or, Savant picks The Most Impressive Discs of 2015 This is the actual view from Savant Central, looking due North. What a year! I was able to take one very nice trip back East to see Washington D.C. for the first time, or at least as much as two days’ walking in the hot…
Silent comedy rules! Harold Lloyd epitomizes ‘twenties optimism while serving up the fun. Even better, he filmed this on the streets of New York, so we feel as if we stepped into a time machine. The great disc extras include input from New Yorker extraordinaire Bruce Goldstein. It’s a great show for holiday viewing —…
Gian Maria Volonté has a big part in this prime quality Italo crime thriller blessed with a great score by Ennio Morricone. But the movie belongs to Robert Hoffman as the real-life public enemy who earned the alias ‘The Machine Gun Soloist.’ Director Carlo Lizzani’s realistic treatment glamorizes nothing and implicates the police in shady…
Frank Capra won his third Best Directing Oscar for this Kaufman and Hart adaptation. Star Jean Arthur is radiant, and relative newcomer James Stewart seems to have lifted his ‘aw shucks’ nice-guy persona intact from this role. With Lionel Barrymore, Ann Miller, Dub Taylor, Spring Byington and a terrific Edward Arnold. You Can’t Take It with…
It’s back and better than ever — the makers of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse capped their Saturday morning show with a Christmas Special to end all Christmas Specials. All the show’s regular characters, special treats and creative extravagances are enhanced with a tall stack of celebrity guests, performers and walk-ons — it’s a 1988 time capsule. Pee-Wee’s…
The stylistics of documentary filmmaking helped wipe out the old Hollywood way of doing things, and this sharp look at Olympic skiing is a prime example. Michael Ritchie became a director to be watched filming a killer competitor (Robert Redford), a blaze on the ski slopes and an SOB in every other aspect of his…
Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s ‘outrageous, irreverent’ comedy is a gusher of pointless profanity and smut that will cheer the myriad fans of South Park. The ultimate message of this cringe-worthy spectacle is that liberals are dupes and traitors, foreigners are either evil or morons, and kicking ass around the world is our national birthright. Go…
Dalton Trumbo and Nathanael West contributed to the screenplay for John Farrow’s suspense adventure about a plane crash in the Amazon jungle — who will survive? Lucille Ball is the ranking castaway in a glossy RKO thriller that’s been restored to a fine polish. Five Came Back DVD-R The Warner Archive Collection 1939 / B&W…
Alan Rudolph goes all mushy on us, but in a good way. This loose, somewhat cartoonish comedy pits detectives Tom Berenger and Elizabeth Perkins on opposite sides of a hot case. All they uncover is one illicit love affair after another… while getting personally involved too. A quirky romantic favorite. Love at Large Blu-ray KL…
Make room for Mota, the man from Mars! Mota enlists a scientist and two thugs to lay the groundwork for a full-scale invasion from space. Only the heroes of Fowler Aerial Patrol can save us! Republic’s serial adventure ought to carry an “80% Recycled” label — even the flying disc craft is second-hand, bearing a…
Akira Kurosawa goes full tilt humanist with this emotionally wrenching, vastly insightful look at human nature. A faceless bureaucrat, alone and empty, is diagnosed with stomach cancer. He rebels and breaks down, but then finds a way to give meaning to his life even as he’s losing it. Kurosawa one-ups the Italian Neorealists by seeing…
Emma Thompson both wrote and stars in this latter-day Jane Austen adaptation, blessed with fine locations and costumes, a congenial cast and attentive direction by Ang Lee. Kate Winslet consolidates her newfound stardom as a second Austen husband-seeker, lost in a maze of family intrigues and betrayals. But none are so severe as to prevent…
Ken Burns and Co. made a big splash with this historical docu miniseries that in 1990 gripped the imagination of the whole country. Eleven hours of history are a breeze when presented in what was then a new form: authentic photos and paintings accompanied by actorly recitals of letters and documents from the era. It…
Forget your ‘Jan in the Pan’ jokes and all those ‘thing in the closet’ remarks about gay subtext. This loopy, kooky and kinky horror offering from New York’s Tarrytown is a keeper despite its primitive direction and campy screenplay. Mad scientist Herb Evers answered the call to Bring Me the Head of Virginia Leith, and goes…
Curtis Harrington took an assignment nobody else would and fashioned a gem of low-budget Sci-Fi. A Russian space epic provides expensive-looking special effects scenes for a new horror show about a deadly alien rescued from a crash landing on Mars. The extras include excellent interviews with Roger Corman and effects specialist / historian Robert Skotak….
