Stanley Kubrick had a dedicated assistant, and not one who simply held the master’s cinematic paintbrushes. He staffed research, production, post-production and marketing departments all on his own. Tony Zierra’s brisk documentary teaches us much about a genius director, the assistant that devoted himself entirely to the director’s mission, and the nature of work and…
Miracle of miracles — last year’s Best Picture Oscar went to a genuine monster movie! Guillermo del Toro’s overachieving Gill Man spectacle features a gratifyingly anti-authoritarian attitude. The emotional love story is as pure as a silent movie — and has the sentimental commitment to pull an audience into its dreamy Fairy Tale horror fantasy….
Robert Taylor and Stewart Granger shine in Richard Brooks’ engaging drama about the grim slaughter of the Buffalo — a fairly appalling historical episode. A disclaimer is required to explain why we’re seeing real animals killed on screen… which in this case would seem justified by the film’s ecological theme. The Last Hunt Blu-Ray The…
Top stars Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Gina Lollobrigida earn their keep in Carol Reed’s powerful tale of ambition and excellence performing forty feet above a circus arena. The best circus movie ever is also among Reed’s most exciting, best directed movies, a solid show all around. Trapeze Blu-ray KL Studio Classics 1956 / Color…
Powerhouse Indicator continues its series of exotic attractions from the house of Hammer — productions that found ways to shock audiences newer than tradition- breaking gore and violence. Two are war pictures with sharply contrasting themes, and the second pair constitute a popular-cinema referendum on racist colonial attitudes. Hammer Volume 3 Blood and Terror Blu-ray…
Perhaps the top cinematic output of Cuban filmmaking is this investigation of a man that doesn’t embrace the revolution. Wishing to remain apolitical, the handsome Sergio prefers to pursue attractive women, as well as illusions of his own superiority. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s account of life with Castro doesn’t shirk from an honest view of conditions…
Let’s hear it for ‘undiscriminating’ audiences, the kind that want nothing more in a movie than a hundred minutes of combat action, suspense, scary monsters and gross-out gore. They’ll get their fill in Stephen Sommers’ Cuisinart blending of Titanic, Aliens and Die Hard. It’s quality fast food exploitation; just keep your medicine handy if you’re…
Dario Argento’s second murder whodunnit is less stylized but almost as enjoyable as his first, Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Reporter James Franciscus and blind ex-detective Karl Malden investigate killings at a fancy genetics institute, but everyone they interview turns up dead. Catherine Spaak is among the suspects in a crime spree with nine clues…
Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo were teenagers when filming began on this superlative wartime thriller. Taking over eight years to complete, it imagines life in an England occupied by Nazi Germany and run by home-grown English collaborators. The film’s realism outdoes any big-studio picture — the period detail and military hardware are uncannily authentic. It…
This may be the year for new cinephile converts to the cult of appreciation for the great Ernst Lubitsch. One of his last pictures but his first in color is this Production Code-defying tale of a serial philanderer and his relationship with the woman of his dreams, his wife. It’s stylized as a series of…
Writer-director Tim Robbins goes all out to recreate a politically potent chapter of Broadway legend, the true story of the rebel WPA production The Cradle Will Rock — with a dynamic sidebar about Diego Rivera’s provocative mural for the Rockefeller Center. An enormous cast works up the excitement of Depression-era revolutionary theater. Cradle Will Rock…
He-bull womanizer Robert Mitchum spars with wife Eleanor Parker for the future of their son George Hamilton in Vincente Minnelli’s attractive, sprawling tale of cruel family unrest. The real winners in the picture are the fresh-faced George Peppard and Luana Patten, whose small-town romance is more interesting than the main bout. Home from the Hill…
Need a laugh? Paul Newman shoots people, hangs others and runs a judiciary speed trap for unwary outlaw vagrants. John Huston’s picture is a slack, passably amusing interpretation of writer John Milius’s career- boosting screenplay. A slow-going exercise in ‘printing the legend, only funnier,’ it’s recommended just to take in Stacy Keach’s memorable albino menace,…
