Whoa! What was once ‘raw adult’ fare now plays as quaint — yet still hot. Voyeurism becomes entertainment — America’s mammary-obsessed independent filmmaker Russ Meyer did as much for naughty male daydreams as did Hugh Hefner. The entire ‘Vixen trilogy’ is being released, but we concentrate on Meyer’s breakthrough picture with Erica Gavin, the one…
aka Le faille. Radiance comes up with yet another exotic Eurothriller. Author Antonis Samarakis’ first-person experience informs this sophisticated study of the psychology of detectives operating in a police state. An apparently ordinary guy is snatched from the street and accused of being a subersive; two cops take him ‘for a ride’ in hopes that…
Where has this one been? The excellent war drama features Humphrey Bogart in one of his most satisfying roles, as a get-it-done tank commander surrounded by Germans on the African Sands. It’s solid storytelling with something of a United Nations appeal. Bogie’s tank crew is Bruce Bennett and Dan Duryea. Rex Ingram’s Sgt. is a…
Joseph E. Levine’s multi-star WWII epic is one of the last Road Show blockbusters: Robert Redford, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Hardy Kruger, Ryan O’Neal, Laurence Olivier, Maximilian Schell and Liv Ullmann carry substantial roles in a detailed re-enactment of an ill-fated Allied attempt to break…
The Warner Archive Collection’s first 4K Ultra HD release is a glowing digital restoration of John Ford’s unequalled western classic, considered to also have one of John Wayne’s best performances. The movie is remarkable in that it embraces so many different tones: tragic drama, buffoonish comedy, and a full examination of racial hatred as a…
One of the strangest American films of the ’60s is Leslie Stevens’ occult thriller starring William Shatner — who speaks all his dialogue in Esperanto. A ‘once upon a time’ country has a healing well, but its forest and beaches are overrun by female demons that harvest wicked souls through seduction and murder. The weirdness…
An 1861 plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln is smartly styled as a ‘film noir in costume.’ Southern secessionists want Abe dead, and many in the Union hate him as well; detective Dick Powell races ny train to Baltimore to stem the murdereous conspiracy. The tension now feels topical …. only in the Civil War era…
The Coen brothers’ modern classic adapts Cormac McCarthy’s book about drug violence on the border. Welcome to supply & demand economics at its most basic: human values are absent in a bloody scramble for a cache of drug money. Tommy Lee Jones is the old lawman with a defeatist outlook and Josh Brolin is a…
William Friedkin whips up some terrific action and nasty knife-fighting with solid input from Tommy Lee Jones and Benecio Del Toro. Despite delivering on that promise, the characters and storyline never rise above trite clichés. So this one’s for fans of hairy chases and gritty one-on-one combat. Friedkin’s fast pace is enhanced by the cinematography…
The living dead didn’t hunger for brains back in the 1940s, but they did walk with Frances Dee, elect a King and perform on Broadway. Monogram’s second microbudgeted Zombie opus gives John Carradine one of his first mad doctor roles. The fine actor dignifies inconsequential plot complications, mixing chemicals to create Zombie storm troopers for…
Some Italian thrillers post-1968 became very political. Marco Bellocchio’s outright accusation against the power elite of Milan all but drops the thriller aspect to concentrate on exposing the evil of partisan media manipulation. Sound familiar? Scheming newspaper editor Gian Maria Volontè leverages a sex murder to smear the left and throw an election. With police…
Abraham Polonsky and Robert Rossen’s ringside classic is a key film noir and a key social issue film; John Garfield and Lilli Palmer make big impressions with the aid of Anne Revere, Canada Lee, Lloyd Gough, William Conrad and Joseph Pevney. James Wong Howe brought a new, raw look to his cinematography of a boxing…
Howard Hawks’ ferocious, never-bettered gangster saga has the best of pre-Code thrills — sex and violence at the service of basic All-American ambition. Paul Muni’s Tony Camonte is a near-Neanderthal egoist crazy about Karen Morley but also his own sister, slinky Ann Dvorak. George Raft has his most famous role and Boris Karloff delights as…
