Joel and Ethan Coen drop most of the sarcasm for their deeply felt character study. Everything’s a big problem for Llewyn: a girl (Carey Mulligan), various agents, fellow performers, and a cat. I find Oscar Isaac’s Llewyn to be wholly sympathetic, and that cat business is deeper than it looks. The terrific extras include a…

Richard Fleischer’s Viking saga is a great star showcase for the grinning one-eyed Kirk Douglas, sullen one-handed Tony Curtis and the heavy-breathing, two-breasted Janet Leigh. Jack Cardiff gives us the fjords of Norway, lean and mean Viking ships, and a brain-bashing acrobatic castle assault designed to out-do Burt Lancaster. With Ernest Borgnine (“OHHH-DINNNN!!”), James Donald…

We’ve waited long enough: Bogart’s take on Raymond Chandler’s tough guy Philip Marlowe is finally on Blu-ray, with Lauren Bacall hyped as his provocative leading lady. The fascinating 1945 pre-release version is also present, with an uncut copy of Bob Gitt’s versions comparison docu. Somebody tell Elisha Cook Jr. not to drink that stuff. The…

Jan Troell knocks us for a loop with his masterful epic of a Swedish farming family in the 1840s, making the big move to the promised green acres in frontier Minnesota. Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullmann are heartbreakingly deserving and hopeful; the dreamers and the devout and the intolerant come too. The two-film, six-hour…

Jean Simmons is the original frustrated Mad Housewife who runs away from a ‘dream marriage’ in search of something more fulfilling. Uncompromising, adult, and making use of an interesting cast. Plus, the soundtrack uses Michel Legrand’s incomparable song “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” The Happy Ending Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition…

Now, after 62 years, viewable again in beautiful 3-D!  Scientists are being murdered in a secret underground laboratory overseen by a super-computer and two robots, Gog and Magog. The restoration is a stunning achievement, covered thoroughly on the disc extras. This is an early favorite among Sci-fi thrillers. GOG 3-D 3-D Blu-ray KL Studio Classics…

Fritz Lang applies rigorous realism and excellent science in the first half of his final silent film, a treat for fantasy fans and those impressed by a NASA-like moon rocket forty years before the reality. The action on the moon is pure green-cheese fantasy, with breathable air, deposits of gold and evidence of a human…

Stabbings, scaldings, hideous lacerations from broken glass and even more brutal manglings for our sanguinary delectation! Dario Argento’s smartly directed murder mystery gives us David Hemmings as a jazz man in Rome, studying not photographic blowups but the hidden artwork of a disturbed child. With music by Goblin and striking Techniscope imagery by Luigi Kuveiller….

Army investigator John Haven is out to catch some crooks using stealth, his wits and a limitless supply of marvelous hardboiled dialogue. Dick Powell trades a trench coat for a cowboy hat, while luscious Jane Greer swaps a .38 snubnose for a dance hall dress. A great cast, a witty script and Burl Ives’ singing…

Ray guns! Space armadas! Storm troopers! Toei’s manga became a pricey 3-D animated motion capture epic just three years ago, but was denied a release stateside. This collector’s disc set gives us rude ‘n’ raucous space battles, along with a pirate’s bounty of original Japanese extras. Don’t worry, the 3-D visuals are excellent. Harlock: Space…

Here’s where angels sit down to weep next to devils — the often-brilliant Guillermo del Toro’s big Gothic romance / gory ghost epic looks mighty fancy but is a mess in too many ways to count. Say it Ain’t So, Guillermo! Crimson Peak Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD Universal / Legendary 2015 / Color…

Steven Spielberg’s entertaining true life account of a chapter in the Cold War concerns a crucial negotiation by a brave attorney (Tom Hanks) who goes way out on a limb in East Berlin. Hopefully I’m not alone feeling the same ‘narrative undertow’ in the storytelling style — the movie works, but it’s also aggravating. Bridge…

You want radical? Look no further. Nagisa Oshima’s near-legendary issue drama makes a wickedly frightening protest against the death penalty, but then proceeds into formal abstraction and the endorsement of a violent radical position. You can’t find a political ‘gauntlet picture’ as jarring or as potent as this one. Death by Hanging Blu-ray The Criterion…

