Peter Yates’ excellent war-movie follow-up to Bullitt landed in the wrong year: the beautifully produced and directed action thriller was barely seen in America. Royal Navy mechanic Peter O’Toole swears vengeance on the U-Boat commander who sunk his ship and murdered its entire crew. Locals in a Caribbean backwater help him to strike back: he…

Here’s one that really benefits from its 4K upgrade — Terry Gilliam’s dense visuals look great with Roger Pratt’s exacting cinematography. Is this really a thinking man’s science fiction hit, or did audiences mainly want to get a look at Brad Pitt in a new mode, playing a weird motormouthed eccentric?  Bruce Willis and Madeleine…

Steve McQueen’s final film is an action-comedy compromise that will satisfy his fans even if it barely hangs together. The thrills are kinder & gentler, with plenty of hair-raising stunts but less gunplay and gore. McQueen’s eccentric bounty hunter collects toys and can barely drive a car, but he always gets his man. Kathryn Harrold…

The Abominable Dr. Phibes/Dr. Phibes Rises Again Blu ray Kino Lorber 1971, 1972 / 1.85 : 1 / 94, 89 Min. Starring Vincent Price, Joseph Cotten, Terry Thomas Written by James Whiton, William Goldstein, Robert Blees Directed by Robert Fuest Though he thrived in light comedies and upmarket melodramas, Vincent Price didn’t really find himself…

The Cohen Film Collection brings to Region A its beautifully remastered disc of American fringe filmmaking’s weirdest, most obsessively arty shock-fest — a loving return to silent expressionist horror. The New York censors scuttled its commercial chances, and it wound up as a movie-within-a-movie footnote for Steve McQueen. We never thought we’d see the show…

Yasuzo Masumura amazes us with yet another sensual stunner. This period way-of-all-flesh tale is almost a horror film, but the supernatural shivers are far outpaced by the daily Evil that Men Do. Japanese superstar Ayako Wakao blazes across the screen as a self-decreed avenger of the female sex, who allows men to destroy themselves and…

Ivan Passer’s first American film and his first in the English language is a core life-with-a-junkie tale in a cold Manhattan winter. George Segal is the ‘habituated, not addicted’ (he says) user whose married life has already been destroyed. Can he escape with the help of his new girlfriend?  Hector Elizondo’s pimp/pusher has no intention…

Surprise: these are quality movies on an important subject. Entry 13 in the ‘Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture’ gives us not sleaze but two well-produced vintage public education epics on the subject of (gasp) venereal disease. Although reissued by sensation hucksters as racy ‘forbidden’ fare, they had serious social aims — the screenplay for…

John Sturges’ orbital jeopardy thriller does everything right: the story is taken seriously, the actors seem committed and the special effects aren’t bad. Yet it’s more interesting for what doesn’t work than what does. As one of the first Sci-fi pictures in the wake of 2001 it wasn’t well received despite being technically astute. Did…

Val Guest’s cinema quest for his own semi-docu style pays off in this fine, intelligent police investigation into a gruesome dismemberment murder. U.K. favorite Jack Warner is the main detective, Guest’s actress wife Yolande Donlan is a ‘person of interest,’ and the illusion of reality is enhanced by real locations in Greenwich, Brighton, Lewes and…

The Girl Can’t Help It Blu ray Criterion 1957 / 2.35:1 / 98 Min. Starring Jayne Mansfield, Tom Ewell, Edmond O’Brien Written by Frank Tashlin Directed by Frank Tashlin In 1957 it was commonplace for burlesque comedians to share the bill with a musical act or two, but in New York’s theater district one of…

This 2011 theatrical remake of John le Carré’s spy classic is a happy surprise — it’s every bit as distinctive and accomplished as the famed Alec Guinness TV miniseries. Swedish director Tomas Alfredson and the writers know how to tell a story — at just over two hours it’s neither bloated nor curtailed. Gary Oldman…

Stingray: The Complete Series Deluxe Edition Blu ray Network 1964, 1965 / 1.33:1 / 975 Min. Starring Ray Barrett, Robert Easton, David Graham, Don Mason, Lois Maxwell Written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson Directed by Alan Pattillo, David Elliott, John Kelly, Desmond Saunders If nothing else, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s Stingray should be celebrated for…

