction of Lil Dagover is still a grabber, and the nightmarish images don’t diminish in impact. It’s an incredible kickoff to…
Two of legendary Val Lewton’s greatest achievements make it to 4K Ultra HD. In Jacques Tourneur’s film the Gothic romance goes Voodoo on a West Indies plantation, with a side tragedy of slave misery. Scandal can’t hide, especially when the cheating wife falls into a catatonic ‘zombie’ state. It’s guilt, duty, and ‘shame and sorrow…
Halloween ’24 is looking good, as we chalk another genre landmark onto the list of excellent special edition discs. Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava’s thriller is the initial foray into Italo horror, a meeting of Gothic notions and modern medical chills. Gianna Maria Canale is the ravishing Duchess whose beauty is preserved through sordid science;…
It’s a dive into an intoxicating, anarchic slice of the 20th-century, the brief era that was Weimar Germany. The society still reels from crushing defeat and dark political forces are gearing up for a malign future. Berlin’s nightlife churns with experimental art, debauched revelry and untempered vice. Henk Handloegten, Tom Tykwer and Achim von Borries’…
Sure, it’s a TV landmark. To liberals it is a dream vision of how responsible government, run by practical idealists, ought to work. The show’s seven years of rational ups and downs were aired mostly during the Bush administration, and still managed to hold out hope for America. It’s a crowning achievement for creator Aaron…
The Ladykillers 4K ULTRA HD + Blu-ray Kino Lorber 1955 / 91 min / 1.37:1 & 1.66:1 Starring Alec Guinness, Katie Johnson, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers Written by Alexander Mackendrick, William Rose Photographed by Otto Heller Directed by Alexander Mackendrick British comedy has always depended on an understated quality, and nothing was as understated as…
The Warner Archive’s latest MGM Technicolor bon-bon is this strained musical bio — Mickey Rooney as Lorenz Hart? — that nevertheless can boast an impressive revue lineup of performances: Judy Garland, Betty Garrett, Lena Horne, Mickey Rooney, Mel Tormé et al. The showstopper is one of Gene Kelly’s earliest ‘music ballet’ extravaganzas — he dances…
Corporate culture had been around for years when the ‘Office Hell’ genre arrived, and this sleek fable from cubicle-land is both one of the best and one of the least seen. The much abused office temps Toni Collette, Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow and Alanna Ubach don’t have the luxury of cubicles, or even desks of…
No sooner do we dig up an old review for this horror masterpiece, than StudioCanal remasters it with a 4K scan and Kino adds some quality extras — just in time to start off the CineSavant Halloween season. College professor Peter Wyngarde refuses to believe that his missus Janet Blair has secured his high academic…
Jackie Chan’s legendary ‘Project A’ pictures reach 4K in a boxed set as lavish as home video can get. Chan’s pals Sammo Hung and Biao Yuen, and the amazing Chan Stunt Team assemble two of the most frenetic, athletic & death-defying comic action thrillers ever; the first is a Marines-vs-pirates epic and the second a…
The Lost Picture Show Blu-ray Vinegar Syndrome 1966-1974 / 843 min / 1.37:1 & 1.85:1 Starring Robert Dix, Rene Bond, Ray Molina Written by Walter M. Berger, Oliver Drake Photographed by Bruce G. Sparks, Glen Tracy Directed by Walter Burns, Joe Sarno, Al Zugsmith A grungy mix of sex, violence, and mushroom clouds, Vinegar Syndrome‘s…
“Space Flight: A Fantastic Story.” As ’50s kids we assumed that Soviet claims of ‘firsts’ in space science were a pack of lies. But this once- incredibly obscure 1936 silent feature dramatizes the space travel theories of a visionary Russian scientist who first published in the 1880s. The year is 1946 when the space ship…
Patricio Guzmán’s 3-part ‘you are there’ documentary of the beleaguered presidency of Chile’s Salvador Allende goes into great detail to show how a democratically-elected government can be destroyed from within. Guzmán’s cameras witness terrible events leading to the military attack on the presidential palace on September 11, 1973. It’s an amazing achievement — the film…