This adult film noir masterpiece showcases the most glamorous pin-up dream girl of the 1940s. Rita Hayworth, a young Glenn Ford and a sinister George Macready form a sophisticated, poisonous love triangle. Criminal intrigues and a killer striptease fill out the bill. Gilda Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 795 1946 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy…

Jack Nicholson found his personal favorite role in this fine road picture: Navy signalman Buddusky, charged with escorting sad-sack prisoner Randy Quaid to prison. Hal Ashby’s direction and Robert Towne’s script pitches the story at the human scale favored by ’70s director-driven filmmaking. The Last Detail Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1973 / Color /…

Alfred Hitchcock’s true-life saga of a man wrongly accused may be Hitchcock’s most troublesome movie — all the parts work, but does it even begin to come together? Henry Fonda is the ‘ordinary victim of fate’ and an excellent Vera Miles is haunting as the wife who responds to the guilt and stress by withdrawing…

Julie Andrews, Max von Sydow and Richard Harris bring James Michener’s true saga to life — but it’s the story of the destruction of paradise. A huge success just the same, producer Walter Mirisch’s film testifies to the skill with which he brought together big talent for a show that doesn’t compromise with a happy-happy…

This is my film review and it FREAKS ME OUT!  Girlie-art legend Russ Meyer and then- tyro critic Roger Ebert fashion the most garish, vulgar and absurd satire of wild Hollywood that they can think of, a camp vision of joy straight from the dizzy imagination of a breast-obsessed glamour photographer. All your favorites are…

Looking to discover a top-quality film that honors lasting values? Jean Renoir gives Zachary Scott and Betty Field as Texas sharecroppers trying to survive a rough first year. It’s beautifully written by Hugo Butler, with realistic, earthy touches not found in Hollywood pix. And the transfer is a new UCLA restoration. With two impressive short…

Everybody sing!: An Italian boy from Napoli, got petrified by the scenery. Now his face is white and his arms are long. And he’d rather choke you than sing a song! Hey Ed Cahn! Do another cheapie for us Hey Ed Cahn! No more Volcano nonsense! — A really stiff guy searches for the reincarnation…

What’s it all about, Alfie? The master of suspense goes in an unusual direction with this murder mystery with a Catholic background. And foreground. Actually, it’s a regular guidebook for proper priest deportment, and it’s so complex that we wonder if Hitchcock himself had a full grip on it. Montgomery Clift is extremely good atop…

What?  Not another Hungarian silent film from 1914 — how many can the market bear?  Actually, the rarity and high quality of this amazing rediscovery is nothing to laugh at. Michael Curtiz made fifty or sixty features before coming to America, and this sentimental melodrama shows us that basic entertainment values haven’t changed. The Undesirable…

Is this not the most brilliant screenplay from 2015?  Alex Garland assembles a perfect fable about robots, artificial intelligence and the hubris of a software genius who thinks he’s a God. Garland’s direction is tops as well, as is the acting of Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson and Alicia Vikander. When did I realize I was…

When John Huston went to war he took his mission seriously… as an artist. He made four wartime docus for the army. San Pietro and the long suppressed Let There Be Light are the classics we studied in film school; Winning Your Wings is typical enlistment booster material and Report from the Aleutians a remarkably…

The Audubon Society battles plumage poachers in the Everglades, circa 1900. Legendary director Nicholas Ray suffered an on-location meltdown filming this early ecologically sensitive epic, but the finished product is still one of his better pictures. Burl Ives, Christopher Plummer and Chana Eden give top ‘Ray’ performances. The eccentric supporting cast includes Peter Falk, boxer…

This is as sexy as Hollywood pix got in 1960. John O’Hara’s novel about class snobbery and the drive for success posits Paul Newman as a moody go-getter. In glossy soap opera fashion, his silver spoon-fed bride Joanne Woodward morphs into an unfaithful monster. Some adulterous relationships are excused and others not in this glossy,…