Could this be retitled “Dial ‘F’ for Fog?” Jean Simmon’s greedy maid blackmails her employer Stewart Granger with proof that he murdered his wife, kicking off a criminal ‘deadlock’ in a London household. The cold-fish schemer Granger ponders his next murderous move while Simmons enjoys playing the lady of the house — having dared to…
Now it can be told! Or maybe, now it can’t be told? William Bradford Huie’s novel of creeping American ambition in Honolulu ends up as a tame vehicle for Jane Russell, who in one of her last big starring movies gives the Hawaiian scenery a run for its money. Raoul Walsh does well in the…
Vintage ’30s comedy returns, with a beautiful blonde, a sassy brunette and elaborate location filming in a bygone Los Angeles. Hal Roach found a good match for his ‘female Laurel & Hardy’ comedy team in gorgeous Thelma Todd and the smart-mouthed Patsy Kelly. The Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd Patsy Kelly Comedy Collection DVD 1933-1936…
A Savant Article CineSavant shows off an arcane observation: in 1957, scenes from a glossy CinemaScope Fox production directed by Raoul Walsh, were almost immediately re-purposed, with grandiose special effects added, for a landmark science fiction fantasy. It’s an opportunity to admire the resourceful artistry of Jack Rabin, Louis DeWitt and Irving Block, special effects…
“Kali bids us to Kill! KILL!” A full review of Indicator’s Hammer Volume 3 Blood and Terror collection will follow, but CineSavant jumps the gun to highlight Terence Fisher’s 1959 mass murder shocker. It adds up to more than exploitative and racist cheap thrills: it’s one of the key films to describe the roots of…
A real peach of a ’70s New Hollywood picture, Mark Rydell and Darryl Ponicsan’s story of a sailor on extended leave is sentimental neorealism — a tough street story, but with the pessimism removed. Poolroom hustler Marsha Mason and sailor-adrift James Caan are a beautiful couple in the making — although the whole world seems…
A hundred million viewers tuned in to ABC back in ’83 to find out if the world would end with a bang or a whimper. Edward Hume and Nicholas Meyer’s daring docudrama reacquainted Americans with their status as hostages in a global game of nuclear roulette. Gruesome nuclear annihilation visuals complement fine performances led by…
We’re told that the first live- action feature film super-heroine was the marvelous Helen Slater, whose fine presence redeems this last film in the Salkind Superman franchise. CineSavant likes it for the right reasons — his very young kids adored it — but can see its turnip screenwriting and frayed corners showing through. The release…
CineSavant poaches on Greenbriar Picture Shows territory with a quick slideshow of photos from New Yawk, New Yawk, where once upon a time, any old film release might get a gigantic ‘your name in lights’ opening on the Great White Way. This photo idea won’t be a trend at CineSavant, but it is a welcome…
‘This Picture Kills Fascists’ might be a motto for this bombshell essay documentary. Leo Hurwitz’s film wasn’t made welcome in 1948 and would surely be controversial today, as it’s just too &%#$ truthful and blunt about good old American bigotry and injustice. The passionate, jarring plea for humanist sanity really shakes up viewers, in a…
One of a number of Paramount noirs seemingly forever MIA on disc, Hal Wallis’ show reunites Burt Lancaster and Lizabeth Scott with promising newcomers Kirk Douglas and Wendell Corey. It’s light on action but strong on character — and it contains a key scene in the development of both the noir style and the gangster…
Lifelong gaming fan Steven Spielberg goes all-in for motion capture, with much different results than The Adventures of Tintin. It’s an ode to 1980s videogame fads and pop culture that could be re-titled ‘Astounding Adventures in Licensing.’ It’s Star Wars, TRON and Avatar mashed together for young teens, and more interesting than it ought to…
Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s lavish movie boils down to a dirty party joke, but they struck gold just the same. Audiences flocked to see Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine reunited in a fantasy Parisian red light district, in a show that looks like Disneyland for fans of Playboy cartoons. Irma La Douce Blu-ray KL…