Cad, bounder, dastard… look those words up in an old casting directory and you’ll probably find a picture of George Sanders. Albert Lewin’s best movie is a class-act period piece with terrific acting from Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Ann Dvorak, John Carradine, Warren William and many more, and a powerful ’40s picture that most people haven’t…

  Bernard Herrmann music + weird landscapes = Nirvana. This big-star western tale has an unbreakable story but terrible dialogue and weak characters.  Yet for fans of adventure filmmaking it’s a legend thanks to a thunderous Bernard Herrmann music score that transforms dozens of uncanny, real Mexican locations into something other-worldly. Garden of Evil Blu-ray…

Aside from the obvious appeal of this smörgásbord of dirty movie delights, cult director Frank Henenlotter hosts a good history of soft-core film smut in all its forms. Includes excellent clips and input from one of the ‘greats’ in this field, David F. Friedman. Remember, it’s for educational purposes only. That’s Sexploitation! Blu-ray Severin Films…

Don’t let your boss see this movie, it’ll give them ideas. Writer-director Kaneto Shindo reduces the human drama to its basics, as an isolated family endures a backbreaking existence of dawn ’til dusk toil to eke out a living. It’s a beautiful but humbling ode to adaptability and human resolve. And the show has no…

Here’s something special, a Godard movie about people as much as concepts, and the dialogue doesn’t sound as if it belongs in cartoon bubbles. Jean-Luc Godard turns his intellect to the subject of relationships and reveals a lot about himself. It’s a beautiful show too — with the incredible Macha Méril visually cut up for…

Banished by Josef Goebbels and threatened by the Reich, the creative core of the German film industry found itself in sunny Los Angeles, many not speaking English but determined to carry on as writers, directors and actors. More than simply surviving, they made a profound impact on Hollywood moviemaking. Cinema’s Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood…

This one will get to you. Director Deniz Gamze Ergüven takes on a difficult subject — the terrible treatment of young girls by relatives enforcing conservative moral prerogatives. Sidestepping issues of religion, she makes a powerful case for the rights of women, with the help of five marvelous young actresses; her show is funny, scary…

An exercise in dizzy disorientation, this Cornell Woolrich crazy-house noir pulls the rug out from under the audience at least three times. You want delirium, you got it — the secret words for today are “Obsessive” and “Perverse.” Innocent Robert Cummings is no match for sicko psychos Peter Lorre and Steve Cochran. The Chase Blu-ray…

What is this — a naughty sex odyssey as absurdist art?  Or a non-PC slice of sleazy art film exploitation? Either way it’s a (minor) Polanski masterpiece of direction, influenced by the Italian setting.  Is this what turns Polanski on?  The entire excercise is a Kafka comedy of erotic discomfort. What? Blu-ray Severin 1972 /…

Robert Wagner as a social climbing psycho killer?  I knew it!  ‘Mr. CinemaScope Smile’ grins only once or twice in this movie, and then only to fool an unsuspecting woman. A great cast brings tension to Ira Levin’s outrageous tale of murder. Joanne Woodward has a powerful role, but this time out my heart throbs…

Stand back, watch the fur fly and don’t forget to duck — this is surely the most psychologically toxic play ever adapted for film. The legends Liz and Dick are terrific, and Mike Nichols conquers the screen in his first job of direction. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1966 / B&W…

What’s contemporary Europe got that we ain’t got? Powerful, serious filmmaking like that by Christian Petzold, starring the impressive Nina Hoss. Their sixth collaboration is a loaded narrative that takes some pretty wild narrative themes — plastic surgery, hidden identities — and spins them in a suspenseful new direction. Phoenix Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 809…

The dirty book of the ’60s became an all-star dirty movie with Brando, Burton, Starr, Coburn, Matthau, Astin, Aznavour and Huston all wanting a taste of the Swedish nymphet Ewa Aulin. Camerawork by Rotunno, designs by Dean Tavoularis, effects by Doug Trumbull — and the best material is Marlon Brando making goofy faces as a…

