CineSavant
Attack of the Puppet People
All hail Bert I. Gordon, who singlehandedly carved out his own niche in 'fifties monster folklore, and even won a battle or…
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The Sissi Collection
Think, "I Was a Teenage Empress." A trio of movies tell an optimized version of the life of a 19th century Empress…
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The Miracle Worker
Anybody that appreciates good theater and good moviemaking will be in awe of Arthur Penn's marvelous visualization of this tale of a…
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The Last Laugh
The cream of German Expressionist filmmaking of the 1920s is increasingly accessible to modern audiences. The curated restoration of F.W. Murnau's expressionist…
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Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Making its debut in April of 1990, Twin Peaks arrived on ABC’s doorstep as a kind of Trojan horse, infiltrating the network disguised…
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Cease Fire! — 3-D
Here's an Army booster production that got way out of hand: it's a semi-docu using real soldiers, and filmed in Korea near…
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Le Samouraï
Jean-Pierre Melville's tale of an emotionless killer is distilled to a narrative minimum. Alain Delon stars as Jef Costello, an imperturbable, ultra-…
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Willard and Ben — Region B
Guest Reviewer Lee Broughton is back, with a rodent roundup of horror, or more accurately, psychological suspense interrupted by a few salacious…
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Desert Hearts
By 1985 Hollywood had still only dabbled in movies about the 'shame that cannot speak its name,' and in every case the…
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He Walked by Night
Do you think older crime thrillers weren't violent enough? This shocker from 1948 shook up America with its true story of a…
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Battle Cry
Move over James Jones -- Leon Uris clobbers the big screen with a sprawling adaptation of his WW2 combat novel, loaded down…
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Cannon for Cordoba
A middling entry in the genre of blow-it-up big action spectacles, Paul Wendkos' Spain-filmed western gives us all the excitement promised by…
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The Pirates of Blood River
Can a pirate be a substitute monster? Hammer Films gives yet another genre a spin with this box-office winner that launched a…
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I’ll Be Seeing You
This unusually sensitive, overlooked WW2 romance skips the morale-boosting baloney of the day. Two people meet on a train, each with a…
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The Green Slime
Look out! Gamma Gamma Hey! It's the attack of screaming, arm-waving green goober monsters from a rogue planetoid, here to bring joy…
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Hammer Vol. 1 – Fear Warning!
Starting out in 1939 as the little studio that could, Hammer would finally make their reputation in the late fifties reimagining Universal’s…
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The Vampire’s Ghost
Is it a classic? Well, not exactly, but it's also not a typical disappointing '40s Z-picture. Screenwriter Leigh Brackett pens a nice…
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S.O.S. Tidal Wave
Republic raids an early RKO talkie for a fantastic special effects sequence, and you won't believe how it's repurposed -- in a…
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How Much Shock Can You Stand?
Ghosts are famous for their flexibility, spiraling through keyholes and up from the floorboards in search of their next mark. But movies…
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Hypnotic Chill! Monster Thrill!
This short article is in the spirit of the crowded ad-mat advertising blurbs that, once upon a time, would show up in…
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Dawson City: Frozen Time
This Blu is a fascinating hybrid of experimental film and historical documentary by Bill Morrison of Decasia fame. Lost film history and…
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Captain from Castile
One of the best Hollywood historical epics takes Technicolor to Mexico for a Production Code version of La conquista: the Inquisition is…
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In this Corner of the World
Away from Hollywood's stifling commercial limits, Fumiyo Kouno's manga about a young bride in wartime Japan has no illusions regarding the human…
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Blood Feast
1963’s Blood Feast, the infamous gorefest from director Herschell Gordon Lewis, is a pox on our culture; grossly stupid, comically inept and…
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The Killer is Loose
Psycho killers long ago lost their novelty, but in 1956 Budd Boetticher and Wendell Corey gave us Leon 'Foggy' Poole, a screen…
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Play Dirty
In a war film, what's the difference between nasty exploitation and just plain honest reportage? André De Toth made tough-minded action films…