How soon will it be before Quentin Tarantino’s films are considered ‘old man’s movies?’ This time-twisted hit man tale made a big dent in film culture back when The Lion King and Forrest Gump were the biggest hits of the year. John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson’s hit men, Uma Thurman’s coked-up party girl, Bruce…
Competing for gift box attention this holiday is this impressive 4K Ultra HD anniversary release of Christopher Nolan’s intelligent answer to 2001, a cosmic journey literally to the other end of the universe. Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway star in a warm ‘n’ human contemplation of human limits ‘beyond the infinite.’ Nolan gives it his…
This Winona Ryder version of Alcott’s venerated page-turner is the most satisfying to date, as adapted by Robin Swicord, directed by Gillian Armstrong and embodied by an ideal cast: Gabriel Byrne, Trini Alvarado, Christian Bale, Claire Danes, Susan Sarandon, Eric Stoltz, plus Kirsten Dunst and Samantha Mathis sharing a character between them. The show looks…
Never give up, never surrender! A comic spoof of Star Trek and Trekkie worship does not sound promising, but this bright and funny space adventure is enlivened by an able cast — Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell and Daryl Mitchell. Especially good are the goofy aliens that need help in…
Three Buñuel masterpieces arrive in remastered Blu-ray presentations, accompanied by excellent new extras. The Exterminating Angel clobbers élitist complacency. The irreverent Simon of the Desert skewers the notion of blessed martyrdom. Viridiana is the shocker that gave Franco’s Spain a slap in the face — and it’s here in a much improved video transfer. Among…
It’s a seriocomic fable from the Great Depression: Ryan O’Neal’s Moses Pray runs a predatory racket hawking expensive Bibles, and the only one to see through the con is the orphan Addie Loggins, played by O’Neal’s own daughter. What could have been a big casting mistake is a sensation — Tatum O’Neal carries the movie…
The Dead Walk — and accuse! One of the best non-classic horror films of the ’30s is a polished production: Michael Curtiz and cameraman Hal Mohr give star Boris Karloff a spooky spotlight for a macabre tale of justice from beyond the grave. Karloff is brilliant as an executed convict resurrected by science, who becomes…
Barbra Streisand’s movie debut takes a slot in the Criterion Collection, and jumps to 4K Ultra HD. Opened up from Broadway and slimmed down to focus on its incandescent star, it persists as a superior musical, alternately funny and touching. Streisand showed can’t-lose intuition when it came to the big decisions: knowing that her emotional…
Deborah Kerr shines as an emotionally troubled war widow who volunteers to do Red Cross work in the Pacific Theater of WW2. William Holden is the he-bull Marine colonel who claims her almost as a right of rank. Not a combat film, it’s nevertheless a polished production with a gallery of fine acting support —…
Behold a ‘world cinema classic’ that needs no defending, no way, no how … a review isn’t really necessary, just see it! This new 4K remaster is a real beauty, doing additional cleanup and brighten-up work. Otherwise it’s still the same fantastic epic, with marvelous characters, a gripping storyline and spectacular battles. Toshiro Mifune’s flea-bitten…
22 is a lucky number for noir: D.A. Humphrey Bogart defies Murder Incorporated in The Enforcer. Sexpot Carol Ohmart lures Tom Tryon into a web of crime in the VistaVision The Scarlet Hour. And thieves try to slip through interstate roadblocks carrying millions in gold bullion in the fascinating Plunder Road, in Regalscope. It’s a…
🎶 Let’s all get up and dance to a song movie that was a hit before your mother was born 🎶 … or your grandmother, maybe. Does anybody under 50 know who Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye were? 1954’s biggest hit may not be today’s current fashion, but it’s got fine music and some great choreography: Rosemary…
We think these two silent comedies are fantastic examples of Buster Keaton’s directorial genius. Seven Chances exaggerates the dilemma of a fellow who must marry on a deadline to inherit a fortune. An onslaught of women in wedding dresses becomes a (comic) nightmare horde. Sherlock Jr. can almost be described as experimental. The story involves…