It’s a different Bogart — a character performance in a Nicholas Ray noir about distrust anxiety in romance. Gloria Grahame is the independent woman who must withhold her commitment… until a murder can be sorted out. Which will crack first, the murder case or the relationship? In A Lonely Place Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 810…

An amazing talent gone way too soon, Janis Joplin is more than her boozy, brash public image. This bio docu has the personal background and the insights of those her knew, plus the Texas and San Francisco context in the Rock breakout of the late 1960s. Janis: Little Girl Blue DVD Filmrise / MVD 2015…

America’s favorite gadfly has made something worth watching — a European tour of Great Ideas that American would do well to steal outright — even if many of those ideas originated here. Not that anyone will listen, but Hail the Conquering Hero just the same. Where to Invade Next Blu-ray Anchor Bay 2015 / Color…

One of the best-remembered dramas of the ’70s gives us controversial actresses, a lavish production and a story by the even more controversial Lillian Hellman. Director Fred Zinnemann makes it into a suspenseful, deeply affecting experience. Julia Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1977 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 118 min. / Ship Date April…

These are the Eyes that Satirize! Everybody’s seen their imagery but few know the story of these anonymous performance artists and their avant-garde music. Their highly creative songs and videos satirize the commercialization of art and music, and they’ve chosen a real ‘you’ll never get rich’ way to stay clear of the commercial undertow. Theory…

The irrepressible Sam Fuller fashions a crime thriller for German TV with his expected eccentricity: old-fashioned hardboiled scripting, freeform direction and bits of graffiti from the French New Wave. Christa Lang is the femme fatale and Glenn Corbett is the twofisted American hero, whose name is NOT Griff. And yes, a pigeon does bite the…

Film directors trying to express themselves in East Germany had a tough row to hoe, yet quite a few of them dared to stray beyond the confines of social realism. The DEFA Film Library has two new releases from 1966 that were banned and shelved before they could be finished — and weren’t seen until…

It’s a genuine forgotten gem: American student Jean Seberg’s five-year adventure in Paris is mostly a period of romantic frustration. Irwin Shaw and Robert Parrish’s look at the problems of an independent woman is remarkably insightful; the chronically miscast and underused Ms. Seberg is luminous. In the French Style Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1963…

Franceso Rosi’s warm, thoughtful tale sees a family gathering observe grievous modern problems — after so much violence in Italian politics people are still looking for humanistic solutions. Philippe Noiret heads a great cast (with Charles Vanel) in this mellow reflection on ‘the things of life.’ Three Brothers Region B Blu-ray + PAL DVD Arrow…

Is satire obsolete? Our appalling present political reality has surpassed some of the wildest jokes in director Joe Dante’s ‘exaggerated, outrageous’ 1997 cable movie. An immigration squabble snowballs until a renegade state governor closes his border and threatens to secede from the Union. It’s a ‘political idiocy’ version of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad…

This is one of Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor’s best, written and directed by the classy MGM team of director Vincente Minnelli and writers Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett. It inspired a decade’s worth of TV family sitcoms and set the benchmark for weddings for generations. Great fun and solid sentiment without mugging or exaggeration….

“Sorry, I just slashed my wrists.” “Well, tape ’em!”  This is the aftermath of the ’60s protest movement. Ivan Passer’s riveting murder mystery of flakes and losers in sun-drenched, guilty Santa Barbara expresses the rage of radicals faced with the growing class divide, and the arrogance of the wealthy. Cutter’s Way Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited…

Guns! Guns! Guns! John Milius’ rootin’ tootin’ bio of the most famous of the ’30s bandits has plenty of good things to its credit, especially its terrific, funny cast, topped by the unlikely star Warren Oates. The battles between Dillinger’s team of all-star bank robbers and Ben Johnson’s G-Man aren’t neglected, as Milius savors every…