After warning us that everything there is to say about Steven Spielberg’s seminal summer blockbuster has pretty much already been said, Josh manages to find a few things to talk about anyway.

All That Jazz, director Bob Fosse’s ode to Bob Fosse, is one of the most kinetic, technically dazzling movie musicals ever made. The film, a thinly-veiled autobiography of Fosse himself, might be remembered as an ego-driven series of Fellini-esque set pieces were it not for the shrewd casting of affable, streetwise Roy Scheider as Joe…

About a young aboriginal girl raised by European parents, director Charles Chauvel said the inspiration for his 1955 film came from Merian C. Cooper, a producer who knew his way around the backwaters. Although popular in Australia as the first domestic movie filmed in color, Jedda did not fare well in the US or UK where…

Written and directed by Arthur Barron, this bittersweet high school romance won over some pretty hard-bitten critics upon its release in 1973. Robbie Benson plays the love-shy Jeremy and Glynnis O’Connor is the young ballet student who breaks the ice (she also sings the title tune). The movie was co-produced by Elliot Kastner who knew…

Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s rock opera about the final week in the life of Jesus, first appeared as a studio recording in 1970 before being given a fully-fledged production on Broadway in 1973. Norman Jewison’s film arrived soon after, allowing the show’s music to come full circle as it routinely…

A pre-Rocky John Avildsen directed this grungy NY indie that was conceived as an exploitation film but evolved into something more immediate and disturbing. Peter Boyle, in his breakthrough role as a hippie-hating hardhat, teams up with ad exec Dennis Patrick, who has just accidentally killed his daughter’s drug-dealer boyfriend. Boyle and Patrick are terrific…

Joe Dante visits the Severin Cellar and finds some old friends. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are on the menu, so join us, won’t you? And here’s a handy run-down of the treasures to be found, courtesy of Blu-ray.com. Joe Dante Enters the Severin Cellar  

The three principals of John and Mary — stars Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow, plus director Peter Yates — were all coming off monster hits, The Graduate, Rosemary’s Baby and Bullitt. That they chose to follow those pop culture bombshells with this relatively low key love story says something about Hollywood clout. Barely remembered today,…

Henry Silva’s gaunt face and implacable demeanor made him the perfect villain for a host of films in the 50’s and 60’s but it wasn’t until Johnny Cool that he was awarded leading man status. William Asher (Muscle Beach Party) directed this visceral revenge thriller and cast his then-wife, Elizabeth Montgomery, opposite Silva’s malevolent hitman.  Produced…

Robert Taylor is Johnny Eager, a bad-guy turned good in Melvyn LeRoy’s 1942 noir about a double-dealing racketeer who’ll step on anyone to get what he wants. That includes Lana Turner as his eager-to-please lover and Van Heflin as Johnny’s right-hand man and only friend. Heflin won an Oscar for his trouble.

Nick Ray’s wild “revisionist” western must be the most critically dissected Republic Picture ever. Pure fifties hysteria with Mercedes McCambridge at her most terrifyingly overwrought. Great cast and terrific score by Victor Young.

An exploitation picture staple was the cutdown feature version of the 12-chapter serial, but they were seldom directed by filmmakers as distinguished as Fritz Lang, who fled Hitler to become a Hollywood success. But in 1960 AIP bought two elaborate 1957 German-made Lang adventures and combined them into one hectic movie.

A sleek and smart sci-fi thriller that vanished into the cosmos due in part to the supernova that was 2001. Known as Doppelgänger in its original British release, the film starred Roy Thinnes as an astronaut with space-time continuum problems. Directed by Robert Parrish, the film was produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson of Supercar fame – which explains the…

Francois Truffaut’s poignant portrait of a twenty year menage a trois outraged US censors. The cineaste director’s self-described “perfect hymn to love, and perhaps even to life” made him an international sensation and was star Jeanne Moreau’s favorite of her films.

One of Marlon Brando’s greatest performances. Joe Mankiewicz’s 1953 prestige MGM version of the classic is still one of the best film treatments of Shakespeare and saw a lot of 16mm classroom use during the 60s and 70s. It’s still a lot of fun seeing familiar character pros like John Hoyt and Douglas Dumbrille spouting…

Paula Dupree, Universal’s favorite ape woman, returns in this 1945 follow-up to Captive Wild Woman with Vicky Lane replacing Acquanetta as the shape-shifting glamour girl. Otto Kruger clocks in as a mad scientist looking to experiment on Paula while lab assistant Rondo Hatton has a different experiment in mind. Removing the recycled footage in Harold…

Akira Kurosawa’s lavish period drama was finally able to complete production after George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola convinced 20th Century Fox to fund the remainder of the film when Toho could not. The director’s epic went on to be one of his most successful films, bringing in nearly $25 million at the box office…

A kinder, gentler Dirty Dozen, the screwball nature of Brian G. Hutton’s Kelly’s Heroes is best summed up by Jack Davis’s typically Mad poster art. Clint Eastwood plays an army grunt with his eye on a cache of German gold who receives able assistance from a motley crew of misfits including Telly Savalas, Don Rickles and…

Before Broken Lizard and the Farrelly Brothers there was/were The Zuckers (plus Abraham) to burst the bounds of taste and political correctness with this often-imitated smorgasboard of skits, parodies and general silliness. Samuel L. Bronkowitz’s valedictory triumph was directed by TFH Guru John Landis.

Edward G Robinson was reluctant to play another gangster but John Huston talked him into it. In Maxwell Anderson’s 1939 play the gangsters are Mexican banditos, the war is the Spanish Civil War and the Humphrey Bogart character is a tortured deserter who‚ gets killed in the end.‚ Claire Trevor’s Oscar-winning gun moll role was…

Set mainly in a broken down hotel in storm-swept Key Largo, Florida, John Huston’s 1948 film expands on Maxwell Anderson’s 1939 stage play and adds Bogart, Bacall and Edward G. Robinson to insure the box office. With overtones of The Petrified Forest (which also starred Bogart), Key Largo finds mobster Robinson holding a small group of people hostage under…

This 1937 boxing melodrama was eclipsed by its own 1962 remake starring Elvis Presley and suffered a humiliating title change (The Battling Bellhop) for TV distribution. Regardless, Michael Curtiz’s film, starring Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis, is sufficiently sturdy to go 12 rounds with any comer and exhibited enough moxey to earn…

Kreepy klown space aliens invade Earth and obliterate victims with kotton kandy ray guns and acid-drenched cream pies.  John Vernon and Royal Dano are the only recognizable cast members. This wacko sci-fi parody and cult favorite is only movie to date written and directed by the talented Bronx-born Chiodo Brothers (Stephen, Charles and Edward), who have created memorably warped puppet and…

Universal’s made-for-TV remake of the Hemingway-inspired 1946 original was deemed too violent for telecast and was diverted to theatrical double bills. Action specialist Don Siegel turns it into a tough, economical B picture whose TV origins are obvious, but Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager (in his greatest role) make as memorable a pair of hit…

A racetrack robbery goes awry in this pivotal noir. This was Kubrick’s first real Hollywood movie, populated by a cast of iconic character actors and presented in an intricate, almost experimental non-linear style. Written by noir novelist Jim Thompson, who was held over to co-write Kubrick’s next, Paths of Glory. Famous trailer voice Art Gilmore…

Hitchcock had Jimmy Stewart, Kurosawa had Toshiro Mifune and John Cassavetes had Ben Gazarra. 1976’s The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, the second of three tempestuous collaborations between the determined director and his equally strong-willed star, is a fatalistic gangster movie with Gazzara’s beleaguered strip club entrepreneur run through an obstacle course of existential conflicts…