Alex Cox attacks the Reagan years with a political tale sung in the key of the Italo Spaghetti Western: expect plenty of slow motion shots of stylish pistolero mercenaries fighting for the historical ‘filibuster’ William Walker. Look him up, he’s the patron saint of every neocon and would-be soldier of fortune. Everybody on this show…

The messy politics of the Indo-China War didn’t confuse writer-director Samuel Fuller; as the machine gun- toting Nat King Cole snarls, hating Commies is an end unto itself!  Fuller’s second outrageous Cold War combat fantasy pits a handful of French Legionnaires and mercenaries against the might of the International Communist Conspiracy, to stop the flow…

Still believe in the goodness of people?   Still hold out hope for the future?   If so this is one picture you’ll want to catch up with sooner than later. ‘The Good Totò’ is literally found in a cabbage patch; the simple magic of kindness enables him to turn a shanty town into a…

You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man Blu ray Kino Lorber 1939 / 1.33:1 / 79 Min. Starring W.C. Fields, Charlie McCarthy, Edgar Bergen Written by Charles Bogle Directed by George Marshall, Edward CLine Charlie McCarthy was W.C. Fields’ most formidable antagonist—a wide-eyed charmer with a bright (not to mention permanent) smile, Charlie was everything the…

George Pal’s ill-fated ‘future docu’ followup to Destination Moon still stirs the imagination, rendering in vivid Technicolor the visionary images that amazed us in Chesley Bonestell’s paintings about space travel. We still love the movie even if we want to shove the script and whoever approved it out an airlock without a space helmet. It’s…

Every breakout independent hit seems like a miracle. This delightful ‘little’ picture was fated to be ghetto-ized into ethnic theaters before its producers opted to distribute it themselves. Capturing a vibrant part of the immigrant experience, Joan Micklin Silver’s micro-production often has a big-picture look; it charmed audiences and became a sleeper success. Star Carol…

Kino’s triple-threat Edgar Ulmer show has great commentaries plus HD debuts of his two ‘Texas’ movies, that likely have not been seen in their original widescreen aspect ratios since the 1960s. Ulmer’s first tale of a solo space invader has the pleasing look of a silent-era expressionist film. His take on a time travel paradox…

TCM premiered a welcome restoration of this honorable Louis de Rochemont drama last year, and now it’s on a pristine-quality Blu-ray. Almost an ‘anti- film noir,’ the story of a labor conflict in a tiny New England hamlet is a docu-drama that actually has a positive, if not Utopian, ending. Fine direction by Robert Siodmak…

Writer-director Billy Wilder’s favorite and perhaps best movie takes the leap to 4K, revealing even more beauty in the images of Joseph LaShelle and the designs of Alexandre Trauner . . . we all feel like we’ve lived in C.C. Baxter’s New York flat. Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s ‘dirty fairy tale’ best expresses the difficulty…

There may still be people unaware of the anarchic joy of Tex Avery, so we’re making it our business to enlighten them. This third Volume of Tex’s MGM cartoons has both variety and some top favorites, plus his first, the intense Blitz Wolf and his last, the surreal Cellbound. Plus the insane King Size Canary,…

Michael Curtiz’s flashy and splashy wartime morale booster began as a pre-Pearl Harbor show of support of our Canadian friends’ contribution to the war effort. A vehicle for James Cagney, its script is a trifle about bush pilots competing for a woman and then showing The Right Stuff when it comes time to join up…

The lasting horror of war is the blight it leaves on the lives of those left behind. Early sound pictures tried to deal with the guilt and pain of WW1, and the great Ernst Lubitsch took time out from romantic comedies and musicals for this very grim rumination on lies and responsibility. A French soldier…

This celebrated dysfunctional family story won four Oscars, the most deserved easily being Alvin Sargent’s superb adapted screenplay. The viewer buzz initially centered on the surprise of Mary Tyler Moore’s unexpected casting against type, but even more alarming was author Judith Guest’s scary message that ‘perfect’ families are an illusion. We found the drama absorbing…