John Ford and Samuel Goldwyn’s South Seas disaster picture can boast spectacular action and compelling romance. The unjustly imprisoned Jon Hall crosses half an ocean to rejoin his beloved Dorothy Lamour under The Moon of Manakoora, before an incredible (and incredibly expensive) hurricane blows the island to smithereens. Ford’s direction is flawless, as are the screenplay…
Depraved convicts ! Crazy Manhattan gin parties! Society dames poaching other women’s husbands! A flimflam artist scamming the uptown sophisticates! All these forbidden attractions are here and more — including Bette Davis’s epochal seduction line about impulsive kissing versus good hair care. It’s a 9th collection of racy pre-Code wonders. Forbidden Hollywood Volume 9 Big…
D.A. Pennebaker puts cinema verité on the map with his terrific up-close docu portrait of Bob Dylan as he runs from concert appearances to hotels, cutting up with his friends, practicing with Joan Baez and giving reporters grief. Criterion’s extras give us the best look yet at Pennebaker’s innovative approach: don’t direct, observe. Dont Look…
Forget film art for a minute. Bob Rafelson and Ronald Bass’s smart and sexy murder thriller throws Debra Winger and Theresa Russell into a slick neo-noir tale with fancy glamour trimmings, and comes up a bright, intelligent entertainment. A government agent tracks a serial killer that none of her superiors believes in — who ever…
Shall we sing the praises of actress Marie Windsor? A self–assessed Queen of the Cheapies, she was anything but cheap, gracing some of the better films noirs and delivering some of the most deliciously acidic dialogue ever heard on screen. The woman doesn’t just have bedroom eyes, she has bedroom everything, and a wicked smile…
More than one feature film looks at the making of this picture, focusing on its author, Truman Capote. Criterion’s disc returns the discussion to Richard Brooks, the director that dared adapt an unfilmable novel of lurid, unthinkable crime on the Kansas prairie. It’s also a last gasp of artistic B&W cinematography from Hollywood, thanks to the indelible images…
Is this exploitation, or is it needed documentation of a modern horror that’s become all too frequent? It’s a Terrorist assault on a restaurant, mall and supermarket complex packed with afternoon shoppers, many of them women and children. The camera coverage includes dozens of surveillance recordings plus cell phone snaps and images taken by a photojournalist who…
This is a GREAT film noir. A straying husband’s ‘innocent’ dalliance wrecks lives and puts his marriage in jeopardy. Been there, done that? Dick Powell and Lizabeth Scott are menaced by Raymond Burr, while wife Jane Wyatt is kept in the dark. Andre de Toth’s direction puts everyone through the wringer, with a very…
Dolores Hart, Pamela Tiffin and Lois Nettleton are flight attendants aiming to snag three attractive, wealthy husbands right out of the air — Karl Boehm, Hugh O’Brien and Karl Malden. There’s more social comment in this ‘coffee, tea or me’ romantic comedy than can be found in a graduate thesis about the sexual habits of…
I have the full rundown on the notorious spacey alternate ending to this sci-fi winner by design specialist Saul Bass. The ants are taking over, and they mean business. World conquest begins at a research lab in Arizona, where Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy and Lynne Frederick try to hold out against super-intelligent hormigas that cut…
Milos Forman was the prince of the Prague Spring with this Czech New Wave classic, a hilarious black comedy about the cheerful corruption and incompetence of petty bureaucrats. A fire brigade throws a bash, and by the end of the evening the lottery prizes are all stolen and the beauty contest has become a travesty….