It’s still the best gangster film of the post- Godfather era. Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren are a striking couple at the top of London’s crime scene; Hoskins’ Cockney fireball Harold Shand is about to transform his crooked lifestyle with Mafia money and a land development scheme. Becoming the Posh Prince of the City has…
Kino’s 21st noir series entry gives us two winners and a not-bad contender. Fritz Lang’s Cloak and Dagger with Gary Cooper and Lilli Palmer is a grim spy chase to keep atom secrets out of enemy hands; the weird Shack Out on 101 with Terry Moore, Lee Marvin and Frank Lovejoy sees a Malibu diner…
All of the Warner Archives’ newly-remastered MGM musicals are terrific, and this 1950 musical bio with Fred Astaire is no exception. His dancing partner is Vera-Ellen, and he’s backed up by Red Skelton playing a dramatic role. Looking smashing in Technicolor are Arlene Dahl and Gloria De Haven, and Debbie Reynolds and Carleton Carpenter make…
Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader teamed several times, and this harrowing nightmare about Ambulance EMTs trying to wade through the chaos of drug & gang-ridden Manhattan is an effort that deserves more praise. Nicolas Cage’s EMT Frank is flipping out under the stress of the work and a guilt complex he can’t shake. He tries…
The Food of the Gods, Empire of the Ants, Kingdom of the Spiders Blu-ray Kino Lorber 1976-77 Starring Ida Lupino, Joan Collins, William Shatner Written by Bert I. Gordon, Alan Caillou Photographed by Reginald Herbert Morris, John Arthur Morrill Directed by Bert I. Gordon, John Cardos Underestimate Bert I. Gordon at your peril, his movies…
Lolita Starring James Mason, Peter Sellers, Sue Lyon, Shelley Winters Written by Vladimir Nabokov and Stanley Kubrick Photographed by Oswald Morris and Gil Taylor (title sequence) Directed by Stanley Kubrick The headline was inescapable; “How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?” Thanks to the persistence of the Hollywood hype machine, the paying public…
Wim Wenders’ tale of one man’s attainment of personal harmony is halfway between documentary and drama, with a strong dose of clear-headed philosophy. A focus on a Tokyo toilet attendant becomes a positive, life-affirming meditation on coping with the modern world’s false goals and confining ‘lifestyle demands.’ The star Kôji Yakusho won a Best Actor…
Enjoy one of Jean-Pierre Melville’s finest, remastered on 4K and looking good. It’s a complicated story of thieves betraying thieves, the wrinkle being the contrast between weary ex-con Serge Reggiani and the slickest of slicksters, Jean-Paul Belmondo. ‘Doulos’ is slang for ‘informer,’ but Belmondo appears to be engaged in a massive con job, framing his…
One of the most accomplished Czech fantasies comes to Blu-ray — nostalgic pulp fiction set in 1900 Prague. Yankee detective Nick Carter finds himself in a life & death struggle against his old arch-nemesis ‘The Gardener,’ the seductive femme fatale Irma, and a monstrous carnivorous plant with the fearsome name Adéla. Cartoonish inventions and weird…
Fans of westerns will love Robert Benton’s takedown of wild west mythmaking: Civil War draft evaders Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown learn the hard lessons of frontier outlawry, scavenging their way across Kansas and falling prey to established outlaws. The experience could be called character-building, except for the part about starvation and getting one’s head…
It’s a paranoid murder thriller without shoot-outs or car chases. The ‘we’ administer an entirely corrupt system of law and justice that has held for hundreds of years. And heaven help those that rock the boat. Gian Maria Volontè’s academic seeks the truth about his two slain friends, but is distracted by his attraction to…
Doubt and uncertainty have a life of their own. John Patrick Shanley’s film of his powerhouse play studies the cloud of suspicion over a priest in a church school who refuses to kowtow to unreasoning persecution … or are the schoolmaster’s instincts correct, and the priest’s gentle ways with his students evidence that he’s a…